Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/656

638 As trustee of Columbia College and of Princeton, he was largely influential in giving scientific studies their proper prominence in these institutions. It was through his influence, more than to that of any other one person, that the "School of Mines" was established. He always took the liveliest interest in its progress, and its ultimate success was to him a source of great gratification.

A few years ago the botanists of New York and vicinity formed an association, to which they gave the name of the Torrey Botanical Club. The club, from small beginnings, became so large that it was thought best that it should become a chartered body, and an act of incorporation was granted, and Dr. Torrey was elected the first president under the charter. This election took place when he was too ill to attend the meeting of the club, and he never assumed the office.

When we come to speak of Dr. Torrey as a man, aside from his scientific work, we feel embarrassed. Were we to say all that we feel, those who did not know him might regard it as extravagant; and, if we are guarded in our expressions, those who knew him well might think we had not done him justice. Soon after his death, one who had known him long said to us, "He is the only man I ever knew of whom it could be said he was truly lovable." "Truly lovable" expresses his character more completely than any other words. However highly we who knew him well may estimate him as a man of science, there is something beyond and beneath this that we admire; and, when we recall Dr. Torrey, it is not as the patient chemist or the acute botanist, but as the friend. It rarely happens to one to possess the peculiar personal attractiveness that was his. There was something about him that invited confidence, and that in advance promised sympathy. When we come to analyze this influence, we are forced to conclude that it was his perfect unselfishness. It was this that drew to him the affections of persons in all walks of life, for there are few who have so many friends as he had, and we doubt that, in dying, he left an enemy behind him. A devoted Christian, he never obtruded his Christianity, but let it appear in his every relation in life. Belonging to a denomination that is by some considered exceedingly strict, he was most charitable for the opinions of those who believed differently; and, while he followed the injunction to "do good to those of the household of faith," he allowed no sectarian lines to shut others out from his sympathy and aid. His faith in Christianity was too deeply grounded to be troubled by any fear that science might lead astray. He followed science with a devotion second only to that to his religion. Knowing that all truths are compatible, and that the researches of the chemist, the geologist, the physicist, or the botanist, can never reveal any thing that will displace God as the author and controller of all, he kept up with the most advanced scientific thought of the day, and remained until the last a devout Christian scientist.