OF ARTS AND SCIENCES : JUNE 8, 1869. 129 



Dr. Noyes's moral character was well adapted to aid his success and 

 worthy fame as a critic. He was at once reverent and bold, — reverent 

 for all truth, as one with God, but wholly destitute of prescriptive 

 reverence for what bad been held as truth, until it had shown its cre- 

 dentials and established its claim. He thus pushed his inquiries to the 

 utmost limit ; but while he rejected many things which others held 

 sacred, no man ever had a firmer faith than he (a faith which seemed 

 to him as strongly grounded as if it had been susceptible of mathe- 

 matical demonstration) in the divine mission and authority of the 

 Founder of Christianity, and in the authenticity of the records through 

 which his life and character have been transmitted. Himself a free 

 and fearless inquirer, he claimed for others the same liberty, and re- 

 garded honest dissent, denial, and scepticism with uniform respect and 

 kindness. 



As a writer he was simple, chaste, perspicuous, and at the same time 

 concise, with little ornament, but with instructive rather than careful 

 heed to the canons of pure taste and accurate diction. As a preacher, 

 he was plain, sensible, serious, and weighty, impressing his hearers 

 with his own sincerity, and most esteemed by those whose esteem is of 

 the most worth. 



In private life no man could be more worthily loved. Happy in 

 those who shared his home, he made his home happy. Faithful, kind, 

 genial, hospitable, he had equally the unlimited confidence and the 

 warm affection of all who stood in near or intimate relation with him ; 

 and while his modesty and his retired life may have given him fewer 

 personal friends than his reputation would have brought him, those 

 who knew him well knew him only to love and honor him. The last 

 three or four years of his life were marked by unintermitted debility 

 and suffering; and for a long period he was seldom able to cross his 

 own threshold, his classes coming to him in his study. During this 

 whole season he manifested entire resignation, serene Christian trust, a 

 patience never disturbed, and an engagedness in his wonted pursuits 

 which had not begun to flag when he was laid upon his death-bed. 

 As a Christian scholar, he merits a foremost place among his contem- 

 poraries ; as a Christian man, he has his record, equally, we trust, in 

 grateful and reverent memories on earth and in the book of life 

 eternal. 



Horace Mann was elected into the Academy on the eleventh of 

 November last ; and he died the same night. Devoted to Natural 



VOL. VIII. 17 



