Obituary.

Although it is twelve years since Dr. Peabody has had active connection with the college, the tradition of all honor and love toward him still abides with us. It was certainly a remarkable twenty years that he passed here as college preacher, years so full of lofty unselfishness and profound thought, of eager assistance and inspiring suggestion to the students that reverence for Dr. Peabody came to be a vital part of all Harvard thought.

Born in a family of culture and religious thought, he early determined to enter the ministry. He was precocious in his progress toward scholarly attainments, and was graduated from Harvard at the age of fifteen, with two exceptions, the youngest graduate the college has had.

After a few years of teaching, he entered the Divinity School, and then accepted a charge in Portsmouth, where he remained for twenty-seven years. Here he laid the foundations of his reputation as thinker and writer. He was through out his life-time a prolific contributor to the magazines, and a frequent author of works upon religious topics. His writings combine the clear, vigorous, rich and suggestive style with the power of unprejudiced, critical, mature, and even sublime thought.

That more than two hundred of his addresses have merited publication is evidence of how fertile was his mind and how ready its adaptation to every phrase of life. No utterance of his was ever barren in thought or rough in form.

He was a man of tremendous activity and indefatigable research, but his great stores of mental lore were no mere useless acquisition. All the powers and the resources of his mind were held by him as a sacred trust to aid his spiritual thought and to substantiate before men the result of his thought.

He came to Harvard in 1860, when forty-nine years of age. His reputation was established, and his powers at their prime. He was a simple, unpretentious preacher, with none of the graces of the pulpit, and, judged superficially, he was not the man to draw the thoughtless element in the college. But his greatness soon made itself felt. In his words, was a sincerity which made the students give heed. A wisdom that made them believe, and a gentleness that made them love.

Not only did his impressive sermons attract the students to the chapel, but his overflowing kindness drew them to his home. He was pastor as well as preacher The students felt that in him they had a friend and counsellor in whom they might confide and trust implicitly. Dr. Peabody was the most popular instructor of the college, and the cheers for him at class-day were always the heartiest and the longest of the occasion. Indeed even to the present time, classes whose members had never been under his instruction still cheered for the venerable doctor.

Such is the man who has passed away. As is most fitting, his funeral services will be held in Appleton Chapel at noon on Monday. Professor F. G. Peabody, the present Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, and the Reverend Edward H. Hall, the pastor of the family, will officiate.