Page:Three introductory lectures on the study of ecclesiastical history.djvu/37

I] same road, who will, almost of necessity, lighten the burden and cheer the journey by their common interest in the treasures borne away.

One such has been before me in this path—my lamented predecessor.

Personally he was almost unknown to me. In our mode of dealing with the subject before us we might have widely differed. But I cannot enter on this office, without bearing my humble testimony to the conscientious industry with which, as I have heard from those who attended his lectures, he guided them over the rugged way which he had chosen for them; without expressing my grateful sense of the characteristic forethought and munificence with which he bequeathed to this Chair the valuable endowment of his library. Still more, I should be doing wrong both to him and to the University, were I not to dwell for a moment on what I have always understood was the chief ground of the respect which he commanded in this place. He was emphatically a "just man;" he possessed in an eminent degree that rare gift of public integrity and fairness, too rare in the world, too rare in the Church, too rare in Ecclesiastical History, too rare even in great seats of learning, not to be noticed when it comes before us; especially when, as in the present case, it passes away with the marked approbation and regret of all who witnessed it. In times of much angry controversy, he never turned aside from his straightforward course to excite