Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society Volume 3 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1859 Excerpt: ...there on the 28th of December, 1856; and then went from them and from his house, to be seen of them no more. This most imperfect outline of an uneventful life will give, of itself, some just idea of the character and qualities of the man. Dr. Lunt's devoted and pure mind was of a pensive cast, tending to deep shadow sometimes; rather contemplative than diligent, and not always kept up to the full tone of its best faculties. He was diffident till he was roused and excited; capable of more than he performed; and contented with a persevering silence in the company of others, that was in singular contrast with his fine powers of speech. And yet his time was never frittered away in indolence or the least frivolity; and the vigorous applications of his thought, though to some persons they might appear fitful, were frequent enough to accomplish a large amount, and his whole share, of useful labor. If his talent was not remarkable for versatility, and did not care to travel far beyond the soberest lines of a profession that tasked it to the uttermost, it yet went out with a marked preference and commendable success into the three different departments of philosophy, history, and poetry. His philosophic turn was specially indicated in a sermon preached at Jamaica Plain in 1843, on occasion of the installation of Rev. George Whitney, which took for its theme the Necessity of a Religious Philosophy; in his Address to the Alumni of the Theological School at Cambridge in 1852; and, above all, in his able Dudleian Lecture, pronounced in 1855. His interest in historical researches, particularly those relating to New England, is sufficiently manifest from the duty of writing this brief Memoir of him, and from the position which he held among the officers of this Society. T...