BV 4310 .P3 Copy 1 r 4(C mgjC^'c c «r -c< c-c <^:c«\5:cci : «kcc S^ - «LC c ca ^r ccc "XT<5 CC , *m THE WORTHY STUDENT OF HARVARD COLLEGE. SERMON PREACHED IN THE CHAPEL OF THAT INSTITUTION, LORD'S DAY AFTERNOON MARCH 23, 1834, BY JOHN G. PALFREY, A. M. PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. CAMBRIDGE: JAMES MUNROE AND CO 1834. ^ % PRINTED BY 1. R. BUTTS, SCHOOL STREET. SERMON ECCLESIASTES, II. 13. I SAW THAT WISDOM EXCELLETH FOLLY, AS FAR AS LIGHT EXCELLETH DARKNESS. After I last addressed you in this place, my friends, it occurred to me to presume upon the pa- tience with which I had been listened to, to ask jour attention, when next we should meet, to a subject which naturally connects itself with what was then under our notice.* I trust that on the distant grave-stone of one of those whom then we commemorated, is to be inscribed, among his other titles to honorable remembrance, that he was a worthy son of Harvard College, Over the other no such record can be graven. Not the green turf, — the shrine of the bereft heart's daily pilgrimage, — ¥ closed over his form, but the green wave, which in its sullen, desolate sequestration from man and his habitations, his uses, his works, and his fortunes, refuses to bear so much as a trace of human fates or feelings. Yet none the less for this, does the thought * See Appendix. 4 of him too associate itself with the subject I propose, in the minds of those, to whom, whatever they wit- nessed of worth in him, was revealed in the relation of fellow-students in this place. I invite you to accompany me in some consideration of the obliga- tions, which the wisdom we are all inclined to extol, imposes on those who have recourse to her for guidance, in meeting the claims of that situation. Besides the duties common to men, my hearers, we are all bound to such, as are incident to relations which we severally sustain. The duties of the re- lation alluded to, are capable of being defined ; and though they are, of course, essentially the same, which are incumbent on those who resort to other places of instruction, yet I would ask, for the great- er simplicity's sake, and because I am to address none but members of this institution, to be allowed to pursue the subject in the limited form in which it has been stated. I. And, first, guided by the text, which contrasts the wisdom it extols, with folly, I would treat the subject, in a few words, negatively, as was the maimer of the old preachers, showing, in a few par- ticulars, what a worthy student of this institution is not. 1. He is not a profligate. Apart from other considerations, to which I may directly have occasion to refer in a different con- nexion, he deems too highly of the rights of the mind, to be willing to submit his to the odious and despicable slavery of appetite. If any are to drudge in that ignoble, hard, and all unrewarded service, he thinks it should be such as have not had his opportunities to acquire a reverence for the mind which they so profane, — a fit sense of its dig- nity, and of the dignity of its proper pursuits. Having had some enjoyment of the vigor of a clear, sound reason, he has no notion of becoming a driv- eller, quite so soon, as licentious practices might make him. Having seen some charms in the lights which the imagination pours, he has no idea of clouding that purely radiant sun within him, with the fat, foul fumes of intemperate indulgence. Having obtained some relish for the satisfactions of a taste, ' Feelingly alive To each fine impulse, a discerning sense Of decent and sublime,' he does not mean that the grand and beautiful in nature and art, when they pass before his vision,- shall be presented to overplied, and obtuse, and vulgarized perceptions, as incapable of catching their more delicate lineaments, as a leaden surface would be of taking the nicer touches of the graver's art. He has some apprehension of the kind of work, which a calm, cheerful self-reliance was intended to do in the world ; and he will not easily be won to adopt prematurely in its place, the timid, re- sourceless, nervous debility, which, — while, varied with spasms of rashness as little respectable, it is a temper which a libertine youth is making haste to form, — is never excusable, but when it is witnessed in a palsied age. In taking such just and manly views, he finds himself here, I am sure, in very well accredited and numerous company. Without, I trust, going out of my way to form or express an opinion, yet having had some opportunity of ac- quaintance with similar institutions at home and abroad, and been pretty well acquainted with this for nearly a quarter of a century, I am ready, for one, in all times and places, to make and stand by the as- sertion, as far as such opportunities may justify it, — and that, as being within the limits of truth, — that this institution, in the respect in question, has reason to fear comparison with no other, nor with itself at any previous date within the same term of years. Reasoning back from apparent results, one might even suppose that to keep its character free from any stain of this sort, had grown up, among those who give a tone to its sentiments and practices, into something like a point of honor. 