• 
 
 L- 1 
 
 LEONARD WOODS. 
 
LEONARD WOODS. 
 
 A DISCOURSE 
 
 PROF. CHARLES CARROLL EVERETT, D. D. 
 
 Bowdoin College and the Maine Historical Society, 
 
 WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 1879. 
 
 BRUNSWICK: 
 
 TELEGRAPH PRINTING OFFICE. 
 
 1879. 
 

 
Died in Boston, December 24th, 187S, Leonard Woods, D.D., LL.D., 
 late President of Bowdoin College. 
 
 Resolutions 
 
 Passed at a special meeting of the Academical Faculty of Bowdoin 
 
 College, January 9, 1879. 
 
 Desiring to give some expression to our sense of the loss which the 
 College has sustained in the death of Dr. Leonard Woods, for many 
 years its honored President, and also to the feeling of personal bereave- 
 ment in those of us who were permitted to know him in the intimacy 
 of college associations, we, the members of the Academical Faculty of 
 Bowdoin College, do adopt the following memorial resolutions as a 
 tribute of affection to the memory of a cherished friend. 
 
 Resolved, That we have heard with deep sorrow of the death of Dr. 
 Woods, who, through a long and brilliant service in the Presidency of 
 this College, filled the best years of his life with unwearied efforts to 
 promote its efficiency, to elevate its intellectual and moral character, to 
 increase its resources and to give it an honorable and influential posi- 
 tion among the educational institutions of the country. 
 
 Resolved, That we recognize with gratitude all that he was able to 
 accomplish for the College by virtue of his high intellectual character, 
 the fine quality of his mind, his thorough and unassuming culture, the 
 purity of his life and his fidelity to the trusts committed to him ; and 
 that we shall always remember with pleasure the grace and dignity 
 with which he represented the College abroad and presided over its 
 regular sessions and its anniversary gatherings at home ; the eloquence 
 of his occasional discourses, which were both a charm and a stimulus 
 to those who were permitted to listen to them, and the cordial and 
 kindly relations that always marked his intercourse with his colleagues, 
 with the students and with the Alumni. 
 
 Resolved, That we remember with thankfulness the winning cour- 
 tesy of his manner, the never-failing charm of his intercourse, and his 
 beautiful Christian spirit as displayed in the various social relations of 
 
4 RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 his life ; and though we grieve that these things will henceforth be only 
 memories to us, we rejoice that they will still have power to stimulate 
 and to comfort us. 
 
 Resolved, That while bowing in resignation to this dispensation of 
 a wise and merciful Providence, we desire to offer to those most nearly 
 touched by this bereavement the assurance of our respectful and un- 
 feigned sympathy, and also to unite with them in thanks for a life that 
 was so full of beauty, and a death that was so full of peace. 
 
 Resolved, That a memorial discourse commemorative of the char- 
 acter and services of this beloved Head of the College and venerated 
 friend, be pronounced at Brunswick during the approaching Com- 
 mencement season; and that the Maine Historical Society, of which 
 Dr. Woods was a most active and honored member, be invited to 
 unite with the Alumni and friends of the College in such a memorial 
 service, and to unite with the Government of the College in making 
 suitable arrangements for the occasion. 
 
 In the Boards of Trustees and Overseers of Bowdoin College, July 10, 
 1879, it was 
 Voted, That the thanks of the College be returned to Professor 
 C. C. Everett for his just and eloquent tribute to the memory of the 
 late President Woods, and that a copy of the same be requested for 
 publication. 
 
 Maine Historical Society, 
 
 Brunswick, July 11, 1879. 
 Voted, That the thanks of the Society be tendered to Professor 
 Everett for his eloquent and discriminating tribute to the memory of 
 the late Dr. Leonard AVoods, so long our venerated and beloved 
 associate and friend, and that we unite with the College authorities 
 in requesting a copy for publication. 
 
DISCOURSE 
 
 During the last year has died one who forty years ago 
 this summer became the President of Bowdoin College, an 
 office which he held for twenty-seven years. He was for 
 many years the Chairman of the Standing Committee of 
 the Maine Historical Society, and one of its most efficient 
 workers. It is fitting, then, that this College, with its 
 Alumni, and the members of this Society, should unite to 
 do honor to his memory. But while his relation to institu- 
 tions justifies this public service, it does not fully explain it. 
 The tribute that we bring is less official than personal. It 
 is most of all the offering of loving and bereaved hearts. 
 
 Our late President, Leonard Woods, was born at New- 
 bury, Massachusetts, November 24, 1807. A few months 
 after his birth, his father, whose name he bore, removed 
 with his family to Andover, where he became the first Pro- 
 fessor of the Theological Seminary, in the foundation of 
 which he had been largely instrumental. The father was 
 known to the world as a keen disputant, a strong reasoner, 
 a profound and somewhat dogmatic theologian. To his 
 family he was known as one of the tenderest of fathers and 
 the most genial of companions. He possessed a keen wit, 
 which made him both prized as a friend and dreaded as an 
 opponent. 
 
(3 PROF. EVERETT'S DISCOURSE. 
 
 The mother of the President was a daughter of Rev. 
 Joseph Wheeler, of Harvard, Massachusetts. She was a 
 woman of marked character and great sweetness of dispo- 
 sition, and an enthusiastic lover of the beauties of nature. 
 
 The family consisted of ten children, of whom Leonard 
 was the fourth. This large family included many varieties 
 of disposition and character, but was affectionate and har- 
 monious. If any little difference did arise between the 
 brothers, Leonard was the peace-maker. 
 
 His intercourse with his sisters, especially, perhaps with 
 those nearest his own age, was tender and confidential. He 
 interested himself in their studies and reading, and in what- 
 ever concerned them. This relation could not have been 
 without influence upon his character, and may have pre- 
 pared the way and furnished the ideal for those intimacies 
 with ladies of talent and culture that formed so marked a 
 feature of his after life. A classmate, who had admired the 
 purity of his tastes, and the elevated tone of his character 
 in college, writes, that he learned the secret of these when 
 later he became familiar with the home in Andover, from 
 which he went forth to meet the temptations of college life. 
 His surroundings in his childhood tended also to quicken 
 his intellectual growth. There is a family tradition that the 
 first word he uttered was, characteristically enough, the word 
 Theology. We may assume, then, that this was at least 
 among the earliest words he spoke. This shows not merely 
 the capacity of the boy to seize the larger words, but still 
 more the nature of the conversations that were held about 
 his cradle. The group of theologians that used to gather at 
 his father's house, Porter, Griffin, Stuart, and others, — the 
 discussions that they carried on together in regard to the 
 great themes that were interesting the religious world, must 
 have done much to stimulate his thoughts and to direct 
 them to theological inquiry. They would seem to have 
 done more to stimulate and direct his thought than to 
 
LEONARD WOODS. 7 
 
 mould his opinions. Questions were started in his mind, 
 the solution of which he sought in his own way. One 
 might almost say, indeed, that an independent solution of 
 them came to him without his seeking. It seems as if he 
 were born to a certain course of thought and study, so early- 
 does he enter upon it. Here, if anywhere, we might almost 
 accept the theory of pre-existence, or might believe that his 
 spirit had been appointed to enter into life amid the cour- 
 tesies and reverent religious thought and study of some 
 mediaeval court, so early do we meet that gracious presence 
 and that peculiar mental tendency which characterized him 
 in after years. 
 
