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with him ; and I know by experience, how he resem- 

 bled the lightning flash in conception and discrimi- 

 nation, and with all this rapidity, there was not the 

 slightest sacrifice of accuracy. Nor am I alone in this 

 opinion. A learned Prelate of our church once said 

 to me, that Dr. Alexander was the most accurately 

 learned man he had ever met and he was compe- 

 tent to judge. 



What is as strange, his humility was the most 

 prominent characteristic of his life. He was the 

 most modest learned man I ever saw. While he 

 freely communicated knowledge, it was necessary to 

 draw it out. He volunteered nothing. Respectful 

 of, and attentive to the views of others, he main- 

 tained his own with a quiet dignity and unpretend- 

 ing firmness, that are above all praise. It was beau- 

 tiful to see such humility; for we seem to have well 

 nigh lost that cardinal grace altogether. Other ages 

 may have been golden ours is brazen, and by a 

 strange sort of legerdemain we have contrived to 

 make the mint issue a currency of brass, that is 

 rapidly taking the place of gold ; and are acting, as 

 though we believed, that to assume to be, is to be. 



What shall I say of Dr. Alexander as a man? 

 Faultless I will not proclaim him; for faultless 

 nothing human is. But if I were asked to tell you 

 his faults, I confess to you, in all candor, that I 

 should find it as difficult, as I have done to deline- 

 ate his intellectual character without seeming extrav- 

 agance, unbecoming me and the spot, on which I 

 stand. A little too fond he was of disputation ; the 

 proneness, in the circle of his intimate friends, to 

 argue for argument's sake, on any side of any ques- 

 tion, to draw out the powers of an advocate. A 

 little too undemonstrative he was. A little too much 



