325 



full and almost plethoric appearance, and had begun to wear 

 the aspect of premature old age. Some months before his 

 death, he was attacked with bleeding at his lungs; this, how- 

 ever, was but one of the effects of another disease, which had 

 been for some time prostrating and wearing down his health. 

 The real destroyer of his life was that exhausting and terrible 

 complaint, diabetes. From this he had suffered, unknown 

 even to his friends. His end at last came, with but little 

 indication that it was just at hand, and in a few hours after 

 an attack which rendered him insensible he breathed his last. 

 But to him the event was evidently not unanticipated. His 

 mind had been more than usually engaged in devotion, and it 

 is worthy of remark, as illustrative of the simplicity of his 

 piety, that he occupied himself during much of his time after 

 he was disabled from severe study, in committing hymns to 

 memory. But instead of chanting in Greek the ancient 

 hymn of Clemens Alexandrinus, or some other such time- 

 honored lyric, which a scholar like himself might have been 

 supposed to prefer, his favorite hymn was that so often sung 

 in the prayer-meetings of the humblest Christians : 



" Just as I anij without one plea, 

 But that thy blood was shed for nie," &c. 



His splendid intellect and his vast resources were all brought 

 into subjection to his Christian faith. He had no fellowship 

 with that pride of learning which exalts itself even above the 

 revelations of Divine wisdom. He was as lowly in his esti- 

 mation of himself, as he was exalted in the opinions of his 

 fellow-men, and especially did he regard himself as incompe- 

 tent to sit in judgment upon his Maker, and decide, as too 

 many attempt to do, what he should and what he should not 

 have revealed. 



On the 28th of January, 1860, Joseph Addison Alexander 

 died, and was laid beside his eminent father and brother, and 

 a galaxy of the illustrious dead, in the graveyard at Princeton. 



Pending nomination, No. 397 w^as read. 



Mr. Foulke, on behalf of the Committee on the Library, 



