140 MEMORIAL OF JOSEPH HENRY. 



How tlien amid all this change, shall the liieart be kept in one 

 steady, consistent course of progress, and not be at the mercy of 

 transient states of feeling? Are there not passages of your own 

 experience that verify this description? I do not speak of that 

 ordinary experience exposed to the view of the world in your 

 actions, but of that inner life, which you keep hidden from the 

 world's gaze. 



Of what does that testify? Of struggles between opposing 

 desires; of broken vows and resolutions; of calm views suddenly 

 overcast with dark clouds ; of elevated aims dragged down to the 

 mire and dust; of fitful seasons of repentance and self-humiliation. 

 Our own inner experience reveals purposes formed far higher than 

 we have ever embodied in action — an ideal life which has little 

 influence on our real life, which consists mainly in unhappy grasp- 

 ing after a higher life, but which is only realized in the dreams of 

 our imagination. 



To counteract this tendency we must learn to act on some fixed 

 principle. We must choose some great purpose for which we will 

 live, great enough to be a controlling influence over all our life, 

 which we can set as our pole-star in the heavens. Such a purpose, 

 and influence, is furnished by the word of God. 



But we rest the argument for this truth not only upon what we 

 may infer the influence of the abiding of the word of God in the 

 heart to be, but also upon the experience of our fellow-men who 

 have made that word the guide of their lives. 



There passed away from among us, on Monday last, one whose 

 life and labors beautifully illustrate this truth. It is meet that 

 within the precincts of this college, special mention should be 

 made, in terms of reverent affection, of Professor Joseph Henry. 



We claim him as one of us — not a son of Princeton, it is true, 

 for in a far humbler academy his early studies were prosecuted ; 

 but we claim him as a brother, beloved and loving, for he loved 

 Princeton sincerely. From her he received his title of Professor; 

 in h6r old Hall of Natural Philosophy he prosecuted his researches, 

 begun in Albany; among her professors he found kindred spirits 