 He was fitted for college at Phillips Academy, and 
 entered Dartmouth College in the spring of 1824. He re- 
 mained there, however, less than one term, and afterwards 
 entered Union College as a Sophomore. The change was 
 an important one, for it brought him into relations with 
 President Nott, traces of whose influence will meet us as 
 we proceed. At this college he graduated in 1827. 
 
 His college associations must have been very pleasant 
 and helpful to him. Professor William Thompson, of Hart- 
 ford, was his room-mate ; President Wayland was a mem- 
 ber of his class ; and Bishop Potter of New York, though 
 not a classmate, belonged to his more intimate circle of 
 college friends. 
 
 When we try to picture him to ourselves as he was at 
 this time, we need do little else than take off' from the pres- 
 ence so familiar to us the traces that the fleeting years had 
 left. The light, spare form, and almost feminine softness 
 of features which seemed to bespeak forbearance and sym- 
 pathy from comrades of a more robust physique, were soon 
 found to be allied with manly firmness, resolution, and 
 capacity for rather uncommon muscular performances. He 
 was fond of solitary musing, but courteous and affable to 
 all; while in his more intimate circles his literary acquisi- 
 
g PROF. EY r ERETT'S DISCOURSE. 
 
 tions and sparkling humor were greatly prized. He was 
 marked, at the same time, by a certain unconventionality 
 which perhaps added to the charm of his intercourse. As 
 a scholar he excelled in all branches. The professors liked 
 to test his knowledge by out of the way questions, and he 
 was always equal to the emergency. In Greek his class- 
 mates consulted him with a confidence equal to that with 
 which they turned to their teacher. In debate he stood 
 supreme. Ethical questions in the discussions of the col- 
 lege literary society, had a special attraction for him. He 
 often threw light upon many obscure points. As a poet he 
 showed such promise that many of his friends have be- 
 lieved that poetry was his true vocation. The influence of 
 Byron was then in the ascendant, and his classmates 
 thought that there was something a little Byronic in his 
 poems. 
 
 The time which his facility in acquisition gained for 
 him, he devoted to a higher culture than the college routine 
 could offer. His favorite authors were the older and graver 
 English writers, such as Isaac Barrow and Jeremy Taylor. 
 It is interesting to know that he had begun his patristic 
 studies even before he entered college ; and that what be- 
 came later known as his medievalism, manifested itself 
 even in his college days. 
 
 On his graduation he delivered a poem, somewhat sin- 
 gularly entitled "The Suicide." Chatterton was its hero. 
 It is an illustration of the methods of the time, or at least 
 of the methods of Dr. Nott, that both the subject and the 
 metre were assigned to him. He protested against the lat- 
 ter as unsuited to the theme, but no change was permitted. 
 In spite of the cramping effect of this requirement, the 
 poem showed indications of power, and was very warmly 
 received. He closed the exercises of the day by a valedic- 
 tory address to the class. 
 
 President Nott pronounced him on his graduation better 
 
LEONARD WOODS. 9 
 
 educated than is usual in this country, and believed that 
 without having any defect to supply, or habit to change, he 
 might become a distinguished linguist Or mathematician, or 
 a man of general literature; at the same time he feared 
 that he might be somewhat lacking in practicality. 
 
 With avenues to distinction opening all about him, he 
 chose, as it would appear, without hesitation, the profession 
 of the ministry. The same year that he graduated from 
 college he entered the theological seminary at Andover. 
 His life in the seminary was but a repetition, on a higher 
 plane, of his life in college. I may mention a single inci- 
 dent, to show that the sweetness of disposition by which 
 he was always marked, was a matter of culture with him, 
 as well as of temperament. Some one, entering his room 
 one day, found him and his companion with a somewhat 
 fixed and stern expression upon their faces. It seems they 
 had formed a resolution to speak ill of no one. They had, 
 however, just been unmercifully bored by a caller, and as he 
 went out they began to express their feelings towards him, 
 when they remembered their resolution ; and at the moment 
 of the second interruption they were in the act of setting a 
 guard upon their lips. 
 
 Among his seminary friends were Prof. Thompson, of 
 
 Hartford, his room-mate here as at college, Dr. Schauffler, 
 
 Dr. Cheever, and Prof. Park. To those familiar with his 
 
 later habits it may be interesting to know that while in the 
 
 seminary he was in the habit of rising summer and winter 
 
 at five o'clock, and of walking with the friend last named 
 
 an hour, returning for prayers at six o'clock. Through mud 
 
 or snow, through storm or sunshine these walks were taken. 
 
 " Our controversies were deepest," writes his companion in 
 
 these strolls, "when the mud was most profound. One of 
 
 us was commonly lost in an argument when the other 
 
 was buried in a snow drift." With some of these student 
 
 friends, who like himself roomed in the upper story of his 
 o 
 
10 PROF. EVERETT'S DISCOURSE. 
 
 father's house, he kept up for awhile the habit of talking 
 only in Latin. A debating club was also held in these 
 upper chambers. 
 
 He was at this time a brilliant skater; and took delight 
 in teaching the young ladies of his circle to guide them- 
 selves upon the ice. His great passion, however, was for 
 study. 
 
 He graduated from the theological seminary in 1830. 
 He still pursued his work at Andover, however, where he 
 was for a short time an assistant teacher. With rare energy 
 for one so young, he set about a very important work, the 
 translation from the German of Knapp's Theology. This 
 he enriched with an introduction and notes. This achieve- 
 ment secured him at once a prominent position among the 
 scholars and theologians of the country. 
 
 He was licensed to preach by the Londonderry Presby- 
 tery in 1830, and ordained by the Third Presbytery of New 
 York, at the Laight Street church, in the year 1833. He 
 preached in New York for some months, in the place of 
 Dr. Cox, who was absent in Europe. 
 
 In 1834 he became the Editor of the New York Literary 
 and Theological Review, a publication which was just es- 
 tablished. Besides his general editorial work he contributed 
 to it several very important articles, which retain their in- 
 terest to the present time. He also contributed various 
 translations from the German. 
 
 In 1836 he became Professor of Biblical Literature in 
 the Theological Seminary at Bangor. His inaugural dwelt 
 chiefly upon the importance of the study of the Bible, 
 which grows out of the Protestant doctrine of the right of 
 free interpretation of it. The duties of this new office un- 
 happily interfered with his work as editor. His original 
 contributions became more rare, and his connection with 
 the Review was given up after four years of service. 
 
