sure, and honor us as instruments of actively promoting his glorious designs. J. EMERSON.

For some days at this period, he enjoyed uncommonly good health, religious comfort, fine spirits, and "a vigor of mind that he never before experienced;" and as a very natural concomitant for him, he made rapid progress in study. Take the following as a favorable specimen of a day's work. It is addressed to the same person as was the above.

Cambridge, July 21, 1803. Yesterday I did more than usual. Besides all I wrote to you, I attended government meeting nearly two hours, and singing school about as long; received a short visit from Miss H. Adams's father who brought me a letter—a very short letter, and I returned one about as long; read Watts's Divine Songs for children, a pamphlet of thirtysix pages with which I was considerably pleased, and read forty pages in my bible, containing a few chapters in Exodus, the whole of Leviticus, and a few in Numbers.

I cannot feel justified in withholding the following.

August 2, 1803.

Determined to spend more time in self-examination and secret devotion-to spend a season in my closet after breakfast, after dinner, and just before retiring to rest at night; besides occasionally speaking to God for assistance in whatever I may be about to engage, and giving thanks to his name for his mercies received, and committing myself to the care of the great Shepherd when I lay my head upon my pillow, and lifting up my soul in grateful acknowledgment to Him when I awake in the morning. How awfully have I neglected secret prayer! It is astonishing that God should suffer such a cold, hard-hearted, ungrateful, rebellious wretch to live. What was

Sodom's guilt to mine? What a wonder of wonders is it, that God should sometimes grant me such enlargement and divine delight in leading the devotions of others, when I am so backward to pray to him in secret, and to ask him for that assistance without which I can do noth

ing. He rewards me openly, though I so very rarely, and so coldly, and so formally pray to him in secret.

Great God, and shall I ever live

At this poor dying rate? etc.

Since I saw you, I have felt considerable reluctance to record the exercises of my mind. But blessed be God,

this reluctance has almost ceased to trouble me.

This morning I arose a little before the bell rung for prayers. What a hypocrite have I been in the chapel; and how few real petitions, confessions, or thanksgivings have there ascended from my heart to God! How beautiful is the morning! How delightfully do the majestic elms and the aspiring poplars bow their heads, as if in adoration of their maker; and how does all nature around them join in anthems of praise. O my soul, thou canst offer him a rational praise. Wilt thou, canst thou remain discordant? Will not the stones cry out and the sweet songsters of the grove rise up in judgment and condemn thee? O my God, I will praise thee in my closet, I will praise thee as I journey, I will praise thee with my heart's delight, in company of friends will I praise thee, in the congregration will I bow before my God and sing praises to the Most High. Praise him all ye lands; praise him all ye people; praise him all ye angels; praise him all creation. Bless the Lord, O my soul.

August 3, 1803.

Yesterday I derived more satisfaction in secret devotion than perhaps any other day of my life. In reading the bible, I found great delight in praying at the end of every chapter; and was surprised to find myself, each time, furnished with so good a subject from the chapter I had read, as my reading was in Chronicles.

What a deep and exhaustless fountain is the bible! The historical parts of the Old Testament, are full of instruction. The evening I spent at Mr. B.'s; and I fear not very profitably; for when I returned to my room after ten, I could not pray, I had not maintained a praying spirit.

Cambridge, Aug. 19, 1803. My stated devotions and reading the scriptures become more and more my pleasure. I do not now consider it

