WILLIAM AUGUSTUS STEAENS. 299 



Stearns were of a high order. His sermons and occasional addresses, 

 man , of which have been published, show great clearness of thought, 

 accuracy of reasoning, force of illustration, and rhetorical skill. But 

 he was even more distinguished as a ready debater and brilliant ex- 

 tempore speaker. He had great quickness of thought and remarkable 

 fluency and felicity of speech. It is related of him that, while yet at 

 Cambridgeport, he was told while on his way to church of the de.tth of 

 Daniel Webster. He at once laid aside the sermon he had prepared, 

 and delivered an unpremeditated discourse upon the dead orator, 

 which his hearers regarded as not inferior to any of the more elaborate 

 efforts of the eminent men who followed him on the same theme. On 

 another occasion, at a public meeting where Mr. Webster and Mr. 

 Everett had swayed the audience with their words of i^ower, Mr. 

 Stearns was called for after the crowd began to disperse, and he held 

 them long in eager attention, not less earnest and enthusiastic than 

 that commanded by the great speakers who had gone before him. The 

 moral and personal qualities of President Stearns, however, were those 

 that endeared him most to his friends and enabled him to do the excel- 

 lent work that filled his days, and to win the success that crowned his 

 life. His personal and moral courage was perfect. He feared noth- 

 ing but doing wrong. His success in the various activities of his life 

 was owing not so much to the preponderance of any one quality of his 

 character as to the balance and proportion of them all. His soundness 

 of judgment, his absolute integrity and perfect truthfulness, his unfail- 

 ing common sense, all contributed to give him that weight of character 

 which made his voice potential in all matters of practical or academ- 

 ical detail. He was firm and persevering in matters about which he 

 had deliberately made up his mind, and he generally carried his points ; 

 but it was because they were points that ought to be carried. His 

 nature was singularly rounded and complete. His demeanor was 

 marked by a modest dignity which claimed what was due to himself, 

 while giving to others all that was due to them. Courteous of speech, 

 gentle and polished in manner, cheerful in conversation, thinking and 

 speaking no evil, yet capable of sternest indignation at injustice, cru- 

 elty, or meanness, President Stearns left to his academic children, to 

 his friends, and to the world an example of a highly educiited, high- 

 principled, high-bred Christian Gentleman. 



