wholly incapable of giving any colouring to a decision which he cited, other than that which it properly bore. He was a wise and sagacious counsellor, and possessed largely the gift of strong common sense. He had great vigour and clearness of mind, a strong sense of equity, and his whole life was marked by a purity and truth that knew no shadow of change. His reading beyond his professional studies was very large and varied, and his conversation was illuminated and made charming by his familiarity with science and polite literature. One of his professional associates has left on record that, during a daily intercourse of thirty-four years, passed amid the trying cares and worry and annoyances of active practice, he never heard from Mr. Bidwell one syllable of petulance, impatience or irritability. He had unfailing and unequalled faith in the Christian religion, the beauty and purity of which he illustrated by his daily life, and he was entirely happy in his reliance on the future which it held out to him.
It was often his expressed wish, and his often uttered prayer, that he might be spared an enfeebled condition of mind or body, and a lingering death. His wish and prayer were granted. On the afternoon of the 24th of October, 1872, while in the full possession of his faculties, and in perfect health, at the close of a cheerful and varied conversation in his office with one of his associates, followed by a playful and kind remark to another person, he instantly, without a struggle or a sigh, ceased to breathe.
