CHAP. XIII.] FUNERAL SERMON. 423 



man ; but the friend of whom we were all so proud, and 

 who seemed, as it were, to link us thus early with the great 

 outside world of the pioneers of knowledge, had one of those 

 rich and lavish natures which no prosperity can impoverish, 

 and which make faith in goodness easy for others. I have 

 often thought that those who never knew the grand old 

 Adam Sedgwick and the then young and ever youthful 

 Clerk Maxwell, had yet to learn the largeness and ful- 

 ness of the moulds in which some choice natures are framed. 

 Of the scientific greatness of our friend we were most of us 

 unable to judge ; but any one could see and admire the boy- 

 like glee, the joyous invention, the wide reading, the eager 

 thirst for truth, the subtle thought, the perfect temper, the 

 unfailing reverence, the singular absence of any taint of the 

 breath of worldliness in any of its thousand forms. 



Brethren, you may know such men now among your 

 college friends, though there can be but few in any year, or 

 indeed in any century, that possess the rare genius of the 

 man whom we deplore. If it be so, then, if you will accept 

 the counsel of a stranger, thank God for His gift. Believe 

 me when I tell you that a few such blessings will come to 

 you in later life. There are blessings that come once in a 

 lifetime. One of these is the reverence with which we look 

 up to greatness and goodness in a college friend above us, 

 beyond us, far out of our mental or moral grasp, but still 

 one of us, near to us, our own. You know in part, at least, 

 how in this case the promise of youth was more than 

 fulfilled, and how the man who, but a fortnight ago, was the 

 ornament of the University, and shall I be wrong in say- 

 ing it ? almost the discoverer of a new world of knowledge, 

 was even more loved than he was admired, retaining after 

 twenty years of fame that mirth, that simplicity, that child- 

 like delight in all that is fresh and wonderful, which we 

 rejoice to think of as some of the surest accompaniment of 

 true scientific genius. 



You know, also, that he was a devout as well as 

 thoughtful Christian. I do not note this in the triumphant 

 spirit of a controversialist. I will not for a moment assume 



