J. LEWIS DIMAN, D.D. 455 



eral years in study at German Universities, and then entered the Theo- 

 logical Seminary at Andover, where he graduated in 18iJG. In the 

 autumn of that year he became pastor of the First Congregational 

 Church in Fall River, and, in 1860, pastor of the Harvard Church in 

 Brookline. In 18G4 he succeeded Professor Gammell as Professor of 

 History and Political Economy in Brown University, and filled this 

 otlice till his death. Several attempts were made to secure his servi- 

 ces at Plarvard University, and a negotiation to that effect, which gave 

 those most interested in it sti'ong hope of success, was in progress 

 during the last weeks of his life. He died in Providence, after a short 

 and acute illness, on the third day of February, 1881. 



It is difficult to form a just estimate of Professor Diman on account, 

 not of the scantiness, but of the wealth of the materials for our appre- 

 ciation. Like many other men who are known through the press or 

 by the living voice, he seemed to have no specialty. But, as is the 

 case with very few, it is because he excelled in so many depaitmenta 

 that we cannot define his specialty. He would have won distinguished 

 reputation by as successful work in either of several departments as 

 he has wrought in all of them. As a preacher he had few equals, 

 whether in elaborate thought, in the expression of devotional senti- 

 ment, in blended grace and strength of style, or in the charm of 

 an elocution, calm and gentle, yet for this none the less forceful and 

 effective. As a student, teacher, and writer of history, he manifested 

 at once the patience and thoroughness of a keen investigator, the 

 vivid imagination and lambent fancy without which the man of exten- 

 sive research becomes a mere Dryasdust, and the capacity of interest- 

 ing alike college classes, popular audiences, and readers of the highest 

 intelligence and culture. In philosophy he was not only an adept, 

 but an earnest and profound thinker ; and in many of his writings 

 there occur, on the old, yet ever new, themes that underlie all 

 thought and being, such discussions as might make it in some quarters 

 a subject of regret that he had not bestowed his life-work on these 

 themes. At the same time he treated political subjects as matters, 

 not merely of theory, but of imminent and vital practical importance, 

 in such a way as would have befitted a man who had been embodying 

 Christian ethics in a long and varied handling of public affairs. 



This versatility, not of pursuit, but of excellence, was due in part, 

 no doubt, to a native breadth of mental hospitality, which could neither 

 exclude nor slight any subject or interest worthy of its genial recep- 

 tion, and in part to a rare capacity for continuous labor, and to a life 

 60 ordered, equally by external conditions and by his own wise 