 The duties which crowded out his editorial work must 
 
LEONARD WOODS. 
 
 11 
 
 have been very congenial to him. He showed a wonderful 
 fitness for the office of teacher. In this he was helped by 
 his great conversational powers, and by his exhaustive read- 
 ing in connection with the subjects taught. He met the 
 students in the class room as if they had been his equals. 
 He won their confidence, so that they expressed their own 
 thoughts with the utmost freedom. If their views were 
 crude and ill-formed, they discovered it by no word or inti- 
 mation of his, but by the light which he threw upon them. 
 
 His residence in Bangor must have been in many re- 
 spects very pleasant to him. In that gay little metropolis 
 of the east there was probably, then, more culture in pro- 
 portion to the population than in any other city of our 
 country. Especially were there many cultivated ladies, 
 familiar with society as well as with books. The Unitarian 
 influence affected largely the tone of society in the place, 
 and at that time this implied a distinction which we of this 
 generation cannot wholly understand. There was an ease 
 and a brilliancy in the social relations into which he was 
 brought with which he had hardly been familiar. We need 
 not say how eagerly the young Professor was Welcomed to 
 this social life, or what a charm he found in it. 
 
 In Bangor we meet, if not more real, yet more marked 
 traces than before of that reactionary tendency which 
 seemed at times to separate him so widely from those 
 about him. His life there was very important, in his intel- 
 lectual development, if, as would seem to be 'the case, he 
 there for the first time became familiar with the writings of 
 DeMaistre, an author who exerted a^marked influence upon 
 his thought. 
 
 He remained at Bangor but three years. In 1839, at the 
 age of thirty-two, he-became the President of Bowdoin Col- 
 lege. That was a proud day for Bowdoin on which he was 
 inaugurated. His very youth, which, under other circum- 
 stances might have weighed against him, when viewed in 
 
12 PROF. EVERETT'S DISCOURSE, 
 
 connection with the results that he had already accom- 
 plished, gave a new prestige to his position. He appeared 
 before the congregation slight and graceful. A large pile 
 of manuscripts lay before him, but at these he did not 
 glance. For nearly two hours he held the assembly en- 
 tranced by his rich eloquence. The crowd that thronged the 
 aisles forgot the weariness of their position as they listened 
 to his words. 
 
 He spoke of the cheering fact, that after years of strife, 
 periods at length arrive in which conflicting tendencies 
 are reconciled. "The pendulum of opinion, after swinging 
 back and forth from one extreme to another, comes at last 
 to hang in the just medium." After a few minor illustra- 
 tions, he proceeded to speak of the interests springing from 
 religious faith on the one side, and the scientific instinct on 
 the other. For the first fifteen centuries of the Christian 
 era, revealed religion engrossed the attention of the general 
 mind of Christendom. Then came the ages in which all 
 things were secularized. Science usurped the interest and 
 the authority which religion had before held as her right. 
 But now we are living in a moment of happy augury, in 
 which these two conflicting elements of our intellectual life 
 are becoming reconciled. Their influence, which in their 
 separation has sometimes been disastrous, in their union 
 will become most potent for good. 
 
 He painted the glory of these earlier ages of faith. Es- 
 pecially did he pay to the mediaeval church the honor so 
 often withheld from it. He spoke of the singular perfec- 
 tion the fine arts obtained under its influence, — the cathe- 
 drals solemn and magnificent, the music of the old com- 
 posers, and the paintings of the old masters. He spoke of 
 the science that grew up under the intellectual stimulus 
 which religion gave to the minds of men. He denied that 
 the church ever opposed the advance of science, as such, 
 save by presenting to the thoughts of men objects of more 
 
LEONARD WOODS. 13 
 
 absorbing interest; and he justified this denial by the most 
 ingenious arguments. He rebuked the pride of Bacon, who 
 speaks of himself as kindling a torch in the darkness of 
 philosophy. " If it was night when Bacon was born, it was 
 certainly a night brilliant with constellations." 
 
 Leaving this theme, so congenial to him, upon which he 
 had brought to bear all the wealth of his learning and of 
 his genius, he turned to the ages of secularization by which 
 these ages of faith were followed. He recognized the many 
 beneficent effects of purely human science, but he spoke 
 with a sublime scorn of the lowness of its aims. It was 
 bound to the earth instead of facing the heavens. It sought 
 the bodily welfare of man rather than his spiritual exalta- 
 tion. It brought with it a spirit that sought to undermine 
 the very foundations of faith, and that had introduced the 
 most baleful social and political disorders. Our modern 
 science " had come to us like ships from the Levant, richly 
 laden, indeed, but concealing the pestilence beneath its 
 choicest treasure." Then he dwelt upon the signs of prom- 
 ise. These signs were few, but were like a clear spot that 
 is sometimes seen in a cloudy sky, which, however small it 
 may be assures the sailor that the storm is past and fair 
 weather is at hand. 
 
 In this address, at the general course of which I have 
 barely hinted, there may have been some unconscious ex- 
 aggeration in regard to the past. There was, perhaps, too 
 little recognition of the higher aspects of modern science. 
 Certainly the consummation which it prophesied was not 
 so near as the speaker dreamed. That little spot of blue 
 was to become lost amid the freshly gathering clouds; and 
 while discoveries were to be reached which, then, even 
 science herself would not have dared to prophesy, the pop- 
 ular thought was to sink to what would have seemed to 
 him a lower depth of materialism than it had yet reached. 
 But still, I believe that the discourse was substantially true, 
 
14 PROF. EVERETT'S DISCOURSE. 
 
 and it was wholly uplifting. His colleagues, of whom 
 only one honored form remains to unite the college of 
 the present to the college of the past, congratulated one 
 another on this brilliant accession to their ranks. While it 
 came to all as a word of strength and cheer, it was especi- 
 ally welcomed by the students of the college, and to many 
 of them it must have been like the creation of a new uni- 
 verse. The past, which had seemed so dark, shone sudden- 
 ly with a great light. The future, which had stretched be- 
 fore them vague and meaningless, was filled suddenly with 
 a definite and inspiring promise; while the present was the 
 happy moment in which the peaceful gains of years of strife 
 were to be theirs. Others had fought and labored and they 
 were to receive the full fruition. 
 
 When the ceremonies of his inauguration were comple- 
 ted, he entered seriously upon the new duties to which he 
 had been called. He approached them, as he did every- 
 thing, by methods of his own. There had been more or 
 less disorder in the college. The leaders in the disturbances 
 were good-hearted fellows, of ability and promise, but some- 
 what wild. They found themselves suddenly summoned, 
 one after the other, to appear before the new president. 
 The call was a surprise, for, as one of them quaintly puts 
 it, " all the old scores had been wiped off, and there had 
 been no time to run up new ones." They went, however, 
 at the call. There was nothing said about old scores or 
 new ones. The president met them with that kind and 
 graceful courtesy that was peculiar to him. He talked 
 to them of the opportunities of college life, and made them 
 feel, as though it had been their thought rather than his, 
 the obligation that such opportunities impose. 
 
