T50 FINAL JOURNEYS AND WORK. [1884, 
days over that which he was unable and incompetent 
to bring to the birth. His memory reaping a great 
reward of fame for a century or so, and then the con- 
clusion reluctantly reached that nothing tangible in 
the advancement of Natural Science can be dail 
to him. Altogether, what a solemn sermon! It 
might be preached from the pulpit of St. Paul’s. 
Well, I seem to have attempted sermonizing my- 
self, and it is time I stopped. 
We join in the thanksgivings you are devoutly 
rendering,! and I am always, 
Yours affectionately, Asa GRay. 
As this is the last letter from Dr. Gray to Dean 
Church, to be printed, the occasion is taken to in- 
troduce a letter written by Dean Church to Mrs. 
Gray some time after the death of his friend, when 
acknowledging the receipt of a copy of the “ Scientific 
Papers.” 
DEAN CHURCH TO MRS. GRAY. 
I have to thank you for two volumes of most inter- 
esting reading. Besides the interest of the subject 
discussed, there is a special cachet in all Dr. Gray’s 
papers, great and small, which is his own, and which 
seems to me to distinguish him from even his more 
famous contemporaries. There is the scientific spirit 
in it, but firm, imaginative, fearless, cautious, with 
large horizons, and very attentive and careful to 
objections and qualifications ; and there is besides, 
what is so often wanting in scientific writing, the 
human spirit, always remembering that, besides facts 
and laws, however wonderful or minute, there are souls 
1 The birth of the Dean’s first grandchild. 
