the age of twelve, thirteen, and fourteen. He was about a year younger than myself. HONESTY Seemed to be written in large capitals upon his face. Doubtless he was in this respect, such a one as Shakespeare would pronounce 'one of ten thousand.' Neither of us had then much to fear from any other rival. The contest was in spelling and writing. In these he won the meed and the prize. But I did not hate; did not envy. I felt no disposition to complain of him or of the teacher. I felt that he had gained every inch of advantage by fair means, by lawful striving; and that he deserved to be thus openly crowned. And I believe the whole school rejoiced to see such honor conferred upon one, who, though not a leader in sports, not eloquent, not facetious, not possessed of any special personal attraction, except that honest look, yet one who never injured them, who gave them such an example of punctuality, application, and patience, and who perhaps never received from his teacher one word or look of displeasure.

"It is worthy of special notice, that while we were thus emulously pressing towards the mark, we often aided each other in the race; and I believe neither of us ever did the least thing to retard his fellow. When our associates were engaged in sports, we were sometimes employed together, in pronouncing words to each other in the spelling lesson, each aiding his competitor to gain the ascendancy. This was done, as I trust, without the least unpleasant emotion. This mutual kind feeling, I am confident, has never ceased; though I know no reason for my special attachment to him, but his good conduct. Had he won the prize by unlawful means, no doubt my resentment, my envy, my fierce wrath, would have been kindled; and our contentions might have been almost like the bars of a castle.

"The stimulating influence of such a friend and rival, I consider one of the greatest blessings I ever enjoyed. To be seated continually at his side, sometimes above him, though more frequently below him, to see his intense application, his untiring patience, his vigorous efforts for improvement, his unexceptionable morals, and propriety of conduct-could not but be favorable to my progress. It might indeed have been salutary in a mere friend, but much more so in a rival. If I have been enabled in any

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measure to benefit others, I have probably owed it more to that boy, than to any literary teacher. Nearly similar, as it respects the feelings excited, have been all the literary competitions of my pupilage. I cannot doubt that they conduced to preserve me from idleness, from truantship, from animosity and misrule.

race.

"The effects of my emulation at college were happier still. There its influence was more energetic. I was particularly excited by the exhortation of an elder brother, who panted for my improvement. I can never forget the force with which his words dropped upon my heart. "From two-thirds of your class," said he, "you have nothing to fear. With the other third, you must dispute every inch." Kindled to enthusiasm, I bounded forward in the But it was not a race of malice. My chosen, my dearest associates were almost wholly from among those, from whom alone, as rivals, I had any thing to fear-with whom I delighted to reciprocate instruction to the very utmost. I never grieved, I always rejoiced, to hear their correct and ready answers, their fine translations, their commanding eloquence, their thrilling rhetoric, and every performance suited to awaken in the teachers the glad well done. Nor did I rejoice, but always mourned, when they manifestly failed of their wonted excellence. I do not recollect ever to have had a contention with any of them, unless the most friendly contending for eminence is contention. I never was displeased with their good performances; but only stimulated to desire and strive to do as well-if possible, to do better. Nor was I grieved or envious, when some of them, by more honorable appointments, were placed before me. If they had not surpassed me in diligence and good conduct, they had been favored with superior talents and superior health. I felt that they had fairly earned the meed they enjoyed.

"My emulation was considerably quickened by regard for a most honored father, from whose funds were all my pecuniary supplies. I wished that a good report might be truly made to him of my conduct and my scholarship; and I had scarcely any idea of scholarship, but by comparison with my fellows.

"A still happier effect, which I then most probably realized from emulation, was, that it apparently delivered me from the destructive influence of the theatre. It delivered

me when I was actually sinking in deep mire. It would have been better still, if it had saved me entirely from the polluting touch of that moral pestilence. This it did not do. With grief and shame, I must confess, that neither this, nor a religious education, nor studious habits, nor all these and other motives united, did entirely prevent me from entering that school of vice. A few times I attended. With the honest gains of a most tender father, and without his consent or knowledge, I purchased this jeopardy of my soul. This I did to the neglect of my studies, to the neglect of college exercises, to gratify a vain and wicked curiosity. I violated a wholesome law of the college, that I had particularly bound myself to keep. I sent a false excuse to my teacher, for neglecting a recitation. This was a sudden and tremendous plunge from virtuous habits, which is probably not very frequent in the history of ruin. Nor was this the worst. I was charmed, I was infatuated with what I had seen and heard. My heart was often dancing to the syren song of 'The merry, merry mountaineers.' It echoed back upon recollection, when I should have been absorbed in study. And when I consider what powerful restraints I overcame, how aggravated were my offences, I have reason for admiring gratitude, that I was not given up to my own lusts a prey-that I was delivered as from the very jaws of the lion. Of this deliverance, I consider emulation as having been, under Providence, the principal cause. By emulation, I had acquired studious habits, a relish for books, and a lively sensibility to character. These, for a time, were depressed by theatrical enchantment. But soon the glare of the stage became somewhat dimmed, these forces resumed their ascendency, and those chambers of death were forever forsaken. But for emulation, I might have gone from the theatre to haunts more infamous, and from those haunts to the eternal pit.