 This simple conversation, held with one as he sat with 
 him in his study, with another as he walked with him 
 among the pines, was sufficient to transform these young 
 men. He saved them to themselves, to the college, and to 
 
LEONARD WOODS. 15 
 
 the world. One of them, not only as a minister of the 
 church has brought like aid to many a wandering soul, but 
 became in a special manner the helper of the president in 
 the work of rescuing from entanglement in evil courses 
 young men who were tempted as he had been. 
 
 In 1840, after a year's experience of college life, the young 
 president, according to a plan formed when he entered upon 
 his duties, made his first visit to Europe. It is very unfor- 
 tunate that the note-book which detailed his experience 
 abroad has disappeared, perhaps lost in the fire which con- 
 sumed so much that was of value to him and to the world. 
 There remain only a few scattered remembrances of its 
 story, which give us glimpses of him, here and there, and 
 make us long more than ever for the whole. 
 
 We find him at Oxford, adopted into relations of intimacy 
 with some of the Fellows, living with them, entering into 
 their habits with the zest with which he always entered 
 into the life of those among whom he was thrown ; only 
 here, from the nature of his companions and their surround- 
 ings, all must have had a peculiar charm for him. Thus he 
 walked with them, and conversed with them. He shared 
 their simple meals, toasting his bread with them over the 
 fire in their rooms, or entering into their more elaborate fes- 
 tivities. Among those whom he met at Oxford were Stan- 
 ley and Pusey and Newman. Some whom he there met 
 remember him now with interest. 
 
 It is supposed by many, perhaps it is the first thought of 
 all who know how closely he was thus brought into rela- 
 tion with the founders of the movement with which Oxford 
 has been identified, that it was here our president received 
 his direction towards what has been called his medievalism. 
 On the contrary, we have found that he carried the germs 
 of it with him to college, expressed it freely while at Ban- 
 gor, and embodied it in his inaugural at Brunswick. He 
 would seem to have contributed as much to the incipient 
 
1(3 PROF. EVERETT'S DISCOURSE. 
 
 movement at Oxford as he received from it. At a dinner 
 where sentiments were in order, he proposed " The Middle 
 Ages." Knowing his habit in regard to the use of his old 
 material, we may conjecture that the speech with which he 
 supported his toast contained some brilliant passages from 
 the Inaugural. 
 
 We next hear of him in Paris, as the guest of Louis 
 Philippe. He and a companion* had neglected to answer 
 their invitation to a dinner at the Tuileries, and were, more- 
 over, a little late. The king came forward to meet them, 
 intimating that not having heard from them he was not sure 
 that they would come. The companion of the president 
 happily replied that they had supposed that no response 
 was necessary. The invitation of a king they had believed 
 left to the recipient no choice. This happy turn changed 
 their defeat into a victory. In the success of the evening 
 we may be sure that our president had his full share. 
 Especially did he, as his manner was, win the heart of the 
 queen, who took him to her apartments, and showed him, 
 among other things, the embroidery of her daughters, and 
 introduced him to the room where they were at their work. 
 Our president made himself thoroughly at home, as he did 
 everywhere ; and we find him seated among them and hold- 
 ing a skein of worsted for one of the princesses to wind, at 
 once as much at his ease and as welcome as if he had been 
 a guest at some New England farm-house. 
 
 He was in Paris when the remains of Napoleon were 
 brought there. He was fortunate in obtaining a place near 
 the royal family where he could see all, and the pageant 
 deeply moved him. 
 
 We find him also at the Vatican, where he had a long 
 conversation with the Pope, Gregory XVI. The question 
 first arose in what language they should converse. Our 
 
 *The late Hon. Martin Brimmer of Boston. 
 
LEONARD WOODS. -^<j 
 
 president suggested French, German, or Latin, though he 
 would prefer the last Here the advantage of those Latin 
 talks in the chamber of the professor's house in Andover 
 was felt in a way that was little dreamed of at the time. 
 When, after some hours' talk in Latin with the Pope, he 
 had taken his leave, the Holy Father expressed his admira- 
 tion of him. He had conquered the Vatican as he had the 
 halls of Oxford and the Tuileries. 
 
 It maybe added, that on a steamer while he was abroad, 
 he met, and had a long conversation with, Bunsen. This 
 chance meeting led to a friendship maintained by corres- 
 pondence. 
 
 On his return from Europe the young president entered 
 permanently upon the duties of the office for which all his 
 previous experience had been a preparation. At this point 
 we may interrupt our story to ask what characteristics and 
 qualifications he brought with him to his work, what was 
 the position that he held in regard to some of the great 
 questions that had occupied his thought; in a word, what 
 manner of man it was with whom we have to do. 
 
 The charm of his intercourse I have thus far taken for 
 granted. He was in some respects singularly unconven- 
 tional; yet one could not meet him without feeling himself 
 in the presence of a cultured gentleman. It is impossible 
 to analyze fully the elements of genius in conversation. 
 Like all genius it involves a something that cannot be ex- 
 pressed. It is the saying of the best thing in the best way. 
 In the conversation of our president his richest gifts made 
 themselves felt. The play of his wit, the originality of his 
 thought, the wealth of his resources, the delicacy of his tact, 
 the kindliness of his heart, united to lend a charm to his 
 conversation such as is rarely met. Above all were his un- 
 affected modesty, and his power of drawing out the best 
 in his companion, who for a moment found himself wiser 
 and wittier than his wont, and was surprised to see his own 
 3 
 
lg PROF. EVERETT'S DISCOURSE. 
 
 thoughts expanded and enriched till they came back to him 
 with a fullness of meaning which he had not believed that 
 they possessed. All this, which seemed like the art of the 
 master, was, I believe, yet more the simplicity of the child. 
 It was the manifestation of a nature at once rich and sym- 
 pathetic. If as a boy he had something of the gravity of 
 the man, as a man he showed often the gaiety of the child. 
 He loved, on a Thanksgiving evening, for example, to throw 
 aside his presidential dignity, and join in " blind man's buff," 
 or some other romping game, and no child of the company 
 was merrier and more alert than he. 
 
 In his disposition he was singularly tender and magnani- 
 mous, but he had also a strong will, and was not to be 
 moved from a course that he judged to be the best. 
 
 In his intellectual constitution our president was re- 
 markable for the universality of his gifts. Whatever he 
 did seemed the one thing that he was made to do. Poet, 
 scholar, editor, professor, president, to the work of each 
 calling he came as to his own. In a lawsuit which sprang 
 out of the conditions of the will of Governor Bowdoin, he 
 showed a most unusual legal talent. The case was origin- 
 ated, and to a large extent worked up by him. He pos- 
 sessed himself so fully of the literature that bore upon the 
 case that but few lawyers were so well posted as he be- 
 came in that special department of professional study. 
 The money that his legal skill had won, his taste knew 
 how to use ; and it took form in the beautiful chapel of 
 the college. We know what capacity he showed later for 
 original investigation in history; while an article on Goethe 
 in the " Literary and Theological Review" shows that if he 
 had been content to be a mere literateur, as such he would 
 have been unsurpassed. 
 
