THE LADIES' REPOSITORY. JANUARY, 1867. THE HON. MOSES F. ODELL.* HE Hon. Moses F. Odell, whose death on an the 13th of June last closed an honorable and useful career, was one of the finest illustrations of the power of Methodism to mold character. He was so entirely identified with the Church that he was familiarly recognized as one of its representative laymen. He was born in the city of Brooklyn, and in his early manhood-1846-joined the Sands-Street Church. His ardor and consistency plainly marked him for more than ordinary usefulness, and in the next year he was appointed a class-leader, and a class-leader he continued to be to the time of his death. So great was his acceptableness in this office, that he had charge for a long time of two classes. him as As a Christian, Mr. Odell was eminently simple in his faith. Religion presented itself to an immediate power in the soul, producing an unfailing consciousness of presence. It did not seem possible, at any time, to detect in his mind a doubt, either of his own present salvation or of the truth of Christianity. So far he "endured as seeing Him who is invisible." This gave him a great advantage, by keeping him ever ready for Christian labor. The divine reality ever at hand, it was easy to confess Christ; it was a pleasure to engage in religious worship; and it seemed impossible to turn him aside. This remarkable simplicity of faith was disclosed every-where. You saw it in Church, as he sat in the gallery at the head of a restless Sunday school. His emotions awaited the touch of the preacher's word, ready For the composition of this article the editor is indebted to the pens of Rev. Dr. Crooks, editor of The Methodist, and Rev. Dr. Nadal, well known to the readers of the Repository, and also to the address of Rev. Bishop Janes, delivered on the occasion of the funeral of Mr. Odell, VOL. XXVII.-1 to brim over in a succession of smiles, in hearty responses, and even in a gentle clapping of his hands. If you followed him to the prayer meeting, the same simplicity characterized him there. For a prayer meeting the singing of Mr. Odell was worth a dozen choirs. He was the unvarying leader of all the singing at Sands-Street, except that of public worship on the Sabbath. His smooth, round, sweet voice sung out the boldness and simplicity of his faith, and drew every thing about him into its own current. Prayer meetings, with and without Mr. Odell, were very different things. He was a bold man who attempted to lead the music in Mr. Odell's presence, and he on whom the task fell in his absence was sure of the compliment of pity. Upon his return to Brooklyn, after his first session at Washington, there was a sly and inquiring look among the brethren, which seemed to ask whether or not brother Odell would be as demonstrative in the Church as before. They judged rightly that he had been in the fire, but they did not wait long to see that its flame had not harmed him. He had not changed, even on the outside. "It was, however," says Dr. Nadal, "chiefly as the superintendent of the Sunday school, that Mr. Odell excelled. If he was at home in the Church and the prayer meeting, he was a prince in the Sunday school. We have never known his equal among the children. It is hard to tell what gave him his wonderful power. We incline to the opinion that it was rather a combination of qualities than any single excellency. The profound and simple reality in which religion came to his mind made him natural in every thing related to it. In the little children he met a corresponding simplicity. There was nothing in them to suggest criticism, so that his whole power acted without a clog. But besides this simplicity of faith and of grace, there was, after all, another of nature. Moses F. Odell had brought with him from childhood up to man's estate his boy nature; he still saw with a boy's eye, with a young, fresh heart, and was in the closest and most joyous sympathy with interior youthful life. "His mind, utterly foreign, and even hostile to every thing abstract, saw things only in their living connections. A story to him, as to his children, was at once a feast of the heart and an incitement to good. I never knew him to get up in the Sunday school as if to make a speech. He talked rather than spoke, and the children listened without a suspicion of a speech. They thought Mr. Odell was only working their school, and that they must listen or they might lose something. Or rather he converted the whole round of exercises into a pleasure, and a privilege, even, for the very young. This may sound extravagantly, but it is even less than the plain truth. "But Mr. Odell did not finish the work of a superintendent with the ordinary routine of Sunday school instruction. The spirit which lent attraction to the exercises could not stop or rest in them. It pursued its divine aims by other methods. Hence, in order to gather the fruit of Sunday school toil, Mr. Odell held meetings with the Christian members of the school, and invited such of the scholars as might be serious to attend. These were known as 'the little meetings.' They were held at the close of the afternoon session. The serious were invited forward for prayers; numbers were converted, and the gracious revivals which have marked the history of Sands-Street for years past, have nearly all begun here." "Our deceased friend," says Bishop Janes, was one of those who accomplished the objects and secured the interests of our probationary state. He early comprehended the designs of his beneficent Creator in placing him in this condition of trial. He understood these purposes of God to be the securing of his present and his eternal interests, and the glorifying of his Maker. He was a happy man while in this world. His was not the happiness of dissipation, the pleasure of sensuality, the enjoyment of indolence; he found his happiness in the cultivation of those intellectual and moral attributes with which God had invested him; in the exercise of the social and the religious affections with which he was gifted; in the discharge of those duties which devolved upon him, and to which he was providentially called. In these he found a happiness which satisfied his highest nature. That he secured his future | wellbeing, his Christian life, his beautiful sickness-for it was beautiful to see him struggling with disease and enduring agonies for weeks and even months, while his soul was as tranquil as a Summer evening-his Christian life, I repeat, his beautiful sickness, his peaceful and triumphant exit from the world leave us no room to question that he secured to himself, through grace in Jesus Christ, the felicity of the eternal