"Soon after that great deliverance, (probably the greatest ever conferred upon me by the providence of God,) my attention was powerfully arrested to the concerns of immortality, in the midst of the excitements of emulation, without any particular cause that I now recollect. The place of my residence was the very frigid zone of religious feeling. Not that emulation directly produced this solemn impression. There was nothing around me that was

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suited to provoke to serious emulation. And ere long, as I humbly hope, I was brought, though not in that place, to embrace the Savior.

'Thus it really appears to me, that I have derived from emulation several important advantages, which without it, I should in all probability never have enjoyed.

"In conclusion, therefore, I must be at the greatest remove from thinking it possible, that this fundamental principle of our nature is evil and only evil continually."

Those who were intimate with my brother, will recog. nize his image at once in the above extracts, and to such I need make no comment, and no apology. But to those who knew him not, I feel bound, in justice to his character, to say, that the aspect of egotism here, for which he apologises, was the offspring of a far different principlean enthusiasm in moral science, which would prompt him at any time, to subject his own character, his own heart even, to the anatomist. In the voluntary and almost too thorough discharge of the self-denying office, he has here preferred a charge against himself, of which I presume he would never have been thought guilty, viz. that of 'sending a false excuse to his teacher.' The like plain dealing with himself, is elsewhere to be met with in his writings: and were it not that this is the scripture manner of giving biographical sketches, I might be more tempted to draw the pen over such passages, pleading in my justification the old and good natured adage, Nil de mortuis nisi bonum. But were his spirit to witness the obliteration, would it not rebuke the presumption of thus marring the truth of the picture, and preferring the authority of a heathen adage to the inspired example of sacred history? I shall then let such passages stand, and shall endeavor to aim at the like honesty in what I adduce from other sources. Man must be presented as he is, if we are to instruct from real life, instead of amusing the reader with fiction.

The conservative influence of emulation, was by no means peculiar to my brother. Were it meet, I could name a very distinguished scholar at Yale, and who is now a no less distinguished preacher in one of our cities, who declared, in my hearing, more than twenty years ago, that nothing but his ambition kept him back from absolute profligacy and ruin, while in college. I could mention

many other instances, in which I have no doubt of the same salutary effect. This effect is too commonly overlooked in the discussion; and may serve at least to console us under the serious moral evils which are often found, in fact, as attendants on literary as well as political competition. Comparatively few emulous spirits, I fear, are found possessed of such magnanimity as to love a rival in proportion as his excellent qualities enforce their respect. Still it is clear that Paul would fain rouse us to a holy emulation; and it is our own fault here, as in every thing else, if our emotions are not holy.

While in college, my brother suffered much from sickness. Indeed, he was always an invalid. He also kept school some portion of the time, as in Holles, in the winter of 1796-7. Still his scholarship was respectable, as is indicated by the part assigned him on taking his first degree, viz. a forensic disputation, in which he is said to have acquitted himself well.

In reference to the terms of profound respect in which he speaks of the performances of some of his classmates, it may afford some explanation to state, that his class was distinguished by the names of such men as Story and Channing.

But a still more important topic than merely that of the developement and cultivation of his intellectual powers, now claims our attention. It was during the third year of his college course, that he hopefully passed from death to life. For several years, there had prevailed, in his native place, an uncommon degree of attention to the “ great salvation," and many, in gradual succession, had been added to the church. Here he had spent his vacations, enjoying not only the preaching, but the familiar society of his brother-in-law, Mr. S., and, as will be seen by subsequent notices from his pen, it was to these means chiefly, under God, that he attributed his conversion from sin. When he offered himself as a candidate for the communion of the church, he presented a written statement of his religious views and feelings, for the satisfaction of the brethren. Such was then the custom in that church, and such it continued till within a few years. These written statements were read before the whole congregation at the close of the services on the Sabbath, two or three weeks before the season of communion, at which the candidate