 In all his tastes and habits of mind he was a conserva- 
 tive. Conservatism may be of three forms. It may be an 
 instinct of the nature that shrinks from change; it may be 
 
LEONARD WOODS. 
 
 19 
 
 a matter of sentiment, or it may be the result of thought. 
 In the conservatism of our president were united these three 
 types. He shrank from change; but this instinct enlarged 
 itself into a sentiment. His affection clung to the past and 
 his imagination adorned it with its choicest flowers. But 
 this sentiment was thoroughly self-conscious. He knew 
 just what it was that he loved and honored in the past ; 
 what it was that it possessed but which We have lost. He 
 believed in progress and reform ; but he saw the peril that 
 there is in laying rash and irreverent hands upon forms of 
 faith and political institutions, whose very existence is a 
 presumption in favor of their substantial worth.* 
 
 What it was that he chiefly reverenced in the past, his 
 Inaugural has shown us. The past had faith. It had faith 
 in God and in the universe as filled with his wisdom. It 
 had faith in the institutions of society, in the church, the 
 State, and the family, as divinely appointed. We have 
 science ; but science without faith, a godless science, he felt 
 was unworthy of the name. 
 
 It does not follow from this that there has been no gain 
 in history. The man has much that the child has not. We 
 could not be children again if we would, and we would 
 not if we could ; but there is something in the child that is 
 worth more than all the gain of manhood. If this be kept 
 at the heart of all, then there has been real advance ; but if 
 it be lost, all is lost. If this has been lost, the man must 
 become again as a little child and enter thus afresh the 
 kingdom of heaven. Such was the view that our president 
 took of the past in its relation to the present. 
 
 He honored the Catholic church. He honored it, because 
 for centuries it alone had represented the highest spiritual 
 faith. He honored it because it uttered the fullest and 
 most conscious protest against the individualism of our 
 
 * See Lit. and Theol. Rev. ; vol. 11, pp. 344, 522 and 706. 
 
20 PROF. EVERETT'S DISCOURSE. 
 
 day; because it embodies in itself ihe two forms of authority 
 which he reverenced: the authority of revelation and that 
 of historical development. He loved, too, its pomp of ser- 
 vice. It may be asked, as it was often asked, " Why was 
 he not, then, a Catholic ?" It would be sufficient to suggest 
 the common sense reply, that because he admired certain 
 principles in that church it does not follow that its whole 
 doctrine and method would have been acceptable to him- 
 The question, however, admits of a more definite answer. 
 
 He believed that we are largely the products of the past, 
 that our beliefs and our position in the world are largely 
 determined for us in advance. It is not for us to settle, each 
 one for himself, the great questions whose answer is shaped 
 in the course of ages. The fancy that we can do this is one 
 of the marks of our modern individualism. He believed 
 that the struggle to do this is in vain. When we fancy that 
 we are settling for ourselves the vexed questions of the uni- 
 verse, the answer that we give is not the voice of the abso- 
 lute reason, but of our own caprice, or prejudice, or even, 
 sometimes, of our self-interest. He felt that he belonged 
 where he was placed, that he owed a sacred allegiance to 
 the church of his fathers. Should he desert this and seek 
 for himself a church, he would be himself an illustration of 
 that individualism from which he shrank. He was then 
 honestly, unswervingly and contentedly a Congregationalist 
 of the old New England type. 
 
 Of course, all this reasoning about authority holds good 
 only so long as one is at ease under the authority. It is 
 like the belief in the divine right of rulers, which is apt to 
 lose its force with a change of dynasty. Had our president 
 cherished a single real doubt in regard to any one of the 
 fundamental doctrines of his church, all his fine reasoning 
 would have gone to the winds. He would have been driven 
 out of it by that obligation higher than all others, that of 
 absolute sincerity. But so far as the Orthodox creed is 
 
LEONARD WOODS. 21 
 
 concerned, he believed more rather than less than those 
 about him. His orthodoxy was of the older and higher 
 type, and was never, I believe, seriously questioned. 
 
 Those who ask why he was not a Catholic, fail in another 
 point to understand him. One thing that he loved in the 
 old Catholic church was its catholicity. The faith in the 
 one church was strong within him. "The churches," once 
 said a student in the recitation-room. The president pleas- 
 antly corrected him, saying, "Not k the churches,' but 'the 
 church'." The church of which he dreamed had no longer 
 an embodiment in the external world. The early christians 
 were wont to compare the church to a ship. The vessel 
 which bore the hopes of humanity had suffered partial 
 wreck. Those who had been united beneath its flag were 
 scattered. Some had taken boats ; some had made for 
 themselves rafts. Those who stood by the old ship were 
 but a fragment like the rest. Had he gone back to them 
 he would have passed from one limitation to another; and 
 limitation was precisely what he was longing to escape. 
 
 I think that he was fundamentally a poet. At least, he 
 had in regard to whatever interested him an ideal of perfec- 
 tion, of wholeness, to which it was his longing to attain. 
 This made itself felt in his ecclesiastical relations. The 
 member of a sect, he longed to escape from its narrowness 
 and feel himself a member of the whole. Had he been 
 born a Catholic, a Catholic he would doubtless _have re- 
 mained, as how many of us would not; but he would have 
 been, I think, a more troublesome Catholic than most of us. 
 He would still have stretched beyond the conditions in 
 which he found himself toward the completeness of the 
 whole. The ecclesiastical unity which he loved in the 
 past, he knew could not furnish the type for the future. 
 The differences that have been developed cannot, suddenly 
 at least, be done away. The spirit and methods of the 
 " United Brethren," suggested to him, at least at one time, 
 
22 PROF. EVERETT'S DISCOURSE. 
 
 the nearest approach to the manner in which ecclesiastical 
 unity could now be possible.* He had in his thought the 
 ideal of a union in which the denominations that are in 
 substantial agreement should each be true to its own con- 
 victions, and yet co-operate with others as parts of one 
 common church. 
 
 While he cherished such ideals, he was not a man to 
 waste his life in idle regrets and longings. As he repro- 
 duced in his own nature the reverence, the faith, the loyalty 
 which he honored in the past, so he anticipated in his own 
 heart the ideal church of the future. True to his own be- 
 lief, and glorying in it, true also to his own church, he yet 
 took into his loving sympathy churches which were most 
 widely separated from his own. Sectarian bitterness was 
 his abhorence. The introductory article to bis Review is 
 very suggestive on this matter. He first urges the impor- 
 tance of the doctrines of Christian faith ; then growing 
 more earnest, he urges the importance of defending these ; 
 then he speaks of the spirit in which this should be done, 
 and rises to the climax of his eloquence in denouncing sec- 
 tarian harshness and bigotry. 
 
