750 FINAL JOURNEYS AND WORK. [1884, 



days over that wMcli lie 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 attributed 

 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 CHUBCH TO MKS. GBAT. 



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 wliich 

 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 



^ The birth of the Dean's first grandchild. 



