MEMORIAL WINDOW TO DR HARDY 303 



studying and writing all through his life. It is easy to say 

 that during the greater part of his life he had nothing else 

 to do. But, as a rule, it is just those people who have 

 abundance of leisure time who accomplish least. The fact 

 that he was not compelled to do the work he did adds to 

 his credit. He was a born student, and he had disciplined 

 himself in his younger days to resist the calls of idleness, 

 until work became a positive pleasure to him. And, as a 

 Club, we reaped the benefit ; indeed, this whole Border 

 district lies under a heavy debt of obligation to him. One 

 can only regret that he did not gather up his store of 

 observation into one or two complete books, and that so 

 much knowledge has died with him of which he alone 

 possessed the key. Few of us have known anyone with a 

 mind more many-sided and accurate. And his reputation 

 was not confined within the limits of the Club. He had 

 scientific correspondents in all parts of the kingdom, and 

 mainly through him our Club was widely known. It was 

 gratifying to us, as it would be to himself, when the 

 University of Edinburgh, his own University, crowned his 

 work by bestowing upon him the honorary degree of Doctor 

 of Laws. 



While it is natural and proper, therefore, that his memory 

 should be preserved and honoured among us, on account of 

 his scientific attainments and his services to the Club, we 

 claim for him something more as a justification of our 

 presence here to-day for the purpose of unveiling in this 

 church a window that will bear his name. We claim for 

 him not only that he was a man of science, but a Christian 

 man of science. The light in which he viewed the outward 

 Nature was partly an inheritance of his birth, and was 

 partly furnished by his own reflection. Born in a family 

 of the Secession Church, with a father who was an elder in 

 that Communion, he would be imbued from his childhood with 

 the idea of God as the Creator and Governor of this world. 

 And when in after life he studied the facts and processes 

 of Nature for himself, he found no reason to abandon the 

 faith of his youth. A man so well informed, and with 

 so penetrating an intelligence, could not be blind to the 

 ^iflSculties that present themselves to the Christian man of 



