Obituary JVoiice of Dr. Gaspar Spurzheim. 367 



Christianity as a divine system, chiefly on the ground of its great in- 

 ternal evidence, its perfect adaptation to human nature, and the spirit 

 of truth and divine philanthropy which gives life to all its precepts. 

 All morality, he thought, was contained in two precepts — ' Thou shalt 

 love the Lord thy God and thy neighbor as thyself.' All prayers, 

 he thought were comprised in this one — 'Father, thy will be done.'" 



" The great aim of all his inquiries was to search out the will of 

 God in the creation of man. Obedience to his laws he considered 

 as the highest wisdom and the most expansive freedom," included in 

 the short sentence 'Thy will be done.' " We look to him perhaps," 

 he would say, "amid great trials and on great occasions; but not in 

 smaller things. We say ' they are too little.' It is this, in which 

 we err. Can any thing that concerns his children be too Httle for 

 a Father ?" 



" Religion he thought, must be the result of the freest and most 

 exalted use of our reason ;" we presume, however, in accordance 

 with revelation, for one of his friends writes to him from Paris, as 

 one " well acquainted with Holy Writ." 



In Boston, his time was spent principally in preparing and deliver- 

 ing his lectures, and in visiting all kinds of public institutions, and he 

 evinced the deepest interest in education, reformation of morals and 

 and prevention of vice. 



He thought favorably of our American institutions ; he considered 

 it as a great happiness that wealth is not here, long, hereditary, and 

 that men have, in this country, to make their own way. 



He thought, however, that we were in danger from self love and 

 ambition, and that if feelings of veneration and respect were not cul- 

 tivated in the young we should, by and by, have fighting. 



To the compiler of this notice he said, with reference to the per- 

 manency of our institutions, when it was stated that, as they had 

 lasted two hundred years, it was hoped they might be permanent. 

 " True — but, as yet, you have room enough and bread enough, but 

 how will it be when your population becomes so dense that man 

 touches man, and there is no more room nor place ; how will it be 

 then ? I give you, added he with a smile, five hundred years for your 

 experiment ; if your institutions stand five hundred years, they may 

 perhaps be permanent." 



Dr. Spurzheim fell a victim to his great intellectual labors and to 

 undue exposure, by night rides, to Boston after his lectures at Cam- 

 bridge. During his lectures, his mental and physical exertions were 



