Dr. Butler, a friend of these early days, preached the University sermon on November 16th, 1879, ten days after Maxwell’s death, and spoke thus:—
“It is a solemn thing—even the least thoughtful is touched by it—when a great intellect passes away into the silence and we see it no more. Such a loss, such a void, is present, I feel certain, to many here to-day. It is not often, even in this great home of thought and knowledge, that so bright a light is extinguished as that which is now mourned by many illustrious mourners, here chiefly, but also far beyond this place. I shall be believed when I say in all simplicity that I wish it had fallen to some more competent tongue to put into words those feelings of reverent affection which are, I am persuaded, uppermost in many hearts on this Sunday. My poor words shall be few, but believe me they come from the heart. You know, brethren, with what an eager pride we follow the fortunes of those whom we have loved and reverenced in our undergraduate days. We may see them but seldom, few letters may pass between us, but their names are never common names. They never become to us only what other men are. When I came up to Trinity twenty-eight years ago, James Clerk Maxwell was just beginning his second year. His position among us—I speak in the presence of many who remember that time—was unique. He was the one acknowledged man of genius among the undergraduates. We understood even then that, though barely of age, he was in his own line of inquiry not a beginner but a master. His name was already a familiar name to men of science. If he lived, it was certain that he was one of that small but sacred band to whom it would be given to enlarge the bounds of human knowledge. It was a position which might have turned the head of a smaller man; but the friend of whom we were all so proud, and who seemed, as it were, to link us thus early with the great outside world of the pioneers of knowledge, had one of those rich and lavish natures which no prosperity can impoverish, and which make faith in goodness easy for others. I have often thought that those who never knew the grand old Adam Sedgwick and the then young and ever-youthful Clerk Maxwell had yet to learn the largeness and fulness of the moulds in which some choice natures are framed. Of the scientific greatness of our friend we were most of us unable to judge; but anyone could see and admire the boy-like glee, the joyous invention, the wide reading, the eager thirst for truth, the subtle thought, the perfect temper, the unfailing reverence, the singular absence of any taint of the breath of worldliness in any of its thousand forms.
“Brethren, you may know such men now among your college friends, though there can be but few in any year, or indeed in any century, that possess the rare genius of the man whom we deplore. If it be so, then, if you will accept the counsel of a stranger, thank God for His gift. Believe me when I tell you that few such blessings will come to you in later life. There are blessings that come once in a lifetime. One of these is the reverence with which we look up to greatness and goodness in a college friend—above us, beyond us, far out of our mental or moral grasp, but still one of us, near to us, our own. You know, in part at least, how in this case the promise of youth was more than fulfilled, and how the man who, but a fortnight ago, was the ornament of the University, and—shall I be wrong in saying it?—almost the discoverer of a new world of knowledge, was even more loved than he was admired, retaining after twenty years of fame that mirth, that simplicity, that child-like delight in all that is fresh and wonderful which we rejoice to think of as some of the surest accompaniment of true scientific genius.
“You know, also, that he was a devout as well as thoughtful Christian. I do not note this in the triumphant spirit of a controversialist. I will not for a moment assume that there is any natural opposition between scientific genius and simple Christian faith. I will not compare him with others who have had the genius without the faith. Christianity, though she thankfully welcomes and deeply prizes them, does not need now, any more than when St. Paul first preached the Cross at Corinth, the speculations of the subtle or the wisdom of the wise. If I wished to show men, especially young men, the living force of the Gospel, I would take them not so much to a learned and devout Christian man to whom all stores of knowledge were familiar, but to some country village where for fifty years there had been devout traditions and devout practice. There they would see the Gospel lived out; truths, which other men spoke of, seen and known; a spirit not of this world, visibly, hourly present; citizenship in heaven daily assumed and daily realised. Such characters I believe to be the most convincing preachers to those who ask whether Revelation is a fable and God an unknowable. Yes, in most cases—not, I admit, in all—simple faith, even peradventure more than devout genius, is mighty for removing doubts and implanting fresh conviction. But having said this, we may well give thanks to God that our friend was what he was, a firm Christian believer, and that his powerful mind, after ranging at will through the illimitable spaces of Creation and almost handling what he called ‘the foundation-stones of the material universe,’ found its true rest and happiness in the love and the mercy of Him whom the humblest Christian calls his Father. Of such a man it may be truly said that he had his citizenship in heaven, and that he looked for, as a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the unnumbered worlds were made, and in the likeness of whose image our new and spiritual body will be fashioned.”
The Tripos came in January, 1854. “You will need to get muffetees for the Senate Room. Take your plaid or rug to wrap round your feet and legs,” was his father’s advice—advice which will appeal to many who can remember the Senate House as it felt on a cold January morning.
Maxwell had been preparing carefully for this examination. Thus to his aunt, Miss Cay, in June, 1853, he writes:—“If anyone asks how I am getting on in mathematics, say that I am busy arranging everything so as to be able to express all distinctly, so that examiner may be satisfied now and pupils edified hereafter. It is pleasant work and very strengthening, but not nearly finished.”
Still, the illness of July, 1853, had left some effect. Professor Baynes states that he said that on entering the Senate House for the first paper he felt his mind almost a blank, but by-and-by his mental vision became preternaturally clear.
The moderators were Mackenzie of Caius, whose advice had been mainly instrumental in leading him to migrate to Trinity, Wm. Walton of Trinity, Wolstenholme of Christ’s, and Percival Frost of St. John’s.
When the lists were published, Routh of Peterhouse was senior, Maxwell second. The examination for the Smith’s Prizes followed in a few days, and then Routh and Maxwell were declared equal.
In a letter to Miss Cay[17] of January 13th, while waiting for the three days’ list, he writes:—