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me to bear this thought, and make it familiar to my mind, that, by thy grace, I may be willing to endure life as long as thou pleasest to lengthen it. It is not enough to be willing to leave the world when God pleases; we should be willing even to live useless in it, if he, in his holy providence, should send such a calamity upon us. O God! save me from that hour!'

The passage above was never intended for human eye, but after reading it we are deeply impressed with the manliness of his future course. It was, indeed, the most striking trait in his character. never referred in any manner whatever to his malady. It was never an excuse from any, the utmost, mental exertion. It was never allowed to diminish his usefulness, and hardly to impair his cheerfulness. Only the sister who lived with him, and whose watchful eye was scarcely ever closed, knew how often his attacks occurred, and how he shook off the languor and lassitude they left, and with serene brow armed himself for the waiting duty.

Some extracts from letters to a classmate, remain, of this period.*

'Exeter, Sept. 1801.

DEAR FRIEND, - My feelings and habits are so much changed since I wrote you last, that I have hardly one passion in common with those which dictated my former letters, except that of affection for you, which I hope to retain amid all the reverses of life. Your last letter, though couched in the gentlest language, was a severe reproach of my negligence in suffering a correspondence once so interesting to languish in suspense. But it has ever been my fault to be too much the slave of time and

*Rev. Joshua Bates, D. D., late President of Middlebury College.

circumstance, and to suffer the frequency of correspondence to abate without any diminution of regard to my friends. My last letter to you, which I have not to this day completed, I had wrought up with considerable pains. It was a summary of arguments used to confute Mr. Hume's assertion of the impossibility of proving miracles by testimony. As I had begun it as much for my own satisfaction as for your perusal, as fast as I matured a paragraph I copied it into the letter. When this ingens opus was nearly completed, as it lay loose upon my table, it was by some mischance torn and mutilated, and rendered wholly useless. About this time my mind began to be occupied with the idea of coming here, and my situation since has left me neither the disposition nor the ability to resume the subject.

'It is so long since I have made any effort in the way of composition, that the news of your having written two sermons really alarmed me. Go on, my friend, and prosper, and may the God of truth lead you into all truth, and give you understanding in all things. As for myself, I feel my literary enthusiasm abate by this change in my situation; the spoils of ancient and of modern learning are snatched out of my hands, and he who once vainly and ambitiously aspired to the name of a scholar is now reduced to teach beggarly rudiments to the child, or to hammer the higher branches into harder heads. The poor moments of leisure which I enjoy will hardly admit of any close application, and if the approach of winter does not strengthen my mind, with my body, I shall soon be obliged to look back upon my past life and say, “ Fin!” O my friend! of all the maladies of the mind, melancholy is the worst. It is at once the parent, the offspring, and the companion of idleness.

'If you ask what has been my course of reading since I have been here, I could scarcely answer, as it has been without order, without interest, and without effect. I have read about a hundred pages of Latin, about thirteen in

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Greek, and the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm in Hebrew, and consulted the Greek Testament about a dozen times. I have made out to get through Montesquieu's Rise and Fall, and one volume of Sully's Memoirs.

If possible, I will spend a day with you in the vacation, and we will see each other face to face. I love better to converse than to write. If I should hunt up the originals of my last letter, I will reduce them to some order and send them.

'Farewell! Yours, with unabated regard,

'J. S. B.'

From the above letter it appears that the change from the careless freedom of college life, to the somewhat irksome duty of teaching the beggarly rudiments, was at first not without its effect in checking the serenity of his disposition. He suffered at first from that which is always to men of rich endowments a vexing and irksome employment. But he was able to convert it into a source of mental improvement for himself, and into an elevating and satisfactory occupation.

Another extract from a letter of this period, to the same friend, follows:

'Exeter, March 1st.

Indeed, my dear friend, the circumstances of your settlement evince that you still retain some of the wisdom of the children of this world. I rejoice at it, because I think that, by being relieved from the pressing cares of a scanty subsistence, you will have leisure to devote to those pursuits which are at once the duty and the dignity of a minister. The age calls loudly for able defenders of Christianity. The wild boar threatens to tear down the hedges of our vineyard, and the laborers are ignorant and inactive; they know not how to use their tools for the culture of the vine

or the defence of the vineyard. I hope, my friend, when the husbandman cometh and asketh for the fruit, we may all be able to produce some of the richest clusters. When I think of the duties and opportunities of a minister of the Gospel, the mark to which they should press forward seems much more elevated than the attainments of many of our clergymen would lead one to expect. Let us endeavor, my friend, to magnify our office, that it may, by the blessing of Heaven, prove at least a barrier to that inundation of infidelity on one side and enthusiasm on the other, which seems to be sweeping away all that we hold valuable.

My reading has reference to the study of divinity, as far as my little leisure will admit. My principal progress has been in the Latin and Greek languages. But I have not the suitable books to prosecute such a course of study as I should wish to mark out.'

CHAPTER IX.

JOSEPH'S RESIDENCE AT WALTHAM.

THEOLOGICAL STUD

IES. CORRESPONDENCE WITH HIS FATHER UPON HIS RELIGIOUS OPINIONS, AND UPON HIS ENTRANCE ON THE MINISTRY. PURPOSE OF RELINQUISHING HIS CHOSEN PROFESSION.

1803.

In the midst of the perplexity arising Aged 19. from the father's reluctance that his son should continue the laborious charge of instructor at Exeter, and, at the same time, the mental excitement of preparing for his profession, Providence opened a way, and the kindness of that excellent relative, Theodore Lyman, suggested the means, by which he could be relieved from the instruction of the Academy. My brother had ever found in him and in Mrs. Lyman, almost the interest and solicitude of parents. He had sometimes spent a part of his college vacations, under their hospitable roof, and in the interval between his leaving college, and entering upon his duties at Exeter, their house had been to him a home in parental kindness, and far more than his own humble home, in the attractions of luxury, and the access to refined society. These excellent friends now interposed, and, while they desired that he should live in their family, with leisure to pursue his studies, proposed that he and his father should be relieved from the mortification of dependence, by the light task of