Michael Faraday: Third Edition, with PortraitGladstone, J. H. (John Hall)
Science
Michael Faraday: Third Edition, with Portrait
Gladstone, J. H. (John Hall)
Faraday, Michael, 1791-1867
"These were his words as well as I can recollect; and, looking at that
good and great man, I thought I had never seen a countenance which so
impressed me with the characteristic of perfect unworldliness. We know
how his life proved that this rare qualification was indeed his."
"Childlike simplicity:" "unworldliness." Where was the tree rooted
that bore such beautiful blossoms? Faraday had learnt in the school of
Christ to become "a little child," and he loved not the world because
the love of the Father was in him.
We have a charming glimpse of this in an extract which Professor
Tyndall has given from an old paper in which he wrote his impressions
after one of his earliest dinners with the philosopher:--"At two
o'clock he came down for me. He, his niece, and myself formed the
party. 'I never give dinners,' he said; 'I don't know how to give
dinners; and I never dine out. But I should not like my friends to
attribute this to a wrong cause. I act thus for the sake of securing
time for work, and not through religious motives as some imagine.' He
said grace. I am almost ashamed to call his prayer a 'saying' of grace.
In the language of Scripture, it might be described as the petition
of a son into whose heart God had sent the Spirit of His Son, and who
with absolute trust asked a blessing from his father. We dined on roast
beef, Yorkshire pudding, and potatoes, drank sherry, talked of research
and its requirements, and of his habit of keeping himself free from the
distractions of society. He was bright and joyful--boylike, in fact,
though he is now sixty-two. His work excites admiration, but contact
with him warms and elevates the heart. Here, surely, is a strong man.
I love strength, but let me not forget the example of its union with
modesty, tenderness, and sweetness, in the character of Faraday."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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