2. If the person whom we are describing is not a profligate, no more is he an idler. He will no more consent to do nothing with his time, than to do mischief with it. He is influenced by high and effectual motives to diligence. And he cannot have been long here, before he sees ample reason to rejoice that he is so, taking nothing but his present daily comfort into view. If he had begun by trying the experiment, he has found for himself, — if happily he have not tried it, he may have learned from, or observed in others, or his own good sense alone may have shown him, — that a college, after a prison and a ship, is the dullest of all conceivable places to kill time in. Those w 7 ho might otherwise help him to dispose of it agreeably, — whose society would offer some immediate at- traction, or, at all events, would afford some sufficient resource, — he sees, for a general rule, all too busy, to give any one aid in the task, so much more unmanageable than theirs, of living on without an object ; while those who are on that search for them- selves, he perceives, have, for a general rule, little capacity to yield another relief under the burden of unoccupied hours. As he has no inclination to be miserable for the years which he has to pass here, so he will give way to no inclination to be a drone. If he had no better reason for being, diligent, he would see cause to be so here, on the principle of self-defence against intolerable weariness and dis- content. The resources of the place for getting rid of one's time, are those of agreeable intellectual employment. He who would find others, will be more in the way to what he seeks, by directing his attention elsewhere. 3. Again ; the person of whom we are speaking is not impatient of authority. That there should be authority in such an insti- tution, and submission to it, he sees is indispensable to its being carried on. If it is to be, it is to be administered. If it is to operate at all, it is in such uniform and methodical mode of operation, as nothing but regulations, prescribing the course of those connected with it in all ranks, can secure. He is disposed to place a candid, respectful confi- dence in the wisdom and honest intentions of those entrusted with the devising and the application of such rules, knowing that they have been selected from the whole community, as persons competent 8 in both respects to the work ; selected by those, who in this matter represent that community, whose tenderest and most anxious cares are for its youth ; which would be more sensitive to nothing else, than to a danger of its youth being injudiciously or hardly treated. He endeavors to see, and is dispos- ed favorably to estimate, the reasons of their acts ; and as often as those reasons, understood sufficiently, approve themselves to his own dispassionate judg- ment, his feelings and determinations will ask no more, but promptly go along with his conviction. If, in any case, he fails of such satisfaction, still he does not disguise from himself that at least his judgment is less experienced, and may be less im- partial, and may not be in possession of all facts needful wisely to decide it ; and that they whose acts have not pleased him, are at least acting under influences disposing them to seek the right, because to find the right is an object intimately concerning their own interest and fame, and are certainly act- ing under a high and distinct responsibility before the public, which would not allow them in a course incapable of being defended to its satisfaction. Again ; he remembers that he came hither, and re- mains here, voluntarily, because for some reasons of his own cognizance, he has thought it, on the whole, best to come and remain ; and enjoying the privileges he sought here, he would not desire to withhold observance of the conditions, on which alone they were offered by those authorised to allow or to deny them. Or if he came hither by the will of others, and not by his own, still, coming, he re- members that he put his own hand to an engagement, by which, as a man of honor, he sees himself to be bound, in all to which its terms extend. He means that his word shall be as good as any man's. How- ever much, or however little reason he may see cause to respect other things and other people, his own word, once passed, he does respect, and he means that other people shall always have reason to respect it. 4. Though a point, no doubt, of inferior impor- tance to those which have been touched upon, still, as one of serious practical moment, I will add, while speaking of what the person under our notice is not, that he is not inclined to undertake the guidance of his own studies. He does not think it enough to plead, that he is dil- igent, but chuses to be diligent in his own way. He understands that modesty is a part of wisdom ; that, in youth or in age, there is no being wise without it ; and he is willing to suppose it probable that his own way might not be the best way to be diligent in. It would be very extraordinary, if it should be so 3 if they who had been over the same ground which he is now traversing, and much more beyond it, — who had both the lights on which he relies, and other lights which they had been longer seeking, — who were able to look back, and with the advantages of youth- ful and mature experience both, to discern the needs of the ripening mind, — the business of whose lives it was, to come to just results in the decision of this question, — were able to give him no valuable aid of the kind he may have thought of rejecting. 