Page:A Memoir of Thomas C. James, M. D. - Hodge.djvu/25

 Hewson, Parrish, Otto, James. The latter is well known to have spent much time in selecting and preparing suitable materials, although he did not frequently contribute original matter to its pages.

Such are the most important and interesting facts which we have been able to procure, respecting the public and professional duties of our late President. There is another series of facts which might be brought into view as exceedingly interesting, but which have only an indirect bearing on his character before the world. We allude to his private, his domestic history; but this is and ought to be a sacred subject, to be touched by no foreign hand. Suffice it to observe, that what Dr. James was abroad, he was at home, excepting that when in company with friends and relations, reserve would be banished and his warm, full heart, would overflow in confidential and familiar intercourse with his family and friends.

Thus blessed in his domestic relations, in his social circle, and in the confidence of the public as a practitioner and teacher of medicine, the moderate expectations of Dr. James were abundantly gratified; he had all that this world could bestow to render life happy and useful. He, however, felt and acknowledged that more was requisite to satisfy the wants of man, and he early found that religion alone can give zest to temporal enjoyments, and dissipate the dread of a future state of existence so natural to the human soul. In this state of mind, looking forward to an eternity of increasing knowledge, holiness, and happiness, he died July 5th, 1835; leaving us, his surviving friends, and the medical profession, a bright example of the accomplished physician and the Christian gentleman, who always preferred the useful to the brilliant, and who, however others may have surpassed him in originality of thought and boldness of execution, was inferior to none in that pure morality, that unsophisticated integrity, that sound discriminating judgment, so essential for the practitioner of medicine; which exalt and dignify the professor, and render him a blessing to the community.