al community as somewhat
exceptionally distinguished.

If this harmony should ever be threatened, I could wish that every
impatient and irritable member of the profession would read that
beautiful, that noble Preface to the "Letters," addressed to John Collins
Warren. I know nothing finer in the medical literature of all time than
this Prefatory Introduction. It is a golden prelude, fit to go with the
three great Prefaces which challenge the admiration of scholars,
--Calvin's to his Institutes, De Thou's to his History, and
Casaubon's to his Polybius,--not because of any learning or rhetoric,
though it is charmingly written, but for a spirit flowing through it to
which learning and rhetoric are but as the breath that is wasted on the
air to the Mood that warms the heart.

Of a similar character is this short extract which I am permitted to make
from a private letter of his to a dear young friend. He was eighty-three
years old at the time of writing it.

"I have not loved everybody whom I have known, but I have striven to see
the good points in the characters of all men and women. At first I must
have done this from something in my own nature, for I was not aware of
it, and yet was doing it without any plan, when one day, sixty years ago,
a friend whom I loved and respected said this to me, 'Ah, James, I see
that you are destined to succeed in the world, and to make friends,
because you are so ready to see the good point in the characters of those
you meet.'"

I close this imperfect notice of some features in the character of this
most honored and beloved of physicians by applying to him the words which
were written of William Heberden, whose career was not unlike his own,
and who lived to the same patriarchal age.

"From his early youth he had always entertained a deep sense of religion,
a consummate love of virtue, an ardent thirst after knowledge, and an
earnest desire to promote the welfare and happiness of all mankind. By
these qualities, accompanied with great sweetness of manners, he acquired
the love and esteem of all good men, in a degree which perhaps very few
have experienced; and after passing an active life with the uniform
testimony of a good conscience, he became an eminent example of its
influence, in the cheerfulness and serenity of his latest age."

Such was the man whom I offer to you as a model, young gentlemen, at the
outset of your medical career. I hope that many of you will recognize
some t