2 10 His choice, in rejecting it, would seem to be merely that of the navigator, who should leave behind him, at home, the charts already provided for him at great expense of time and pains, and repeated anx- ieties and embarrassments of earlier voyagers, pre- ferring to discover the headlands, and take the sound- ings, and project the charts for himself, as he went. Such a navigator might, it is true, and he might not, make his voyage safely in sufficient time ; but at the best, others would, meanwhile, have returned with their cargoes of the commodity of which he went in quest, — or, having used his time without finding his destined port, he would have to return with such inferior wares as he might have picked up by the way, — and, in either case, would lose the advantage of the market. II. Having glanced at the folly mentioned in the text, in the local aspect I proposed, let us, secondly, turn our attention to the wisdom, which, if it con- form to the condition expressed, ought to excel the folly, as much as light excelleth darkness. And here, as it would be undertaking an endless task, to enter into the details of conduct becoming in the relation in question, and as I am addressing such, as, when principles are before them, need no aid in discerning their requisite applications to practice, let me speak rather of impulses, under which the wisdom, which is so excellent, requires a person, so circumstanced, to act. And not to propose too wide a range of view, let us confine ourselves to the impulses of a just ambition for one's self, a just regard to the claims of others, and a desire of the divine approbation. 11 1. Of a just ambition for one's self. A young man, arrived at the age when he has betaken himself to someplace of public education, is capable of discerning the relations of his present to his future years. And, being capable of such discernment, he discerns that closely in proportion to the manner, in which he is using the passing time, will be the pros- pects under which he is to enter upon life, and the eventual enjoyments and consequence he may hope for in it. He knows, that his history, if by and bye it could be written, would be a profoundly moving record. He knows, that his coming experience is to be full of powerful interest. And what is to be the character of that historv, for honor or for shame — what is to be the happiness or misery of that unavoidable experience, — is a question which is now awaiting his determination. Awaiting, do I say ? No ; rather extorting his determination. Time will not stop, while he deliberates. The question is one, which he whom it concerns is even now resolving. He has no other discretion, than what respects the answer he shall give. As to the world which he is by and bye to be better acquainted with, he sees reason to give credit to his hopes, that much of the good of which experience has told, and which poet- ry, in its more natural moods, has sung, is really to be witnessed and enjoyed there ; and as to much of the necessary evil, with which, according to other representations, that good is alloyed, he is inclined to think, that often the fault was in him who found it, and that a less devious search would have been better recompensed, and that often it is the senti- 12 ment in such representations, rather than their truth, which has caused them to be made. Believing that the world has something worth having and worth seeking, he sees himself moving forward towards his place in a society, which holds out all its prizes to wise, and strenuous, and well-principled personal endeavor, — in which nothing of privilege in his so- cial relations can come to a man by the accident of birth, excepting only that wealth, which is very like- ly to do him a prejudice, by tempting him to a neg- lect of what here are more effective powers ; which there is nothing of legal institution to protect against the consequences of his own incapacity or extrava- gance ; and which, when it is superfluous, — such are the frugal customs of our society, — he can hardly find a use for, in expenses upon himself, so that, unless he be disposed to dispense it in benevolent appropri- ations, it will be only the source of just so much more perplexity and solicitude, rolling back upon him, like the 'huge round stone' of old, with its demand for another sore toil to lift it to its place, almost as soon as he has struggled through the last. He rejoices to see, that he ' so runs, as not uncertain- ly ; ' that, in such a state of things, what he most cares for, rightly striving, he will not fail to win. He sees that, in an enlightened community, prizes such as he covets are to be won by enlightened men. He sees, that, as much is expected of, so much is reserved for, and yielded to, those who have enjoyed and employed advantages for intellectual culture. For all this, more or less, he is ostensibly a candi- date ; and being a candidate, he does not mean, by 13 and bye, to be a discomfited and despised one. Whatever educated men among us are expected to be, and do, and gain, he is aware is