Page:Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (Volume One).djvu/49

Rh store at a distance of less than five rods from Bard’s office. I saw him constantly. His denunciations of Christianity were so violent and unreasonable that many persons would revolt at the thought of accepting his theories. He had followers, however, and the trial of Abner Kneeland for blasphemy promoted the spread of infidel opinions. I do not now recollect that I heard Bard express any opinion as to a future state of existence. In that particular he was probably an agnostic. When in later years I saw a plaster cast of the head of Voltaire at the Cambridge Museum of Comparative Anatomy, I was impressed with the resemblance between Bard’s head and that cast.

His success as a physician was due probably to his ingenuity and keen powers of observation rather than to his learning. All his faculties were active, and he appreciated the importance of the laws of progress. When homeopathy had taken some hold upon public opinion, he said: “There is nothing in it; but then it has done a great deal of good. It has taught us not to give so much medicine. We killed a great many people with medicine, but it is several years now since I killed a man.” This remark was made in 1842 or 1843.

In my boyhood the Rev. David Damon was the minister. He was a graduate of Harvard College, a man of learning, of good standing in the profession, and a satisfactory preacher. His temper was mild, and it was not easy for Bard to engage in bitter contests with him. Mr. Damon left Lunenburg about 1827, and settled in West Cambridge, where he died suddenly in the pulpit. Among the constant attendants upon Mr. Damon’s Sunday services at Lunenburg, was a blacksmith named Kimball, who was afflicted with deafness. From his trade perhaps he had come to be called Puffer Kimball. From a front seat in the meetinghouse he had ventured upon the pulpit stairs, and finally he had reached the position of stand-