Tyndall climbed to the summit of the Matterhorn, ascended the so-called inaccessible peak of the Weisshorn, scaled Mont Blanc three times, and once was caught in an avalanche, riding toward death at the rate of a mile a minute. Yet he passed away from an overdose, or a wrong dose, of medicine given him through mistake, by the hands of the woman he loved most.
At one time Tyndall attempted to swim a mountain-torrent; the stream, as if angry at his Irish assurance, tossed him against the rocks, brought him back in fierce eddies, and again and again threw him against a solid face of stone. When he was rescued he was a mass of bruises, but fortunately no bones were broken. It was some days before he could get out, and in his sorry plight, bandaged so his face was scarcely visible, Spencer found him. "Herbert, do you believe in the actuality of matter?" was John's first question.
Both Tyndall and Huxley made application to the University of Toronto for positions as teachers of science; but Toronto looked askance, as all pioneer people do, at men whose college careers have been mostly confined to giving college absent treatment.
Herbert Spencer avowed again and again that Tyndall was the greatest teacher he ever knew or heard of, inspiring the pupil to discover for himself, to do, to become, rather than imparting prosy facts of doubtful pith and moment. But Herbert Spencer, not being eligible to join a university club himself, was possibly not competent to judge.
Anyway, England was not so finical as Canada, and so she gained what Canada lost.
yndall paid a visit to the United States in the year Eighteen Hundred Seventy-two, and lectured in most of the principal cities, and at all the great colleges. He was a most fascinating speaker, fluent, direct, easy, and his whole discourse was well seasoned with humor.
Whenever he spoke, the auditorium was taxed to its utmost, and his reception was very cordial, even in colleges that were considered exceedingly orthodox.
Possibly, some good people who invited him to speak did not know it was loaded; and so his earnest words in praise of Darwin and the doctrine of evolution, occasionally came like unto a rumble of his own artificial thunder. "I speak what I think is truth; but of course, when I express ungracious facts I try to do so in what will be regarded as not a nasty manner," said Tyndall, thus using that pet English word in a rather pleasing way.
In his statement that the prayer of persistent effort is the only prayer that is ever answered, he met with a direct challenge at Oberlin. This gave rise to what, at the time, created quite a dust in the theological road, and evolved "The Tyndall Prayer Test."