Mr. Emerson's services are visibly commemorated by a marble tablet bearing these words:

BENJAMIN ROBBINS CURTIS, a Vestryman from 1844 till 1852, was born in Watertown, Massachusetts, Nov. 4, 1809.

His father was Captain Benjamin Curtis, master of a vessel trading between Boston and Valparaiso, who was half-brother to the late George Ticknor. His grandfather on his father's side was Dr. Benjamin Curtis, who graduated from Harvard College in 1771. His mother was Lois Robbins, of Watertown, who has been justly described as a lady of "great intelligence and the highest womanly virtues." After having graduated in 1829, he entered the Law School at Cambridge in September of that year, receiving at the same time an appointment to the office of proctor in the University. In the Law School his superior abilities were soon recognized by the professors and his fellow-students, who even then prophesied of the high career which was before him. It is related that Judge Story, then the Dane Professor of Law, said he should like to live long enough to see to what distinction three of his pupils would attain. One of these was Mr. Curtis; another was Charles Sumner; the third was a man who, by the force of adverse circumstances, was early turned aside from the course of life for which he had been preparing.

In the autumn of 1851 Mr. Curtis was commissioned by President Fillmore as one of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States,2 which office he resigned in 1857. The announcement of

1 Mr. Curtis graduated from Harvard College in the brilliant class which included Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Dr. James Freeman Clarke, Chief-Justice Bigelow, Rev. William H. Channing, Professor Benjamin Peirce, Dr. Chandler Robbins, and Dr. Samuel F. Smith. He received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Harvard in 1852, and from Brown University in 1857. He was a Fellow of Harvard College from 1846 till 1851, and also of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

2 The appointment to this high office was made by the advice of Mr. Webster, who in making the selection passed by

several eminent lawyers who had claims to his consideration, not only for their professional character, but also on the ground of personal friendship, — among whom was one of the ablest and most brilliant members of the bar of his own State, with whom he had always been on terms of the closest intimacy. But Mr. Webster acted only for the best good of the country. He was influenced in his choice by his knowledge of the learning and abilities of Mr. Curtis, and of the peculiarly judicial traits of his mind and character, in combination with his robust physical health and comparative youth, which gave promise of a long period of service.

his purpose to resign was received with surprise and regret in all parts of the country, both North and South. Those who had most at heart the integrity and honor of the Supreme Tribunal, and who were most concerned for the security of our free institutions, regarded his retirement as a public calamity. Expressions of censure mingled with those of regret in private conversation and the public press; and even those who had entire confidence in the purity of his motives and the validity of his reasons found it difficult heartily to approve his course, on account of their deep sense of the loss of his services to the country.

It happened that during the term of Mr. Curtis's service as Judge on the Supreme Bench the long and momentous struggle between the North and the South, on the subject of slavery, was fast approaching its final issue. Never had there been a period since the first establishment of the Court when questions more difficult or of graver interest were presented to its consideration, or when a greater weight of responsibility rested upon its judges, or when their integrity and wisdom were put to a severer test. The "Dred Scott case," as it is called, which became so celebrated, and was unquestionably one of the most important cases ever brought before that Court, is too well known to require more than the briefest allusion. It was that of a slave of Missouri, who claimed the right to be free in consequence of having been taken by his master into free United States territory, and of having resided there a considerable length of time. The case was decided early in 1857, the majority of the Court giving judgment adverse to the claims of the slave. From this decision Justice Curtis dissented, and gave in his opinion a most sound and masterly exposition of law and justice as applicable to the case, and a complete defence of the Constitution against the charge of a purpose to legalize slavery in all parts of the territory of the United States.

In the fall of 1871 Mr. Curtis was appointed by the President of the United States · in connection with Hon. William M. Evarts, of New York, and Hon. Caleb Cushing, of Washington to be counsel for the United States before the Board of Arbitration to assemble at Geneva, Switzerland, under the treaty of Washington of 1870. Mr. Curtis would have accepted this appointment, had it not been first announced to him on his arrival at New York from Europe, after an absence of several months, on which account, and from the pressure of duties at home, he was obliged, reluctantly, to decline it. In 1873 he was appointed by the Mayor of Boston one of five commissioners to revise the city charter.

