Of his sixteen children, ten were living; and all but two of them were able to be with him in these last days.  He addressed affectionate exhortations to them at various times; and a few hours before he died, he called them, one by one, to his bedside, to receive his farewell benediction.  At last, he whispered my name; and as I knelt to kiss his hand, he said in broken accents, and at long intervals, “Maria, tell them I loved them—­though I felt called to resist—­some who claimed to be rulers in Israel—­I never meant—.”  His strength was nearly exhausted; but after a pause, he pressed my hand, and added, “Tell them I love them all.”  I had previously asked and obtained permission to write his biography; and from these broken sentences, I understood that he wished me to convey in it a message to the Society of Friends; including the “Orthodox” branch, with whom he had been brought into painful collision, in years gone by.

After several hours of restlessness and suffering, he fell into a tranquil slumber, which lasted a long time.  The serene expression of his countenance remained unchanged, and there was no motion of limb or muscle, when the spirit passed away.  This was between eight and nine o’clock in the evening, on the seventh of May, 1852.  After a long interval of silent weeping, his widow laid her head on the shoulder of one of his sons, and said, “Forty-seven years ago this very day, my good father died; and from that day to this, he has been the best friend I ever had.”

No public buildings were hung with crape, when news went forth that the Good Samaritan had gone.  But prisoners, and poor creatures in dark and desolate corners, wept when they heard the tidings.  Ann W. with whose waywardness he had borne so patiently, escaped from confinement, several miles distant, and with sobs implored “to see that good old man once more.”  Michael Stanley sent the following letter to the Committee of the Prison Association:  “When I read the account of the venerable Friend Hopper’s death, I could not help weeping.  It touched a tender chord in my heart, when I came to the account of his being the prisoner’s friend.  My soul responded to that; for I had realized it.  About six years ago, I was one of those who got good advice from ‘the old man.’  I carried it out, and met with great success.  I was fatherless, motherless, and friendless, with no home, nobody to take me by the hand.  I felt, as the poet has it,

  “’A pilgrim stranger here I roam,
  From place to place I’m driven;
  My friends are gone, and I’m in gloom;
  This earth is all a lonely tomb;
  I have no home but heaven.’

“Go on in the work of humanity and love, till the Good Master shall say, ‘It is enough.  Come up higher.’”

Nearly all the domestics in Friend Hopper’s neighborhood attended the funeral solemnities.  One of these said with tears, “I am an orphan; but while he lived, I always felt as if I had a father.  He always had something pleasant to say to me, but now everything seems gone.”  A very poor man, who had been an object of his charity, and whom he had employed in many little services, could not rest till he had earned enough to buy a small Arbor-vitae, (Tree of Life,) to plant upon his grave.