inevitably to be expected before long of him, as one of their num- ber ; and he has a wise prospective sense of the mortification and disgrace, which would attend the confession or experiment of his incompetency. Without disparagement to other similar institu- tions of his country, it may be safely said that he sees himself here in possession of some peculiar ad- vantages ; and what he sees, others will see equally, when he comes by and bye to be more subjected to their observation, and will judge of his pretensions conformably to a standard so reasonably assumed. Is it not so, my friends ? What is there in the world before you, worth having, which, according to the measure of your respective natural powers, you may not have, if you will, using well the advantages, of which here you are possessed ; and are there not tasks of service, which others may honorably decline, and distinctions which they may honorably fall short of, which could not with decency and good credit be avoided, or lost, by us ? And further ; he who should think not at all of anything in the way of external advantage, which the stores here to be laid up in the mind may hereafter procure for him, — who should extend his view to nothing, but the private satisfactions he will always feel in their pos- session, their use, and enlargement; the heightened sense of character which they give ; the conscious elevation of intellectual dignity, and conscious se- curity of intellectual supports ■; the power which 14 they convey of always commanding for one's self agreeable employment, as well as of enlightening, pleasing, and guiding others ; the sober, sagacious, and efficient habits of mind which they teach, ap- plicable to use in all the practical business of life ; the calmness and hopefulness, with which they train one to look on this shifting scene ; in short, the wealth of independent inward resource, which they convey, to meet the exigences of our changing human fortunes ; — who that extends his view to these alone, would not be somewhat covetously ambitious to secure for himself the greatest attainable amount of that, in quest of which he is understood to have come to this place ? 2. But, secondly, it is by no means of himself alone, that he of whom we are speaking supposes he has a right to think. He sees himself here no obscure, nor insignificant, nor unrelated person, but belong- ing to others, acting under a high and diversified responsibility ; and if sense of responsibility is apt to convey a sense of character, such a sense of cha- racter he sees that it belongs to him tenderly to feel. He considers his friends. — They who must provide for him have been at great, perhaps inconvenient and burdensome expense, requiring even much economy and some privation on their part, to secure to him the advantages which here he is enjoying. They expect their reward, in seeing him come forward favorably into life, an honor to them and a blessing to others ; and of that reward he does not see himself at liberty to defraud them, or to allow it to be any less ample than the richest that he can possibly make it. And 15 other friends, who are sending after him affectionate thoughts and wishes, and looking at his progress with hope, and, — if he will allow it to he so, — with pride, have a similar, if a feebler claim, which he could not, without losing something of his self-res- pect, suspect himself to be capable of disregarding. He considers those who have been appointed to oversee and aid his studies, and he takes for granted that for whatever they may faithfully do, they look for part of their compensation in seeing that it is also successfully done ; a result which, however, does not depend on their endeavors alone, but on his endeavors combined with theirs. Money, if they had more of it, is not apt to be regarded by a right- minded man as a sufficient fruit of his conscientious pains-taking, — certainly not in a sphere of intellec- tual action ; and if, when they have honestly done their part, he has neglected to do his, and so they have no more to show for their labor, than if they had withholden it, he owns that with justice they might bitterly complain of a wrong, experienced at his hands. He considers his associates. — His society here was not of their seeking, and therefore for the conse- quences of the mere fact of having fallen into it, he cannot think of making them responsible. It is not their fault, that they are in his company. Whether it shall prove to be their happiness or un- happiness, is in great part for himself to say. He sees himself unavoidably entrusted with a great power over them. The power of communication and example are always great ; and never greater, 16 than when recommended by the attractive graces of youth on the one part, and experienced by the sanguine frankness and confidence of youth on the other. He hopes always to look back, — others have said they do so, — to the formation and enjoy- ment of college friendships, as among the happiest passages of his life ; and to the end that he may never have anything but satisfaction, — that he may never have compunctious visitings,— in that retrospect, he intends now to take care that none shall ever have it to say that his friendship was a calamity to them, but that, cm the contrary, as