]S65.] 279 [Gross. 



character reached perfection as nearly as is, perhaps, possible. His 

 family not only loved, but revered hina. His children often accom- 

 panied him in his botanical excursions, and assisted hiui in drying 

 and arranging his specimens. One of his daughters, in referring to 

 these labors, assures me that many of the happiest recollections of her 

 childhood are connected with these excursions. "To those," she 

 continues, "who met my father as colleagues, or as mere acquain- 

 tances, but little was known of his character in domestic life; only 

 those who were the recipients of his deep affection, as wife and chil- 

 dren, can form even a faint idea of his goodness. His home was 

 truly his heaven on earth." 



In his relation to those who were placed by Providence under his 

 charge as servants, he was truly " the friend in need ;" he treated 

 them with real parental kindness, and spared no pains to improve 

 their moral and religious character. Soon after he moved to Hay- 

 field, three old negroes, once the property of his father, sought his 

 care and protection, in order that they might die under his hospitable 

 roof. Two of them had been free for thirty years. 



In regard to his religious views, Dr. Short connected himself early 

 in life with the Presbyterian Church, of which he remained a faithful 

 and consistent member up to the time of his death. He made no 

 ostentatious parade of his piety. The same retiring disposition, the 

 same modesty and gentle demeanor that characterized his outer-life, 

 attended him here. Without entering into details, it may be stated 

 that there is every reason to believe that he rendered to his God a 

 good account of the talents committed to his keeping. His very pro- 

 fession, as a practical botanist, brought him in daily communion with 

 the Creator. A naturalist can neither be a skeptic nor a bad man. 

 He finds a sermon in every plant, in every stone, in every living 

 thing. The direct tendency of the study of the sciences, of botany 

 in particular, is to refine and humanize our tastes, and to inspire us 

 with love and reverence for the Deity. " Consider the lilies of the 

 field how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet 

 I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one 

 of these." Botany is emphatically the poetry of the sciences, or, as 

 has been beautifully remarked by one of its most able and successful 

 cultivators, "the amiable science." 



When Dr. Short left the University of Louisville, the Board of 

 Trustees, at once, as a just tribute to his long and faithful services, 

 elected him Emeritus Professor of Materia Medica and Medical 

 Botany; while his colleagues united in a complimentary letter, ex- 

 pressive of their warm personal regard, and of their hope that he 