world. So far as he is concerned, then, he has fully accomplished the objects of this probationary state. "He also, in our judgment, accomplished the other great purpose of our earthly being. He glorified God upon the earth. He did this by acknowledging God-acknowledging his belief in God-every-where, and always, and under all circumstances, declaring that he recognized him as his creator, as his rightful sovereign, as the source of his blessings, and the proper object of his obedience and devotion. He honored God by worshiping him, by rendering to him. his best and his highest affections, by rendering to him his cheerful homage, his holiest and most ardent adoration, thanksgiving, and praise. He honored God by serving him in his generation; he served God in his Church. For fourteen years he was a manager of our Missionary Society, and the members of the Board who have been associated with him in that office will accord with me, I am sure, when I say that his punctuality, his discretion, and his zeal, made him one of the most influential and useful members of the Board. He was also found ready for every good word and work-in ministering to the poor, in assisting young men to acquire an education and business positions, and in promoting in all possible. ways their welfare; also in sustaining the institutions of the Church, giving his presence and his services to the social meetings, giving special service in times of revival when the presence of God was peculiarly manifest in the Church, and when the Spirit of the Lord rested upon the people. "He also served his generation by serving the State. He was for a long number of years connected with the custom-house of the, port of New York. He commenced as a clerk, and by his merit soon secured promotion to the office of Assistant Collector. He was also for several years Appraiser-General, a position of great responsibility, involving in its duties great delicacy and difficulty. And few, if any, men have passed through this class of offices and stood in these positions for so many years with so clear and so pure a record as our departed brother. "By the suffrages of his fellow-citizens he was elected a member of the thirty-seventh who recognized him as his Sunday school superintendent. Mr. Odell learned from the surgeon that, in all probability, he must die. Every day, at the adjournment of Congress, he went straight to that hospital and to that Sunday school boy, and talked with him and prayed with him till he professed faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and Mr. Odell was at his side when he died, declaring his trust in Jesus and his hope of heaven.' "I had always heard that the sight of the effusion of blood singularly affected Mr. Odell, and also of the thirty-eighth Congress. In these bodies he was a member of the Committee on Indian Affairs; he was chairman of the Committee on the Expenses of the Treasury Department, and a member of the Committee on Military Affairs, in all which committees he was found to be most faithful, earnest, and useful in the discharge of his duties. His greatest responsibility, however, while a member of Congress, was involved in his being a member of the "Committee on the Conduct of the War." On that committee he rendered to our nation, he rendered to our then chief exec-producing in him a sensation of faintness. And utive officer, he rendered to our army, a service which the world can not yet perceive. He was not lashed to the mast of the ship of war as she went into action, but in the retired committee-room, where all the movements of the war, where all the interests of the war, were considered, and where advice was prepared and given to those who more openly conducted the campaigns, were performed services which can never be appreciated till the history of this generation shall be fully written. At the time of his death he was the Naval Officer of the port of New York; an office of great responsibility, which, on account of his illness, he resigned more than once to the President, who, however, declined acceptance. In all these public positions he was found to be prepared for his responsibilities." "But for the war," says Dr. Crooks, "we should never have known the full force and nobleness of his character. The inspirations of patriotism gave him a power which he had never before developed. Manly to the core, he would have made any personal sacrifice to preserve the integrity of the Union. He forwarded, with all the energy of his practical talent, the raising and equipping of volunteer regiments. He associated himself almost personally with the soldiers who went to the field from his Congressional district, following them with solicitude through all their varied fortunes, and having the name often applied to him'the soldier's friend.' yet after the terrible battles of the Virginia Peninsula, one of the first to hasten from Washington to minister to the wounded and dying was Moses F. Odell. I have heard him describe with irresistible pathos a scene which must have doubly touched his religious feeling. In the cabin of one of the large steamboats employed by the Government to bring away from the field the severely wounded, while he was ministering to the suffering and dying who filled the berths and covered the floor, a soldier began singing to a familiar Methodist tune, 'On Jordan's stormy banks I stand.' Almost instantly the strain was caught up by a score or more of the sufferers, who found in this way an alleviation of their pain and an expression of their trust. In the midst of such scenes Mr. Odell was in his element. Repulsive as war was to him, his quick Christian sympathy found active employment in relieving the miseries that follow in its train. His ministrations to the sick severely taxed his bodily energies, and in the end sensibly impaired his health. "During the entire course of the war Mr. Odell was a member of the Committee on the State of the Country. He was thus brought into close association with Mr. Lincoln, and the leading officers of the army and the navy. His services in this position were invaluable to the country." In person Mr. Odell was of the average hight, round and full, his face smooth, and his voice sweet and without harshness. No one who knew him can ever forget his cheery laugh. His entire manner was buoyant, and yet marked with decision and energy. A great force of will was, in him, tempered by an equally great fund of good nature. His decision was free from angularities and crotchets. He worked well in association with other men, and yet without seeming to mean it, he advanced rapidly to the position of leadership. His dying experience was a remarkable illus |