my duty to spend the whole day in reading the good word and prayer; but I do feel it to be my duty to devote considerable time to this delightful employment. When one season is past, I seem to long for the arrival of another. I have now determined to read eighteen instead of fif teen pages a day in the bible. At this rate, I shall read the bible four times in little less than a year. My thoughts this morning, have been engaged considerably upon lecturing youth from the assembly's catechismupon preaching systematically-and church conferences. I am determined, by the divine permission and assistance, to read the bible four times according to my present plan, then diminishing the daily portion by one half, to read it to form a common-place book-and then to spend about the same time in reading the bible and making short comments upon each chapter: and also, within, perhaps, three or four years, having read as many systems of divinity as possible, and well adjusted a plan in my own head, and purchased those books not now in my possession which I may wish to read or consult-to begin my systematic preaching. Is it not foolish and vain for me to form plans like these. O! my heavenly Father, whether I should be able to execute any of these plans or not, may I at all times devote my every talent to thy service and be instrumental of doing much good in the world. But how can one so ignorant expect to be an instrument in the instruction of others? O Father of lights! enlighten my mind and strengthen my understanding. O God, thou canst do great things by feeble means. Thou canst accomplish thy glorious purposes, thou canst perform thy wondrous works by such a rebel, by such a worm as I.

12 7. [i. e. 7 minutes past 12.] Unstable as water; fickle as the changeful breeze! What nonsense for me to form so great plans, when I do not execute those that are small and easy. It was my intention to have begun my sermon this morning to preach at Beverly the Sabbath after next. I have not even written my text. What else have I done? why nothing; almost nothing. It seems as though the evil spirit kept me from beginning my sermon. This is not the first time. It has been so with almost every sermon I have written. It was my intention to finish my sermon this week. But now it is impossible. The day is more than half spent. Government business

calls my attention this afternoon, and other business in the evening. Even if I were disposed, it is now too late to think of doing any thing at sermonizing to-day. Well, to-morrow! to-morrow! How shall I dare calculate upon to-morrow, when I have been so stupidly lazy to-day! O! my soul! is this thy diligence, is this thy zeal for the Lord of hosts? O my God! quicken me to do my duty.

From the above, it seems manifest, that he was now making a rapid advance in pious feeling as well as in knowledge. His recent devotedness to the bible and to Baxter, was doubtless one great cause of this improvement another was the solemn charge he was about to assume. The secular studies of a college course, have seldom been found congenial to piety. President Edwards and many others have especially complained of the paralysing influence of a tutor's life.

The kind of intercourse between college tutors and their pupils, so reserved, so official, so destitute of heart, is probably often found more pernicious than the nature of their studies. Both of these causes doubtless had their effect on my brother's mind, though probably less than on many others in like circumstances. He diminished in a degree this unnatural distance between him and the community of mortals by whom he was surrounded, and thus found more scope for religious sympathy; he pursued science as a guide to the knowledge of God's works; and he was also engaged, for a portion of the time, in preaching. Still, even the near prospect of a change to the happiest occupation this side of heaven, the occupation of a christian pastor, fired his soul with an ardor unknown before, while it also filled him with humility and self-distrust.

At the termination of the academic year, he resigned his office in the college; and the solemnities of his ordination at Beverly took place the ensuing month, viz. Sept. 21, 1803.

CHAPTER IV.

VIEWS OF HIS CHARACTER AS DEVELOPED AT THIS

PERIOD.

Communications from Dr. Channing-President Chapin Judge Story-Judge White-and Dr. Emmons.

I shall here present the reader with some valuable communications, for which I trust he will unite with me in grateful acknowledgments to their kind and respected authors. Desirous of minute and authentic information on several parts of my brother's life, which did not come so immediately under my own notice, I addressed letters of inquiry to a number of his acquaintances, respecting those portions in which they were conversant with him. I take it for granted, that they will not complain of me for making such use of their communications, whether by extracts or summaries, as may seem best to comport with my present plan. Of those which I shall here present, the first is from Rev. Dr. Channing, who was a classmate with him at college.

Boston, Nov. 7, 1833.

DEAR SIR,-Your brother's life was so uniform, at college, that nothing, which can be called an event, remains in my memory. His habits were so studious, that he mixed little with the class. I had not much intercourse with him. He devoted himself to the severer studies. His conduct was irreproachable, and his manners so inoffensive, that, whilst he fell into none of the more common excesses of that time, he met no opposition from those who yielded to them. I was with him afterwards, a short time, in the government of the college. He suc