and his child. Never had I to regret the Christian responsibility which I then assumed. Never had I to "put him in mind what a solemn vow, promise and profession he had made before that congregation, and especially before" me "his chosen witness. Never had I to "call on him to use all diligence to be rightly instructed in God's holy word, that so he might grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, and live godly, righteously, and soberly in this present life."1 From

haps physical graces, whom when He beheld, He loved him; and yet, was obliged to tell him, 'One thing thou lackest.'"

"Your

And again, St. Mary's Parsonage, Burlington, January 20, 1839. last letter called forth my deepest sympathy; for I have at times myself, been in the very state which you describe, unable to take an interest in any thing. With me it is the result of a deranged physical system, though not always. I believe myself that disgust and discontent proceed in a good degree, and oftener than we think, from the insufficiency of any thing earthly to fill the soul. We all have a longing for the beautiful, for something perfect. We all have our ideals and our idols. But they do not please us long or much. The secret is this, God made the heart for himself, and it is restless until it rests in Him. What I would advise you to do, dearest as a remedy for your ennui and wretchedness, is to seek to know the Eternal One, and to do His will. Strip this thought of all the sameness with which cant and dulness have clothed it, and you have the most sublime work that an immortal spirit can do. To know the Lord of Hosts, to make him your friend, to despise every thing in comparison with God, is not this worthy of the greatest moral and mental powers? Think not that these are penned as words of course.

truth and soberness.""

They are, the words of

1 Exhortation to the God-fathers and God-mothers, in the office for "the ministration of baptism to such as are of riper years."

that laver of regeneration,' in which he was "born again," and made the child of God, he went still forward, through renewing grace; "increasing," like the holy Pattern of all piety, "in wisdom, and stature, and in favour with God and man," till he became what you have seen and known him-and, what I have felt, with the instinctive selfishness of nature, too much for me to lose. But "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints;" and to Him who giveth all to us, it were unworthy in us to grudge even the most precious.

It was in the next year that he went to the University. The prevailing interest at Harvard is what is called Unitarianism. The prevailing influence in every Collegiate institution is too apt to be worldliness and thoughtlessness of God. And yet, through this two-fold ordeal-the one tending to undermine his principles, the other to corrupt his practice-he passed, unscathed not only, but brighter and purer for the fires. He maintained, through the whole of his Collegiate life, the character and influence of a devout communicant; having been admitted such, as he has beautifully recorded, on Easter day, 1832.2 He maintained, through his whole Collegiate life, the

1 Titus iii. 5; St. John iii. 3, 5; Church Catechism; Baptismal Service.

1 "Communed, for the first time, in Christ Church, Boston, Easter day, 1832; the Rev. William Croswell, being the officiating Priest."-Private Record.

D

principles and usages of a Catholic Churchman. He was never absent from the house of prayer on any holy day of the Christian year. And he gathered about him a little company of like minded youths, who statedly assembled in his chamber, for improvement in religious knowledge and in spiritual devotion. They were the pious Churchmen of the College, and he was the centre about which they revolved. And yet he never alienated, by his severe integrity of character, one member of the Institution. The gayest of the gay, the most thoughtless of the thoughtless, courted his society. He won them to him by his gentle, loving nature. He kept them about him by his sweet and playful, yet always sober, dignified, and instructive conversation. He commanded their respect by the vigour of his intel

1

1 His love of the University was passionate, and he never tired of writing or discoursing of the pleasures of his college life. "I still retain," he writes to his [father, New York, February, 11th, 1836, "all my affection for old Harvard, and would give all the world, if I had it to give, to be back there. In my waking dreams, and in my sleeping visions, I frequently am there in spirit-wander by moonlight about those old classic shades; pursue my former studies; and, above all, hold sweet communion with the cherished friends of my college-days. As for this unintellectual, dirty, money-making, mammon-devoted city, I dislike it more and more. Oh, for Cambridge, and its soothing, literary influences! But this may not be. And it is the student's, above all, the Christian student's, duty to improve his mind, and be contented, wherever Divine Providence may see fit to place him."

lect, and the variety and beauty of his acquirements. He maintained their confidence by his habitual selfrespect, his disinterested benevolence, his fear of God that knew no other fear, his meek, serene, unostentatious, and yet radiant piety-shining out among them, even as the face of Moses shone, when he came down from God, and yet, himself, like Moses, unconscious of its splendour. When a young member of the University, of great promise, was taken from life,' he was elected by all the Classes to deliver the eulogy. When honours were assigned to his own Class, or to the two Classes which unite in some of the Collegiate exhibitions, he always had an honourable share. And, but the other day, the President of the University, lamenting bitterly the prospect of his untimely taking-off, emphatically said, When he was here, we all regarded him as the pillar of the University. Like Daniel, at Babylon, he not only held fast his own integrity, but strengthened and brought honour on the state of which he was a member; and caused his Church and God to be acknowledged as the living and the true. Truth, my beloved brethren, is almighty power. Even in a wicked world, virtue is irresistible. True Christian piety is light from heaven; beautiful in itself,

1 Mr. Hoffman, of Baltimore.

and beautifying, and felt as beautifying, every object upon which it falls.

From the University, which he left in 1835, he came to me. As he had been my spiritual son before, so now he became, so far as nature would, my son according to the flesh. He grew up together with me, and with my children. He did eat of my meat, and drank of my cup, and lay in my bosom, and was unto me as a child. And never did community of blood enkindle an affection more warm, more true, more fond, than his for me.' He has left none behind, I well believe, who loved me with a fuller and more fervent love; and I could illy bear to lose it from the earth, did I not well believe that it now springs, immortal, as his redeemed, transformed and glorious nature.

"They sin who tell us love can die;

With life all other passions fly,

All others are but vanity;"

"But love is indestructible,

Its holy flame forever burneth,

From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth."2

From the time of his baptism, he had devoted

'Just as it would be to him, I may not here record the deep expressions of his grateful love for me and mine, in letters to his father, and his other friends. Let it suffice to say, they were the overflowing fulness, and the glowing fervour of a heart, as full and fervent as beat ever in a mortal's breast; and far outran the measure of that love for him, which overpaid itself.

2 Southey, Curse of Kehama. The whole passage is most exquisite.