“The single-mindedness with which he gave himself to his scientific work, and the conscientiousness with which he lived for science while he lived by it, were above all praise. Eminently fitted to shine in society ... he never dissipated his time and energies in the round of fashionable life, but ever avoided the social prominence and worldly distractions which some sedulously seek....
“Nor was there in him the least manifestation of a tendency to overshadow the science with his own importance, or of indifference to its general advancement....
“To the wide circle of botanists in which he has long filled so conspicuous a place, ... it is superfluous to say that Sir William Hooker was one of the most admirable of men, a model Christian gentleman.”
Dr. Gray was appointed by Mr. Peabody himself a member of the “Board of Trustees of the Peabody Museum of American Archæology and Ethnology in connection with Harvard University” when it was founded in 1866. The Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, offering the resolutions in memory of Dr. Gray, at the meeting in 1888, says, “From first to last, as I can bear witness, he was a most faithful and valuable member of our Board; he was always at our meetings and took an active interest in all our work. In 1874, on the death of Jeffries Wyman, he voluntarily assumed the curatorship of our Museum, and did excellent service until the appointment of Professor Putnam.”
The number of the “Guardian” followed closely upon your note of the 9th instant, and I have just risen from the reading of your review of “Ecce Homo.” I knew nothing of this remarkable book, beyond having seen the title. The notice in the “Spectator” had escaped me, or rather, through a change in the order of circulation in our book club, that number of “Spectator” has not yet come round to me. But I have to thank you heartily for calling my attention to it, and especially for sending me your own published and well-considered thoughts of it. I greatly admire your analysis of the book, and what I thus learn of it greatly impresses me. I shall procure it without delay. I long, not only to read it myself, but to put it into the hands of some friends. Such a production is timely, and will be very useful. I hope the unknown writer will go on, and as he goes on bring out, in the same fresh and untechnical way, all the essentials of Christian belief. Even if he does not, it will have great value as it is; and one will be curious to see how he can fail to raise the superstructure which this foundation seems to be designed to bear. I have long thought it very important that these subjects and the whole range of connected questions need to be treated by a layman from an unprofessional point of view, and quite apart from theological language or conventional modes of thought, say by a lawyer of a judicial turn of mind, or by a physicist or naturalist, who understands and feels the scientific difficulties, and the prevalent state of mind, especially among scientific people, which most divines persist in ignoring.