 We have seen his feeling towards the Catholic church. 
 He took much interest in the old Catholic movement in 
 Europe. He loved and honored, also, in a special manner, 
 the Episcopal church. Notwithstanding radical differences 
 in belief, he could take pleasure in the genial breadth of the 
 Unitarian, and all the while he could remain true to his own 
 position. Of course, he was misunderstood. Some mem- 
 bers of other churches believed that at heart he belonged 
 with them; members of his own doubted whether he be- 
 longed to them. Some, in despair of anything more fitting, 
 marked him as probably a Jesuit in disguise. So rare, so 
 
 * Lit. and Theol. Rev., vol. Ill, pp. 140, 311 and 596. Compare, in regard to the 
 whole subject, vol. IV, p. 253. 
 
LEONARD WOODS. 23 
 
 difficult to comprehend, is a simple life of mingled breadth 
 and earnestness. 
 
 What added to the difficulty of understanding him, was 
 the fact that he reached and held his views by methods of 
 his own, at least by methods not common in our age. He 
 would express an opinion, and people would argue, " He 
 who believes this ought to believe also this and that." — ■ 
 They would construct a system for him. They would put 
 him in their cabinets, classified and labeled according to 
 their taste. I will give one or two examples of cases in 
 which such mistakes might have occurred, to illustrate 
 the manner in which such mistakes did occur. He had 
 once been reading an article that sought to prove that the 
 texts which are supposed to establish the doctrine of the 
 Trinity had been misinterpreted. He not only praised the 
 article to me, but he said that it was wholly correct. Here 
 would have been an opportunity to show a case of double 
 dealing. Either he was a Unitarian, professing to be Trin- 
 itarian, or he was a Trinitarian wanting to appear for the 
 moment as a Unitarian ; but he added at once, "The dogma 
 of the Trinity does not rest on such arguments as are re- 
 ferred to here." Later in his life he was found by a grad- 
 uate engaged in historical investigations. He looked up, in 
 his pleasant way, and exclaimed how pleasant it was after 
 all the uncertainties of metaphysical speculation, to find 
 oneself on the firm ground of history. This might have 
 been understood as implying doubt in regard to what he 
 had held most strongly; but he would have spoken thus 
 of philosophy at any time. He believed that Divine reve- 
 lation on the one hand, and the human heart on the 
 other, furnish the only solid basis for belief. Out of the 
 heart grow creeds and institutions. Philosophy has its 
 rightful place when it bases its systems upon it. When it 
 seeks to lay foundations of its own, it lays them in the 
 clouds. 
 
24 PROF. EVERETT'S DISCOURSE. 
 
 The love of completeness, of which I spoke, followed 
 him everywhere. Nowhere could he rest content in what 
 seemed to him a partial statement. In regard to methods 
 of reform, this tendency showed itself. When he heard the 
 shrill treble of the popular chant, he could not join in that, 
 but could only utter the complemental bass. Those who 
 had more ear for difference than for harmony could find 
 in him only an opponent. Never would he keep back a 
 thought or a feeling lest it should make him unpopular. 
 While he was gentle, he was also fearless. 
 
 I remember one of those marvellous Baccalaureates in 
 which he urged the importance of "duties of imperfect obli- 
 gation." He seemed to place honor above duty. He glo- 
 rified the lie of Desdemona as better than a truth. Of 
 course, this called forth a storm of criticism. Not only did 
 this doctrine endanger all morality, but especially was this 
 glorification of honor dangerous in the presence of college 
 students. But some years after, when he had occasion to 
 repeat such an address, he selected this. Again was honor 
 magnified, and the lie of Desdemona pronounced better 
 than a truth. The. same tendency was illustrated in the 
 temperance movement. This was one that engaged his 
 most earnest sympathy. But he could not place the occa- 
 sional drinking of wine among the things wrong in them- 
 selves, and he could not make of total abstinence anything 
 more than a practice temporarily expedient. Thus many 
 placed him among the opponents of this reform which he 
 had so much at heart. 
 
 He was very patient under misconception. If a word 
 could explain his course, that word he often had to be urged 
 to speak, often he would not speak it. 
 
 It is sometimes wondered why, with all his learning and 
 genius, he has not left more permanent works behind him. 
 Perhaps a native indolence, especially physical indolence, 
 had something to do with this. But the traits we have 
 
LEONARD WOODS. 25 
 
 been considering, I believe had also much to do with it. 
 His idea of perfection was so high that he was critical with 
 himself. It was not that he would not, he could not, do any- 
 thing that was incomplete. Our rough-and-ready American 
 ways he could not conform to. Then, too, he lacked the 
 spur of ambition. As he would not put himself out of his 
 way to avoid blame, neither would he to win praise. He 
 was the most modest and at the same time the most self- 
 contained of men. Perhaps, also, the isolation of his posi- 
 tion had much to do with this lack of outward activity. 
 He scorned our modern individualism ; but, whether in refu- 
 tation or confirmation of his theories I know not, there are 
 few men more individual than he was. Even Emerson does 
 not exceed him in this respect. So individual was he that 
 he stood alone, with perhaps none wholly to sympathize 
 with him, with few even to comprehend him. His individ- 
 uality was largely in his universality, it is true, yet none the 
 less did it separate him from those about him. This indi- 
 viduality he prized. Nothing did he find it so hard to for- 
 give as the attempt to convert him to any other form of 
 faith. He would sympathize with you, but you must not 
 lay hands upon him. He would work with you, but it 
 must be in his own way. As he was situated, he may have 
 felt that he could not speak for himself alone, and thus 
 kept silent. Whatever may have been the reason, he ap- 
 peared little before the public in the way of authorship or 
 speech. 
 
 But there was a duty to which he devoted himself with 
 all the more earnestness. This was his work as president. 
 In this, all his characteristics found their best expression. 
 Though he would gladly have made more marked the 
 religious aspect of the college, extending its religious ser- 
 vices and adding to them a greater pomp of worship, yet 
 in what concerned the business of education he was as truly 
 in advance of his times as in certain speculative opinions 
 4 
 
26 PROF. EVERETT'S DISCOURSE. 
 
 he may have seemed behind them. It is an easy thing, now 
 that the liberal position of the college is established, to say 
 that a man's fitness to teach any branch of secular learning 
 does not depend upon his theological belief; yet the appli- 
 cation of this principle to the management of the college 
 caused one of the hardest and most painful battles which 
 our president was called to fight. 
 
 It was, however, in his direct relations with the students 
 that his character showed itself in its most pleasing light. 
 When he was called to his office there arose in his mind 
 the ideal of a college president. It was not that of the con- 
 ventional president, not that perhaps of those who called 
 him to the place. He believed that in every young man's 
 heart is a principle of honor. If that can be touched the 
 young man is safe ; if it is not, no matter how correct his 
 course, his education is a failure. Two things he may have 
 learned from his own president, Dr. Nott, namely, distrust 
 of what is technically known as college discipline, and faith 
 in personal influence. His views became, enlarged and con- 
 firmed by his knowledge of the methods used in the Jesuit 
 college at Rome, which was thrown freely open to his in- 
 spection, and by his observation of the methods employed 
 at Oxford. Yet his course was so much the expression of 
 his own nature that we need hardly look abroad for its 
 source. 
 
