52 MEMORIAL OF JOSEPH HENRY. 



administration of the funds intrusted to his management will 

 abundantly verify this assertion. 



In his own affairs, however, he exhibited an indifference to gain 

 which was by many regarded as almost inexcusable. Consecrated 

 to the cause of science, he freely and unselfishly gave to mankind 

 the results of all his discoveries. When with untiring assiduity he 

 had traced to its matrix the germ of a useful idea, and became 

 satisfied that he had brought to light a principle destined to benefit 

 his fellow-man, he left to others the task of applying this principle 

 and reaping the pecuniary recompense, while he, again returning to 

 the domain of original research, boldly invaded the very penetralia 

 of nature's laboratory in quest of further knowledge. This trait of 

 his character is strikingly illustrated in the history of the electric 

 telegraph, for to him is the world indebted for the discovery of the 

 principle from which has been developed by the labors of others 

 such wondrous results. In these results, with their accompanying 

 emoluments, he had no share, nor ever seemed to regard them as of 

 the slightest moment. 



Though thus devoted to scientific pursuits and standing second 

 to none in the expansive breadth of his inquiries or the acutencss 

 of his analytical investigations, Professor HENRY belonged not to 

 the class of ultra-scientists, whose sharpened faculties forbid the 

 recognition of a first great cause, and whose boasted reason scorns to 

 accept the simple story of the Cross. The uniform tenor of a long 

 life, the unsullied purity of his character, the uniform practice of 

 all the Christian virtues, the regular attendance upon the Christian 

 ministry, and the testimony he left us in his dying hour, all attest 

 that for him faith had bridged the dark gulf which separates the 

 seen from the unseen, and led him safely through the gates into the 

 eternal city whose builder and maker is God. 



