Though More's strength was displayed rather in what he could elaborate by thought than in the immediate use of his reading, he was nevertheless a laborious stu- dent. He devoted himself to the study of the best au- thors only. " He was wont to say that he was no whole- sale man." It was with the weightiest matters that his mind was mostly engaged; though there was no part of learning, laudable and worthy, for which he had not a due esteem. For about a year before his death he was visibly sinking. His mind, sympathizing with his body, was, says his biographer, " ' in sort out of tune.' I speak as to that deep and plastic sense (to use his own terms) he had been under usually in divine matters." His progress towards the close of life was nevertheless marked by humble piety and cheerful resignation. " Never," he said, " any person thirsted more for his meat and drink than he, if it pleased God, after a release from the body." " Vet," saj's Tulloch, " it is pleasant to reflect that his active mind remained full of thoughts for others to the last, and that those great questions in which he had spent all his time— What is good? and What is true?— were apparently as fresh and important with him at the end as at the beginning." He fre- (juently in his last days expressed the hope that when he was called out of the present life his writings would
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be of use to the Church of God and to theworld. Short- ly before his death lie expressed his view of what awaited him by repeating the lirst words of Cicero's famous exclamation, "O prieclarum ilium diem," etc.; intimatintr, as he bad also done before, his conviction that at his release from this painful world he would be admitted to converse with blessed and congenial spir- its. He expired calmly, and almost imperceptibly, Sept. 1, 1G87, ami lies buried in the chapel of the college of which he had been for so many years an admired orna- ment. In person Henry More was tall and thin, but of a " serene" and vivacious countenance — rather pale than tiorid in his later years — yet was it clear and spirituous, and his eye hazel, and vivid as an eagle's. There is, indeed, as all who have seen his portrait by Loggan will admit, a singularly vivid elevation in his countenance, with some lines strongly drawn around the mouth, but with ineflFable sweetness, light, and dignity in the gen- eral expression. As he is the most poetic and tran- scendental, so he is, upon the whole, the most s])iritual- looking of all the Cambridge divines. He was from youth to age evidently gifted with the most happy and buoyant religious temper. "He was profoundly pious, and yet without all sourness, superstition, or melan- choly." His habitual cast of mind was a serene thought- fulness, while his "outward conversation" with his friends was for the most part " free and facetious." Ke- ligion was in practice with him clearly what he con- ceived it to be in theory — the consecration and perfec- tion of the natural life — the brightest and best form which it could attain, under the inspiration and guidance of the Divine Spirit. Although he chose for himself a secluded life, and so far suffered in consequence from a lack of that comprehensive experience which is more than all other education to the wise and open mind, he yet was not actuated in doing so by any indifference to the lighter and more active interests of humanity. It was remarked that his very air had in it something an- gelic. He seemed to be full of introversions of light, joy, benignity, and devotion at once, as if his face had been overcast with a golden shower of love and purity. Strangers even noticed this " marvellous lustre and ir- radiation" in his eyes and countenance. "A divine gale," as he himself said, breathed throughout all his life as well as his works; but, however far it lifted him, it never inflated him. Ward, in his life of this remark- able man, repeats some extraordinary' encomiums passed upon him while living by eminent persons who knew him well. One of them averred that he looked upon Dr. !More as " the holiest man on the face of the earth ;" another that " he was more of an angel than a man." More substantial proofs, however, than words of the re- spect felt for him by his contemporaries were offered in the attentions paid to him by the learned world. Yet it would be diflicult indeed to name a Christian grace in which he did not excel. His charity and humility were not less conspicuous than his piety. " His very cham- ber door was a hospital to the needy." Self-denial he regarded as the practical ground of moral virtue ; and in his own heart and behavior he evinced his obser- vation that humility is the most precious part of pi- ety. The fervor of his direct approaches to and inter- course with (lod in prayer could not be surpassed. When the winds were riitHing about him. he made the utmost endeavor to keep low and humble, that he might not be driven from that anchor. So intense were bis acts of worship, and accompanied with such a joyful sense of the divine presence, that his friends, when sometimes coming upon him unexpectedly while en- gaged in prayer, were surprised l)y indications of peace and joy in his countenance truly angelic. His tem- per was serene and cheerful, his discourse serious, yet lighted up with playful coruscations of wit and humor. " Few were of a cheerfuller spirit than he ; none of a more deep felicity and enjoyment. In short, he pos- sessed in as great purity perliaps as it has existed in any man of motlern times the light, sanctity, anil blcss-