 We have already seen one or two examples of his 
 method. Others may be given. It had once been the habit 
 of the students to have a bonfire at the end of the Fresh- 
 man year. This had been forbidden by the Faculty, The 
 fire would, however, be lighted; the Faculty would turn out 
 to arrest the offenders. There would be a chase among 
 the pines, highly amusing no doubt to the boys, but neither 
 dignified nor wholly safe for the professors. The president 
 adopted a new policy. There was nothing wrong, he 
 thought, in a bonfire, but there was a little danger. He 
 
LEONARD WOODS. 
 
 27 
 
 learned the names of the committee of students having the 
 thing in charge; he sent for them, and made them respon- 
 sible for its proper and safe management. The fire was 
 lighted, but a large part of the fun was gone. There re- 
 mained, indeed, the excitement of rivalry between one class 
 and another; but when this could be carried no further, — 
 for there is a limit to the height to which tar barrels can be 
 conveniently piled, — the practice was, at least for a season, 
 dropped. Many will remember the "college training." At 
 that time such fantastic shows had more novelty than now. 
 Here, too, instead of fighting against a thing that seemed 
 to him harmless, the president contented himself with see- 
 ing the commander-in-chief, and making him responsible 
 for the propriety of the parade. At one time he joined with 
 certain students of intemperate habits in taking the pledge 
 of total abstinence for a period extending over their resi- 
 dence at college. Thus by tact, by personal influence, did 
 he accomplish results which the clumsy methods of ordinary 
 college discipline were wholly unable to reach. Many to- 
 day are grateful to him for what they have been and still 
 are. He was very sympathetic with the peculiar circum- 
 stances of college life. He distinguished in his heart be- 
 tween depravity and the love of fun. He was always 
 straightforward. I think no student ever suspected him of 
 double-dealing. He knew how to meet the young men. 
 He had a quick wit, that with a word would show up the 
 folly of their excuses. He had a dignity that made itself 
 always felt. I think that no student was ever asked to sit 
 down in the president's college room, and no student ever 
 felt himself aggrieved by the neglect. He said once, that 
 every act of college discipline hurt him more than it did the 
 student. The student felt this. Of course, the danger was 
 that he would err on the side of leniency. I would not 
 affirm that he never did this. I can only say that the more 
 closely I was able to study his methods, the more did I 
 
28 PROF. EVERETT'S DISCOURSE. 
 
 admire them. When a case was to be worked up, his legal 
 powers guided him to the truth. When he felt that disci- 
 pline should be enforced he was firm. But he loved better 
 to save a man than to punish him. 
 
 I think that under President Woods, Bowdoin College 
 offered means of education in some respects unequalled in 
 the country. Students found themselves at once in the 
 presence of a culture that might have been the product of 
 the best universities and the most polished courts of the old 
 world. They received from their president an influence such, 
 as has been well remarked, men go abroad to seek, such as 
 breathes in the aisles of old cathedrals. They learned from 
 him what reverence means, and loyalty. They learned that 
 society is not a mere human invention. They felt the 
 divinity that is behind the family and the State. 
 
 His private influence was made powerful by the genius 
 that made itself felt in his public addresses. None who 
 ever heard them will forget his Baccalaureates. They were 
 given without notes, generally in the gathering twilight. — 
 As the shadows fell, the arches of the church seemed to 
 rise and to dilate, while the rich music of his voice and the 
 thoughts that he uttered, more rich and mellow even than 
 it, all united to place the listener in a world which was very 
 foreign to our every-day life, and from which he could not 
 fail to go forth quickened and elevated. 
 
 As a teacher he had charge of the studies relating to 
 morals and religion. His exercises formed a fine mental 
 drill for the students, and interested many of them in these 
 high themes of thought. He sometimes held a Bible class 
 for such students as might care to attend, on Sunday, in his 
 room. He also conducted evening prayers at the college 
 chapel. 
 
 He was very faithful and regular in his college duties. 
 That he might be within easy call, should he be needed, 
 he never went farther from home than Portland during 
 
LEONARD WOODS. 29 
 
 term time, and was rarely, if ever, absent from his appointed 
 place. 
 
 The students brought to their president a chivalrous love 
 and reverence that I think rare. When in after life they came 
 into relations with him, they sometimes expected the illusion 
 to be done away. But there was no sham or tinsel about him. 
 The more closely they knew him the more did they admire 
 the wealth of his resources and the beauty of his spirit. 
 
 But at last there came that terrible moment in our coun- 
 try's history. The nation was under martial law. Hearts, 
 also, were under martial law. Our president having little 
 faith in the power even of college discipline, shrank from 
 the bloody discipline inflicted by the nation. He did not 
 believe that hearts could be won and patriotism created by 
 the bayonet and the cannon. Whatever may have been 
 the causes that influenced him, and whether his reasoning 
 were right or wrong, you may be very sure that his motives 
 were as patriotic as those of any who joined most eagerly 
 in the great impulse of the moment. Our president felt, 
 doubtless, that he stood, as he so eloquently described Web- 
 ster as doing, when changing front he faced " a sturdy and 
 multitudinous Northern constituency." He stood as firmly 
 and fearlessly as Webster, and like him he found himself 
 separated from some most dear to him. His influence was 
 for the moment lessened. He felt that the battle he was 
 waging against a narrow interpretation of the denomina- 
 tional position of the college, could be better carried on by 
 other hands. 
 
 In 1866 he resigned the office he had held so long and so 
 honorably. This step, I may remark, he had for some time 
 been intending to take so soon as he could do it without 
 injustice to himself and to his work. He went forth to new 
 triumphs. Never before did his spirit show itself in its full 
 beauty. No word of jealousy ever escaped his lips. To his 
 successors he was all kindness and helpfulness. He rejoiced 
 
30 PROF. EVERETT'S DISCOURSE. 
 
 in their successes, and sorrowed in their trials; and if they 
 were criticised he defended them. He won to himself the 
 hearts that had been most estranged. 
 
 He found occupations that were most congenial to him. 
 He was made a delegate to the Democratic Convention at 
 Philadelphia, and one of its vice-presidents. This was an 
 experience very novel to him, and one which he greatly 
 enjoyed. 
 
 He had long been interested in the work of the Maine 
 Historical Society, and now this engrossed a large part of 
 his strength. In 1867, as he was preparing for another year 
 abroad, he received a commission from the State authoriz- 
 ing him to procure materials for the early history of Maine. 
 The same charm that opened hearts and homes to him on 
 the occasion of his first visit, opened to him now the treas- 
 ures that he sought. Of the results of this commission, 
 one was a work of the late Dr. John G. Kohl, of Bremen, 
 which was published as the first volume of the " Documen- 
 tary History of the Maine Historical Society." He also pro- 
 cured a copy of an important unpublished work of Richard 
 Hakluyt. On his return he attended to the publication of the 
 first named of these works, and after that he devoted him- 
 self to preparing an introduction and notes to the second. 
 
