Church, after leaving many excellent monuments of learning and fidelity, has gone to join them

the pride

of the College, the glory of this church, than whom we have seen none more memorable. What clearness of judgment, what sweetness of style, what gravity of person, what grace of carriage, was in that man! Who ever saw him without reverence, or heard him without profit? These are gone, amongst many more whom the Church mourns for in secret., Would to God her loss could be as easily supplied as lamented! Her sorrow is for those that are passed; her remainder of joy'in those that remain; her hope in the next age. I pray God the cause of her hope and joy may be equivalent to those of her grief.*

1

It is a singular and interesting fact, and a beautiful illustration of the spirit of American society, and of the practical working of our free institutions, that the son of a poor missionary on the outskirts of civilization, born in a log cabin, nurtured in infancy among the savages, and bred in childhood in a frontier village, with no advantages of fortune, and little aid from friends, rose, by the force of talent and merit alone, to the head of the first literary institution in the land. Such a fact as this is full of encouragement to the high-spirited and ambitious young men of our country. It shows them that the path of literary as well as political distinction is open to all, and that talent, effort, and moral worth, are sure to be valued and rewarded.

Dr. Kirkland's printed works consist chiefly of sermons and addresses delivered on public occasions, among

* See Bishop Hall's seventh Epistle of the first Decade.

which are an Artillery Election Sermon,* an Oration before the Society of Phi Beta Kappa, a Discourse on the death of Washington, an Election Sermon, a Discourse in commemoration of Adams and Jefferson, delivered before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of which he was the Vice President, a Discourse on the death of Mr. Cabot, and the Life of Fisher Ames, which stands at the head of American biography. The Monthly Anthology likewise contains many admirable articles and reviews from his pen; and he contributed several papers, one of which was a Memoir of General Lincoln, to the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, of which he was a member.† Most of his writings, however, being sermons, and written to be delivered, not printed, have never seen the light. It has been asserted on the highest authority, - that of the late Governor of Massachusetts,‡ that "his manuscripts would furnish the materials for a volume. of practical Ethics, equal to any thing which has appeared in the English language, for depth of thought, sagacity, knowledge of human nature, didactic eloquence, and pure English style."

It has sometimes been mentioned as a matter of

*This Sermon drew forth an expression of approbation, almost unheard of in modern times, and in this country, and certainly one "more honored in the breach than the observance." Dr. Kirkland was publicly applauded in the church. Such tokens of satisfaction, however, were common in the early ages of Christianity, particularly among the mercurial Asiatics and enthusiastic Africans, who were accustomed to applaud their favorite preachers with hands, and feet, and loud acclamations, crying out "Orthodox! Third Apostle !" &c.

† A list of Dr. Kirkland's writings closes the Appendix. His Excellency Edward Everett.

regret, that Dr. Kirkland has left so few works behind him. There is no ground for the regret; it is founded on a mistake. He has left many and great works. Without derogating from his writings, it may be truly said that his pupils are his best works. As Sir James Mackintosh has justly observed, "he who has cultivated an extent of mind which would otherwise have lain barren, and contributed to raise virtuous dispositions where the natural growth might have been useless or noxious, is not less a benefactor to mankind, and may indirectly be a larger contributor to knowledge, than the author of great works, or even the discoverer of important truths." Dr. Kirkland's pupils, scattered over the length and breadth of the land, are his works, most honorable to his memory, and most useful to the world. They are his Epistle, known and read of all men. They are his living monument; and they praise him, in the pulpit and in the senate, at the bar and on the bench, in the healing art, and in the walks of social and private life - men whose powers have been developed and cultivated under his oversight and tuition, and whose characters have been formed and shaped under his mild and genial influence.

In private life Dr. Kirkland was gentle, modest, placable, kind, of simple manners, and so averse from parade and dogmatism, as to be not only unostentatious, but even somewhat inactive, in conversation. His superiority was never felt but in the instruction which he imparted, or in the attention which his generous preference usually directed to the more obscure members of the company. The simplicity of his manners

was far from excluding that perfect urbanity and amenity which flowed still more from the mildness of his nature, than from familiar intercourse with the most refined and polished society. His conversation, when it was not repressed by modesty or indolence, was delightful. The pleasantry, perhaps, of no man of wit had so unlabored an appearance. It seemed rather to escape from his mind than to be produced by it. He had lived on the most intimate terms with all contemporaries distinguished by wit, politeness, philosophy, learning, or the talents of public life. In the course of fifty years he had known almost every man in the community whose intercourse could strengthen, or enrich, or polish the mind.

The charms of President Kirkland's conversation, the pleasure and the instruction which were found in his society, can be appreciated by contemporaries only, who enjoyed the opportunity of intercourse with him. They alone can bear testimony to that urbanity of manners, and that sweetness of temper, which mitigated the awe inspired by the superiority of his mind and the profoundness of his wisdom, and made the approach to him not only safe, but delightful-which conciliated confidence and softened the emotions of envy. Of this passion he was himself altogether unconscious and incapable. His greatest pleasure was to find cause for encomium in others, and to draw merit from obscurity. He loved truth for its own sake, and exercised his powers not for his own reputation, but for the investigation of truth. As a critic, he was inclined more to candor than to severity. He was touched by what

ever was just, original, or worthy of praise; he sought after it with as much ardor as others feel in the detection of faults. His wit did not require the foil of deformity to give it splendor; its brilliancy was best displayed in illustrating beauty, for which he had the keenest relish. He could laugh at folly without exciting anger or fear, could be just without an air of severity, entertaining without satire, and brilliant without sarcasm. No man ever lived more in society, or shone more in conversation; yet it would be difficult, — I should say, impossible, to ascribe a sentiment, or even an original sentence to him, the least tinctured with envy, malice, or uncharitableness.*

He has gone to his rest, full of years, full of usefulness, and full of honors. Death, which harmonizes the pictures of human character, found little in his to spiritualize or to soften. But if it has not enhanced the feeling of his excellencies in the minds of those who felt their influence, it has enabled them to express that feeling without the semblance of flattery. It has left them free, not only to expatiate on those welldirected labors which facilitated the access of the young to the treasures of learning; and on the solemn and persuasive style of his pulpit services; but also to revert to that remarkable kindness of disposition which was the secret but active law of his moral being. His

* In portraying the private character of Dr. Kirkland in the concluding paragraphs of this Discourse, I have availed myself of the language in which Sir James Mackintosh describes Mr. Fox's character, of Sir James Scarlett's (now Lord Abinger) description of Sir James Mackintosh, and of the touching tribute which Mr. Serjeant Talfourd pays to the memory of his old instructer, Dr. Valpy, in the Preface to his Ion.