386 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



vation. I was locally intimate with him for fourteen or 

 fifteen years of my life, and had thus occasion to observe 

 how nearly his character approached what might, without 

 extravagance, be called perfection. He was strong but 

 gentle, impetuous but self -restrained ; a sweet and lofty 

 courtesy marked his dealings with men and women; and 

 though he sprang from the body of the people, a nature 

 so fine might well have been distilled from the flower of 

 antecedent chivalry. Not only in its broader sense was 

 the Christian religion necessary to Faraday's spiritual 

 peace, but in what many would call the narrow sense held 

 by those described by Faraday himself as "a very small 

 and despised sect of Christians, known, if known at all, 

 as Sandemanians,'' it constituted the light and comfort of 

 his days. 



"Were our experience confined to such cases, it would 

 furnish an irresistible argument in favor of the association 

 of dogmatic religion with moral purity and grace. But, as 

 already intimated, our experience is not thus confined. In 

 further illustration of this point, we may compare with 

 Faraday a philosopher of equal magnitude, whose char- 

 acter, including gentleness and strength, candor and sim- 

 plicity, intellectual power and moral elevation, singularly 

 resembles that of the great Sandemanian, but who has 

 neither shared the theologic views nor the religious emo- 

 tions which formed so dominant a factor in Faraday's life. 

 I allude to Mr. Charles Darwin, the Abraham of scientific 

 men — a searcher as obedient to the command of truth as 

 was the patriarch to the command of Grod. I cannot there- 

 fore, as so many desire, look upon Faraday's religious be- 

 lief as the exclusive source of qualities shared so conspic- 

 uously by one uninfluenced by that belief. To a deeper 