 I like to think of him as engaged in these historical labors. 
 His conservative instincts and his love of authority, were 
 satisfied. He was brought into congenial relations with 
 others of like spirit with himself, working with them for a 
 common end and by common methods. 
 
 His preparations for the publication of his foreign prize, 
 it is supposed were nearly completed, when a large part of 
 his results was suddenly lost in a misfortune which broke 
 up the entire course of his life. He had just built for him- 
 self a new library. It was fitted up with all the elegancies 
 and conveniences that he could desire. For the first time he 
 had all his books about him. Suddenly, in January, 1874, 
 
LEONARD WOODS. 31 
 
 this took fire, probably from the wadding of a gun carelessly 
 fired in the neighborhood. It was wholly consumed, and 
 with it nearly all his books and papers. Happily, the pre- 
 cious Hakluyt manuscript was elsewhere. 
 
 Our president, as we know, was very conservative in his 
 nature; but by this accident all those lines of activity that 
 bound him to his past were broken. The books that he had 
 studied, the works upon which he was engaged, the mate- 
 rials he was collecting towards the life of his father, and in 
 connection with this towards the early history of the Sem- 
 inary at Andover, his unfinished historical work, all disap- 
 peared at a flash. By a strange irony of fortune, this most 
 conservative of men found himself suddenly, in his advanced 
 years, starting afresh, " a seeker with no past at his back." 
 He had already felt premonitory symptoms of the disease 
 which was to shadow his later days, and I think that after 
 this fire he was never wholly what he was before. Not, 
 however, till June, 1875, did he receive the first of those 
 shocks that were to batter down his life. Henceforth the 
 slow beclouding of his faculties reminds us of the gradual 
 settling down of the mist about some mountain height. — 
 The clouds lift a little now and then, and reveal a grassy 
 slope or a rocky precipice, and then sink again deeper and 
 darker than before. 
 
 He had never been married. His home at Brunswick 
 had given him both comfort and rare companionship. Now 
 in his shattered health it extended to him the tenderest and 
 most watchful care ; until a sister in Boston claimed her 
 nearer rights, and took him to the guardianship and the 
 affection of her home. 
 
 The change that was taking place with him seemed 
 rather a beclouding than a loss. It was sad to see him, to 
 whom language had been a willing slave, trying in vain to 
 summon to his aid the most common word, looking help- 
 lessly to the affection that had provided all else for him, as 
 
32 PROF. EVERETT'S DISCOURSE. 
 
 if that could divine and bring to him the phrase he sought; 
 but this command of language seemed long his greatest 
 difficulty. 
 
 He loved to meet his friends and talk with them. 
 Nearly to the last he loved to listen to reading. He would 
 follow it intelligently ; would correct the pronunciation of 
 foreign words and define them; and would explain the 
 meaning of theological terms that might occur. His spirit^ 
 except for a brief period after his first attack, was as sweet, 
 as loving, and as tractable as that of a child. 
 
 On the last Sunday of his life his words showed that he 
 knew what was before him, and that he longed to cling till 
 the last to the human companionship he loved. He repeated 
 after loving lips the prayer of his childhood, and the sacred 
 offices of the church. The next day his laugh was heard 
 once more, in its old sweetness, and on the third, Tuesday 
 December 24th, 1878, he died. Just at the last the clouds 
 that had been settling about his spirit lifted for a moment, 
 and his features shone with that strange after-glow that 
 sometimes brightens the faces of the dying when all 
 earthly light has passed. Then the mists sank more thickly 
 than before, and their shadows deepened into the night of 
 death. A simple burial service at Andover, where his body 
 rests, ended his earthly history. 
 
 Such was our president, as nearly as I can picture him, 
 in his character and in his life. Can we call his a success- 
 ful life? If he had been less endowed, we should not hesi- 
 tate in our reply. His life itself would, for many, be enough. 
 He occupied honorable positions in the world. He received 
 the highest college dignities. Harvard gave him her doctor- 
 ate of Divinity in 1846; Bowdoin her doctorate of Laws in 
 1866. He lived an honored and useful life. But we think of 
 these superb talents, of which achievement is the only fitting 
 crown. We think of his precocious literary and theological 
 accomplishments, and then wonder that so little remains to 
 
LEONARD WOODS. 33 
 
 us. We have one volume, — a translation, — a few scattered 
 articles, two or three pamphlets, the eulogies on Webster 
 and on Cleaveland, each perfect in its way, but these are all. 
 Can we then grant to this life the final glory of success? I 
 answer, Yes. Of all the gifts with which a man may be 
 endowed, the best is that mysterious something that we call 
 personality. Even though the shelves of the libraries may 
 groan with a man's printed works, we regard this as worth 
 more than all. This highest gift of God to man our presi- 
 dent possessed. It might have won him an honored place 
 among the most brilliant circles of Christendom. This gift 
 he used not for himself. He consecrated it to the one am- 
 bition of his life. This ambition was to quicken what was 
 best in the hearts of the young men entrusted to his care. 
 Once, after a grand success had been accomplished in this 
 work, to one who had been his helper in it he exclaimed, 
 "The salvation of one of these young men repays for the 
 expenditure of very much labor, anxiety and patience." — 
 This was the one ambition of his life ; all his genius was 
 not too much to be used, as it was used, for this. He could 
 have had no higher aim, and the loving gratitude of many 
 a heart to-day testifies of his attainment. 
 
 The influence that came from him I can compare to noth- 
 ing else than that which comes from the music of an organ. 
 I do not mean that he was always grave. No one could tell 
 a story, or turn a jest with more grace and point than he. 
 Even an organ will sound light and merry airs, but it gives 
 to them all a character of its own. This organ-music is 
 something that is very rare in our life to-day. Even in the 
 pulpit, where we might expect it with most reason, we have 
 too often the sentimentality of the flute, or the harshness 
 of the clarion, too happy if it be not the noisy and petulant 
 emptiness of the drum. 
 
 There are many ways in which our president presents 
 himself to our memory. Perhaps we may picture him most 
 5 
 
34 PROF. EVERETT'S DISCOURSE. 
 
 readily in his seat in the chapel that he loved, there, where 
 most others seemed strangely modern and out of place, but 
 where he seemed in fitting harmony with his surroundings. 
 The voice of the organ ceases, he rises, and in his richer 
 tones utters the common prayer and thanksgiving. I know 
 what college "Prayers" are, at their best. Many light and 
 wandering hearts are there. But I think that heart must 
 have been very empty and very light that never at these 
 hours had any sense of the thrill and the lofty peace of 
 worship. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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