many as pos- sible shall have it to say, — and that, too, as cor- dially and gratefully as possible, — that he was always a benefactor to them, in respect to their principles and habits, as well as to their present pleasures. He would like to meet, hereafter, as many as may be, in the walks of life, who should have occasion to testify, that at an age when all influence was peculiarly important, they never ex- perienced any but what was good from him. He thinks of the community. — It looks on all its youth with an intense solicitude ; and it means to demand of each one of them, in good time, accord- ing to the measure of his powers, place, and ac- quisitions, — in the post of honor of a public or of a private station, — such service as, under the in- fluence of a liberal public spirit, he shall be found capable of rendering. And certainly it has not been at such pains to accumulate for him such an apparatus of means for mental cultivation, and is not at such pains, year by year, in its highest quarters, 17 to superintend their improvement and use, so that he may have their utmost benefit, — without intending to demand from him its large equivalent, in true service to all its high interests, in those select spheres of action, where man is to act most vigor- ously, widely, and beneficently. He owns some obligations to the patrons, on whose high-souled bounty he is living and learning here ; from the full-handed generosity of the prince and the prelate, the noble and the sage, to the no less enlightened and hearty, if less furnished zeal for letters, which did not feel itself too poor, and, in its poverty, would not allow itself to be too falsely proud, to come hither with its dedicated contribution of the widow's single mite. I know not which is more moving, whether the impatient anxiety of the first Christian dwellers on this soil, to provide for those interests of the mind, to which they w T ere wise enough to see that all other interests are but conse- quents and subjects, and to build a temple for learn- ing and Christianity, while as yet they had hardly built a hut for themselves, — or the filial perseverance of so many of their children in later times, evinced in the proportion of more affluent means, to sustain and enlarge the seasonable endowment; whether the far-reaching and well-provided beneficence of those illustrious friends to liberty, truth, goodness, and their race, who turned their keen eyes, and stretched their loaded hands to us across the ocean, the Hol- lises, the Holdens, and others fitly named along with them, — or the hardly but magnanimously earned, the hardly but cheerfully spared gifts, of a few shil- 3 18 lings, a quantity of cloth, a number of sheep, even a flagon, a trencher, a spoon,* by which others, in our day of small things, took care to show, that, as far as they were concerned, every man, neither ashamed to do his little, nor backward to do his much, should do his part towards the great object; — ' contributions,' well says our historian, 'from pious, virtuous, enlightened penury, to the noblest of all causes,' — and contributions, let us add, of the buried, unseen, unremembered basis, without which the magnificent superstructure would not now be standing. I know not, I say, in which of its thus varied aspects, the high charity, on which our minds are now fed, is most moving ; but I understand nothing of the constitution of that mind, which, contemplating it in either aspect, is not moved to firm resolve, that, for itself, the generosity, so de- voted, shall not prove to have been expended in vain. Such is at least the resolution of him of whom we are speaking ; and as he considers the just claims of those, to whose pious bounty he here stands so much indebted, so he considers, again, them who have pre- ceded him here in the enjoyment of the advantages which that procured, — the wise, and great, and holy, who from generation to generation have drunk in their spirits' best inspiration on this spot ; — those star- bearers on our catalogue, so many of them, if I may reverently say it, now sceptre-bearers in the courts of heaven. His thought is, that we, who have come * Pierce's History of Flarvard College, p. 17. 19 here into their place, and they who have gone higher, all make one brotherhood. We bear the name they bore. We have professedly taken up with them a common cause. We ought to be ani- mated by a common spirit. As we glory in their characters and labors, as if they belonged to us, he thinks that, if heavenly spirits may look on earthly things, they are equally intent on ours, — solicitous for ours, if heavenly spirits may be, — as if we too belonged to them. c Rapt in celestial transport, they, Yet hither oft a glance from high They send of tender sympathy, To bless the place, where on their opening soul First the genuine ardor stole.' He thinks of the posterity, which by a forward- reaching mind is always making heard its imperi- ously awful claim, in tones resounding and re-re- sounding through the dim vastness of its still widen- ing dominion ; the posterity, which influences go- ing forth from this place are undoubtedly to bless or to ban. If it be true, that, under providence, hu- man affairs are subject to the management of hu- man minds ; if it be true, that, according