PRELIMINARY. A MONG the papers placed in my hands from which to prepare this memorial were a few sheets on which the subject of it had noted some of the incidents and more important events of his boyhood and early youth. There were also found a few pages upon which Mrs. Hawes had sketched an outline of the first chapter of a biography. It seems, therefore, that both of them had contemplated the work, which, being declined by one far better qualified to perform it than myself, at last fell into my hands. In the labor thus providentially assigned me, I have found, from beginning to end, a steadily-increasing pleasure. The character is one that invites study, and repays it. There is nothing in it that does not bear inspection; nothing requiring to be passed over in silence, or shaded by darkening the lights; though the reader, as he proceeds, will need to carry along with him the mantle of charity. Of material in the form of sermons and addresses there was an abundance ; but of letters, which are far more representative of the peculiar social and interior life, except to his own family, there were very few. Difficult and delicate questions came up as I advanced. These I have endeavored to meet in such a manner, that, while rendering justice and due honor to the departed, I might not do the least injustice to the surviving. Dr. Hawes was so interlinked with other representative men, either in his plans or theirs, that in certain parts of the "Life," when he appears, they make their appearance also, as in a drama or tableau. Such a scene occurs in the eighth chapter. Each in his strongly-marked idiosyncrasies comes forth in a distinct and vivid picture. Together, they form a unique and remarkable group of the great and good men of the time, all uniting to emphasize their esteem for him whom they make the central figure, and to illustrate his character. - It is not always easy to determine in what proportion the evil and the good that mingle in one's life should be reproduced in his biography. Simply the good alone, or only the evil, is a false half-truth that is much worse than the blank of silence. A life in which vice and crime strongly prevail, should rarely, if ever, be repeated in print. One, as in the present instance, in which the Christian virtues are seen struggling onward from weakness to strength, through defeats to victories, demands in the biography the corresponding antagonisms of evil, not for truth's sake alone, but to show the reality of the conflict and the value of the final victory. I have wished that our departed friend might re-appear in this volume as he was in the life he lived among us, not in decorations, not crowned and with palms in his hand, all-glorious as in the resurrection, but Joel Hawes as he was here in his working-days; always running the race, though sometimes stumbling; fighting bravely the good fight, yet now and then meeting with defeat, or beating the air; often in the furnace, yet always coming from it purer "until the day in which he was taken up." MARBLEHEAD, MASS E. A. L. |