Page:Transactions of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (ser 03 vol 05).djvu/72

lxii power was considerable, and be produced with ready and confident expression the treasures of a thoughtful and cultivated mind. Honor, propriety, delicacy, manliness, sincerity, candor, and refinement, were prominent features of his moral nature. His purity was that of the snow or lily, and no one in his presence ever ventured to indulge in ribald jest or unseemly remark. He was a strictly virtuous and religious man, and while he sought after the things that are true, honest, lovely, and of good report among men, strove to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with his God. Temperate, sober, conscientious, and habitually watchful over himself, while temptation was excluded by constant occupation, he had done less perhaps than most others to stain the ermine of his soul, and blunt the edge of his moral perceptions. His life has thus left few traces to be erased.

Modest and unassuming in his general demeanor, he had yet a proper self-respect, and a due estimate of his own character and position. In travelling, both in this country and in Europe, he affected a good deal of state, sometimes even visiting his plantation four-in-hand. This he did from no feeling of self-importance or fondness for display, but because he considered himself the representative of a profession, the honor and respectability of which, so far as it was in his keeping, he guarded with as much vigilance and care as he did his own. He was free in an uncommon degree from all petty pride, vanity, pretension, and conceit. Nature had given him a sound constitution, and had endowed him with good abilities which he had diligently improved; gaining, like the faithful servant, ten other talents besides them. His superiority to other men consisted in his mental equipoise, clear perception, and steady application, rather than in any extraordinary, original powers. He attained eminence less by what had