432 THOMAS HILL. 



to the outside public, — a system which has since been so extended 

 that during each academic year there are a considerable number of 

 courses and of individual lectures in Sanders Theatre and in Sever 

 Hall, which, while primarily for the benefit of students, are also de- 

 signed and adapted for the receptivity of an intelligent audience from 

 the community at large. It was Dr. Hill's misfortune, that while his 

 heart was iu his work, and he was enabled to put into it the results of 

 mature experience and wisdom, he was unavoidably prevented from 

 giving to it the full and uninterrupted stress of vigilance and energy 

 which such an office demands. To the weariness of his Antioch life 

 was added a series of domestic afflictions, under the accumulated pres- 

 sure of which he was led to resign his charge in the autumn of 1868. 

 He then removed to Waltham, which was his home for the next four 

 or five years. He was for several months too much enfeebled for any 

 intellectual labor, but gradually recovered his strength for nearly 

 twenty years of full vigor of mind, and of working power more in- 

 tense and fruitful than at any earlier period. In the autumn of 1869 

 he went to California by the then newly opened Union Pacific Rail- 

 road, and, while he gained strength by travel, he also found access to 

 fields and objects of scientific and sociological interest which had not jet 

 become familiar to the New England mind. In 1871 he represented 

 the town of Waltham in the Legislature. In December of that year 

 he sailed with his friend Agassiz on his well known South American 

 expedition, and bore no small part in the explorations which have given 

 it a permanent place in the history of science. 



Early in 1873 Dr. Hill was invited to preach in the First Church 

 of Portland, Maine, and immediately received an invitation to its then 

 vacant pastorate, which he accepted, and which he held for the re- 

 mainder of his life. Here he found himself in a congenial atmosphere, 

 with many of his stated hearers who appreciated the high intellectual 

 standard no less than the spiritual depth of his discourses, and in a 

 community comprising not a few persons of advanced culture in the 

 various departments in which they recognized him as a leading mind. 

 He made himself felt as an educationist on the school board of the city, 

 and the teachers enjoyed his counsel and sympathy. He was an active 

 member of the Portland Natural History Society, and of other local 

 associations scientific and literary. He became largely known in 

 nearer and remoter regions of his adopted State, and his services were 

 solicited on very numerous occasions of public interest. In Portland 

 he was honored, revered, and beloved by the whole community, and 

 hnd no more genuine admirers and warmer friends in his own church 