In his pamphlet on Executive Power, Mr. Curtis speaks thus of himself: "I am a member of no political party. Duties inconsistent, in my opinion, with the preservation of any attachment to a political party caused me to withdraw from all such connections many years ago, and they have never been resumed. I have no occasion to listen to the exhortations, now so frequent, to divest myself of party ties and disregard

party objects and act for my country. I have nothing but my country for which to act, in any public affair."

In the character of Judge Curtis there was a rare combination of firmness and force of purpose with great tenderness of feeling and quick sympathies. His eyes would moisten and his voice become soft and tremulous when speaking of a friend's sorrow, or of an instance of peculiar heroism. He was never heard to speak evil of any one; and if he could not palliate the faults of a neighbor, would not denounce them. His generosity was large and free, as it was modest and unostentatious. Many instances of it have come to light from time to time, especially since his death, but only because the gratitude of those who experienced it could not be suppressed. "I have known him," said the District Attorney in remarking upon this trait of his character, "in cases where he had thought the judgment had fallen too hard upon his client, to turn and relinquish every dollar of his fee in order to soften the adverse blow, -and that, too, without a word, without any open demonstration, and probably without anybody knowing it except myself, his book-keeper, and his client." Instances of a similar nature have been brought [says his biographer] to my knowledge, which could not have come under the notice of the learned attorney.

Any sketch of Mr. Curtis would be imperfect which should fail to notice and give prominence to his religious character. The simple faith of his childhood, never parted with in youth, was retained in full strength and freshness to the end of life. Though it may not be generally understood, since Mr. Curtis shunned rather than courted public notice, this was his crowning quality, the last with which he would have parted, the strength and beauty of his character, and the secret of his success. He had a firm and consistent belief in the divinity of Christ, and therefore in the Fatherhood of God, in Providence, and in prayer. He was ready on all proper occasions to express his belief in divine revelation, and to defend it against the objections of the sceptical. In the month of July, 1874, he was seized with a complicated disorder, which after two months terminated in congestion of the brain, and caused his death on the 15th of the following September.1

The death of Dr. Peabody was followed by an interval of a little more than five years, during which this Church was without a settled pastor. The changes that came about at this time, the four years immediately before the Civil War, affecting the ecclesiastical life of our community, are briefly referred to in the succeeding chapter.2 The pulpit of King's Chapel, meanwhile, was very ably supplied; and its church life, to a singular

1 From a Memoir by Dr. Chandler Robbins in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings for January, 1878, xvi. 16-35.

VOL. II.-35

2 See post, p. 552.

8 See ante, p. 459, note.

degree, remained unbroken. In grateful memory of the ministry whose spirit survived throughout these years, the Parish caused a bust of Dr. Peabody, by Thomas Ball, to be placed in the Chapel, in the spring of 1859. The pedestal which supports it is thus inscribed:

CHAPTER XXVI,

THE MINISTRY OF HENRY WILDER FOOTE.

ENRY WILDER FOOTE, the son of Caleb and Mary Wilder (White) Foote, was born in Salem, June 2, 1838. He was exceptionally happy in home nurture, examples, and influences. His father, in a late old age, had the undivided reverence of a community which witnessed his blameless youth, his prolonged season of active duty full of beneficent service, his advancing years crowned with growing honor. His mother united, as they are seldom seen together, surpassing vigor of intellect, high culture, simplicity and sweetness of spirit and character, and equal strength and tenderness of Christian faith and devotional feeling. His grandfather, Daniel Appleton White, at once sage and saint, possessed of every trait that can adorn a Christian scholar and gentleman, bore no small part in the training of his grandson, reproducing in him his own love of learning, pure taste, delicate moral discernment, and high tone of religious principle and sentiment. Henry was fitted for college in Salem, and graduated in the Harvard class of 1858. In his senior year he had an almost fatal attack of typhoid fever, in which his mother took charge of him till she was seized with the same fever, and thus yielded up her own life after having contributed largely to her son's recovery. It may be doubted whether under different circumstances he would have chosen any other than the clerical profession; but the profound impression made by his illness and the consequent bereavement seemed to render the religious consecration of his life and his lifework inevitable. On leaving college he entered the Divinity School, from which he graduated in 1861.

Mr. Foote when he first appeared in the pulpit attracted attention and interest by his earnestness of manner, by his purity of style, and by the manifest sincerity and directness with which he addressed, not only the minds, but the hearts and consciences of his hearers. It was hardly possible that he