some one for a place,
there he picked up a book or a set of books for some distant library. In
this way he went about doing good, and, not given to impulse, was
systematically benevolent." A letter from another hand speaks of the
clergymen whom he had put in the way of getting a parish, the youths for
whom he had procured employment--favors quietly conferred, when perhaps
the person benefited had forgotten the application or given up the
pursuit. He preserved carefully all that related to those persons in whom
he took a kindly interest. "Never," says Dr. Shelton, "did a juvenile
letter come to him that he did not carefully put away. Whole packages of
them are found among his papers; if they had been State documents they
could not have been more important in his eyes."

I have spoken of the hopefulness of his temper. This was doubtless in a
great degree constitutional, for he is said to have been an utter stranger
to physical fear, preserving his calmness on occasions when others would
be in a fever of alarm. He loved our free institutions, he had a serene
and steady confidence in their duration and his published writings are for
the most part eloquent pleas for freedom, political equality and
toleration. Even the shameless corruption which has seized on the local
government of this city, did not dismay or discourage him. He maintained,
in a manner which it was not easy to controvert, that the great cities of
Europe are quite as grossly misgoverned, and that every overgrown
community like ours must find it a difficult task to rid itself of the
official leeches that seek to fatten on its blood.

In looking back upon the public services of our friend it occurs to me
that his life is the more to be held up as an example, inasmuch as, though
possessed of an ample fortune, he occupied himself as diligently in
gratuitous labors for the general good as other men do in the labors of
their profession. In the dispensation of his income he leaned, perhaps, to
the side of frugality, but his daily thought and employment were to make
his fellow men happier and better; yet I never knew a man who made less
parade of his philanthropy. He rarely, and never, save when the occasion
required it, spoke of what he had done for others. I never heard, I think
no man ever heard, anything like a boast proceed from his lips, nor did he
practice any, even the most innocent expedients, to attract attention to
his public services. Not that I suppose