CHAPTER VIII.

JOSEPH S. BUCKMINSTER. ASSISTANT IN EXETER ACADEMY. THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. METHOD OF STUDY. -LET

TERS.

1800.

No arrangement could have been more agreeAged 16. able both to father and son than that by which Joseph was appointed Assistant in Exeter Academy. It was returning to his second home, almost again within sound of the parental voice, and to the family of Dr. Abbot, where there were friends who had cherished his tender boyhood, when, at eleven years old, he entered the Academy as a pupil, and who were now ready to encourage and strengthen and fortify his youth. He always looked back upon this period of his life as full of profitable instruction, rich in friendships, and filled with religious as well as literary associations. It was now, if at any one period more marked than another, that deep religious impressions were made upon his mind. He proposed to join his father's church, and was accepted, without any doubts of his father as to the sincerity or fitness of his profession.

'MY DEAR SON,-I proposed your desire to join the Church the last Lord's day, and if you continue to wish to give in your name as a follower of Christ, and explicitly to confess him before men, the season for attending to the solemn transaction will be the Sabbath after next. The transaction you have in view, my dear son, is a solemn and

interesting one, but it is a clearly incumbent duty, and therefore its solemnity ought not to discourage us from it, but only excite the most solicitous concern to perform it understandingly, sincerely, and with all our hearts. Give yourself up unreservedly to God through Christ, not only to be saved by him, but to be ruled by him and to be his subject and servant for ever; relying upon the power of his grace and the promised influences of his spirit to perfect his whole work in your heart. Count the cost, consider the price, and be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. If he keep you, you will stand, your own strength is weakness. Pray much, pray often, my son, and God be with you.

'Your little brother was baptized last Sabbath, to whom we gave the name of William. It was a solemn and a joyful Sabbath.'*

This is the only letter of the father's that remains during the period in which the son was Assistant at the Academy. My brother's proximity to Portsmouth, and very frequent visits to his family, enabled his father to remit that constant watchfulness of parental oversight. He had learned also to trust and confide. Confidence must be earned and won, even in the relation between father and son; and the son had now won, by his lovely and obedient life, the full and perfect confidence of the anxious and perhaps too exacting father.

Of many prayers preserved among the papers of the son, the following appears to have been written about this time.

'O God! pardon my foolish fears and my unreasonable desires. I have vainly regretted that which was not worthy

* William died at the age of ten months.

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of remembrance, I have feared other evils than that moral evil which can alone injure an immortal soul. The external circumstances of my life I leave submissively at thy disposal, for thou knowest what is best for me, but I beseech thee earnestly for that wisdom which cometh from above. O God! thou hast looked upon me from the throne of thy compassion, and the time was indeed a time of love. If the events of my life should be disastrous, if my existence should become every day less worthy of possession, if all the blessings that hold me to it should loosen and drop away, still the gift of Jesus, the hope of pardon and perfection, the least glimpse of immortality and of living in thy favor, would be themes of thankfulness which could never be exhausted. O God! should I live, may I live to thee; may I cherish every moment that passes, and consecrate it to thy honor and the service of my fellowmen. Assist me, unworthy as I am, in the performance of my daily duty. Strengthen my weakness; enlighten my understanding; direct my inquiries and awaken more and more my zeal in the search of truth. May the fear of man, of the honored and beloved, fade away before the love and search after truth, thy truth, which is the most precious thing, the inestimable jewel, before which all other things grow dim and perish.'

The personal recollections of the writer may now take the place of record and tradition. She was now old enough to be able to appreciate what she saw in her brother, and to recollect with distinctness the impression which his youthful person and his intellectual manliness made upon the circle of his friends. When the blessed day came round that brought him to the parental roof, there was seen a peculiar exhilaration, from the wrinkled visage of the old nurse, who caught him to her aged arms, to the smoothed brow of his

father, to whom the presence of his son always brought the halcyon of peace. He never praised or flattered, or showed any undue partiality, but the mere presence of his son shed a tranquil satisfaction through the whole family; and yet it was nothing that he said or did that diffused this spirit of content around. It is related of Silvio Pellico, that, when he merely walked through the wards of his prison, his presence was felt, by the instantaneous change in the aspect of the prisonres. The ferocious became human, the violent gentle, the melancholy smiled; such was the power of a beautiful nature. In my brother it was the perfect freedom and fidelity of his manners to his feelings; the transparency of thought, word, and deed; we felt in the presence of a true being; he seemed surrounded with that pure living ether, in which painters enshrine their Madonnas and Saints. There was such a peaceful unison in the beaming sweetness of his countenance and the unpretending gentleness of his demeanor, he seemed indeed an angel in disguise, come to diffuse a heavenly fragrance over the homely and common cares of our every-day life; and if there was no pause in domestic duties there was a holiday in every heart.

The reverence that he had for his father was not mingled with reserve and fear, as is apt to be the case in families educated under the severe Puritan rule; there was something so genial, so joyous, in the son, that the veil fell from the father's mind in his presence, and they met as equal and confidential friends.

A young person who was much in the family at this time, surprised at the ease with which he laid

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aside the Puritan reserve of children towards their parents, exclaimed, on one occasion, Why, Joseph says any thing to his father.' And on the principle of saying any thing, when his father informed him of his intention of marrying for the third time, he answered, 'Why, papa,' for he always preserved this childlike appellation, 'I believe you interpret the Apostle's injunction, to be the husband of one wife, as a command never to be without a wife.' His father smiled, and said he thought it a good interpretation.

The distance in years, as well as in intellectual progress, between him and his younger sisters was too great for them to feel that familiar confidence with him that he so much desired. They looked up to him as to a superior being, while he made every effort to remove their timidity and to increase their confidence in his friendship and tenderness. Every thing that he left in his humble home when he went to Exeter was cherished with miserly care, -the simple drawings and prints that he pasted on the wall of his bedroom, the chest where he kept his boyish tools; and even a small twig that he stuck into the soil, in a very inconvenient spot, was never allowed to be pulled up, and a large tree, only a few years ago, attested the careful affection with which 'Joseph's tree' had been regarded.

These months spent in the instruction of youth at the Academy he always regarded as of peculiar value, as leading him to review and fix in his mind his own early classical studies, and as giving him that accuracy and readiness in elementary principles in which the preparatory schools of the country were at that