170 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



" It has happened to me, however, for six or seven years past, to be 

 a member of the Committee, appointed by the Overseers of the Univer- 

 sity, for visiting the Observatory at Cambridge ; and, during three or 

 four of those years, to be the Chairman of that Committee. In this 

 ■way, I have been brought into frequent connection and consultation 

 with the late Director, and have been one of the authorized witnesses 

 of the manner in which he discharged his responsible and arduous 

 duties. 



" I desire, therefore, in a single word, to express my deep sense of 

 his devoted fidelity to the interests of the institution over which he 

 presided ; and, especially, of his uniformly kind and obliging attention 

 to every inquiry, recommendation, or suggestion of those who, from 

 year to year, were deputed to examine into its condition. 



" His own scientific attainments never rendered him impatient to- 

 wards those of humbler pretension ; still less did they blind him to 

 higher truths than any which telescopes can reveal. I only echo the 

 sentiment of one of the pending resolutions of Professor Peirce in 

 saying, that a pure and beautiful spirit of Christian faith and love 

 seemed to actuate his whole conduct, manifesting itself, calmly but 

 clearly, alike whether he conversed with his fellow-men, or whether 

 he conversed with the stars. 



" It is this which would alone make his memory precious to his 

 friends, even were his ingenuity forgotten, his inventions superseded, 

 his science obsolete. It is this which consoles them with the hope, 

 that, though he has now passed out of the field of mortal view, — far, 

 far beyond the range or reach of reflector or refractor, — he may here- 

 after be seen among those who 'shall shine forth as the sun in the 

 kingdom of their Father,' 



" It may be well for us all, Mr. President, not to forget, at a mo- 

 ment when literature and science are mingling their tears over the 

 ashes of two of their most ardent and most successful votaries, that the 

 qualities of both which are now most fondly recalled, are not those 

 alone which peculiarly belonged to them as the historian and the 

 astronomer." 



Mr. Charles Folsom next spoke, as follows : — 



" Mr. President, — The gentleman who presented the resolutions be- 

 fore you, in his earnest and discriminating tribute to the merits of Mr. 



