28 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



While such noble minds exist among us, that altar around which 

 so many great men have stood, that altar that so early and so long 

 held out such attractions to the lamented Renwick, is in no danger 

 of falling into decay. 



But while Prof. Renwick delighted to fan the fires of science, he 

 also delighted to fan the flame of human liberty. The tree of liberty 

 was by him as anxiously guarded as were the altars of science. 

 That tree, planted amid the storms of a revolutionary contest, and 

 moistened by the blood of so many great and good men, was a trea- 

 sure that he highly valued, as giving shelter to the oppressed of 

 every land, and the source, too, from which had sprung the greatness 

 to which our country has arisen ; and with painful emotions he wit- 

 nessed the unhallowed efforts of misguided men to lop off some of 

 the branches of that noble vine. This suicidal effort, and we trust 

 an abortive one, filled him with poignant grief, and threw over him, 

 I may say, the only shadows that darkened the evening of his days. 

 He passed aw^ay from the land and the friends that he loved with a 

 terrible war cloud hanging over them. But the last time that the 

 writer of this exchanged sentiments on the subject, he spoke like a 

 man with a strong and confident belief, that although for a season 

 the sun of our national greatness and prosperity was partially 

 obscured, the tree of liberty was too precious a plant, and too clearly 

 an instrument in the hands of the Great and Benign Father of the 

 human family, for promoting the good of his creatures, to be forsaken 

 by him or left to wither and to die, scorched by the breath of mis- 

 guided and ambitious men. That star that in 1776 arose in this 

 western hemisphere, lighting up the hope of freedom among the 

 nations of the earth — that star that has allured so many from homes 

 of bondage and oppression, cannot, will not be suffered to sink into 

 darkness, crushing the hopes of the millions that are yet longing to 

 be free. No, we devoutly believe that the Friend of the oppressed 

 will, with the breath of his mouth, dissipate the clouds that have for 

 a season eclipsed its brightness, when with renewed splendor it will 

 shed undecaying beams over a free, a great and a united people. 



Mr. Hibbard moved that the thanks of the Institute be, and are 

 hereby tendered to Dr. Campbell, for the exceedingly interesting and 

 appropriate paper read by him, perpetuating the memory of our late 

 Corresponding Secretary, and that he be requested to furnish a copy 

 of the same for the use of the Institute ; which was unanimously 

 adopted. 