as they are managed, consequences worthy of serious con- sideration, pregnant with grave meaning,-will result ; if it be a fact, that over human destiny, as we call it, there presides an earthly sovereign, even principled wisdom; that truth and righteousness are the elements of public and universal well-being and advance ; if it be indubitable, that truth and righteousness, if they have any dwelling, must 20 dwell in individual minds and hearts ; and if it be true, that educated men are able to do something to push on their empire, and attract them worshippers ; — then it is true, that there is something, which each and every educated man ought to look upon posterity as imploring at his hands. If it be true? That which was once future is now history, and it has written down its answer to that question. It has record- ed, that it is true. All which ever has been worthi- ly done, was once to be done ; and unless they, who have done it, had given the heed, of which I am speaking, to the demands which the future was making on them, accomplished it never would have been. We, my friends, have much to do in this way, if we would not shame our forerunners here. What this our country has done for the cause of man, others might much better estimate ; I presume not to have a judgment on it. But, of what it has done, more or less, 1 venture to ask your attention to the inquiry, how much had its germ and origin at the spot where we stand ; and to suggest, that if we, of this college, mean to endeavor to do, for the future, anything like what was done, by our prede- cessors of this college, for what is past to us, but was future to them, we have taken no small work in hand. ' If I am able to judge,' said, at the begin- ning of the last century, a clergyman of the neigh- boring city,* than whom the institution never had a more serviceable friend, — ' if I am able to judge, no place of education can well boast a more free air than our little college may ; and when I visited the famous universities in England, I was proud of my * Dr. Colman. 21 own humble education here in our Cambridge, be- cause of the Catholic spirit I had there breathed in.' And the fruit of that discipline of leading minds had made itself acknowledged, when an English states- man, in recent years, declared that the so early es- tablishment of this college hastened the American revolution half a century. The remark was strong ; but let him who would gainsay it, look into our co- lonial history, and see where he will find his mate- rials for doing so. — A political revolution is a tangi- ble thing, and its causes are capable of scrutiny and estimation. Not equally so are many other things and events, intimately concerning the honor and welfare of a nation or an age. But let any one undertake, in the way of cause and effect, to connect any de- partment of what belongs to the prosperity and dig- nity of the society in which we live, with influences which have gone forth, in time past, from this spot, he will find, on the most cautious calculation, that if he does not mean to be recreant to its ancient fame, he has something else to do besides fold his arms, and allow posterity to take care of itself. 3. I have been led so unexpectedly far by this topic, that I have left myself no time to treat the last, on which it was my purpose to enlarge. I remember, however, that unlike others, which have been now before us, it is constantly receiving our attention in some of its forms, and that much of what has now been said, in other connexions, has a bearing upon this. I must content myself with merely stating some heads of remarks, which I had designed to make, in the place of pursuing them. 22 The person, of whom we are speaking, will go about the duties of the relation which he sustains, under the impulse of the fear of God, first and mainly, because he knows, that nei- ther for himself nor for any other human being, where he is nor elsewhere, in youth nor age, in time nor eternity, is there any hope of happiness, except in the culture, and the consequences of the culture, of that sentiment ; but, on the contrary, an appallingly fearful looking for of judgment, in its place. — He perceives that he, more than others, ought to be expected to be moved by that great goodness of God, evinced when, by his own inspi- ration, he gave man understanding, designating him to dominion over other earthly creatures, appointing him a place a little lower than the angels ; be- cause he, more than others, who toil on the dusty highway of life, may be supposed to have learned what a noble and bliss-giving class of endowments the intellectual are. — He feels, that if the peculiarly privileged in condition are bound to entertain a pe- culiar gratitude to the overseeing providence, which disposes of men, the obligation to such a gratitude is on him, permitted to devote his youth without interruption to the most liberal pursuits, and placed upon that way into life, that lands at its most honor- able trusts and eligible circumstances. God has been very gracious to him. He sees it, or he is blind. He is touched and excited by it, or he is unfeeling. — He is sensible that, with the preparation of his superior intellectual training, and consequent enlargement of mind, it will be his own fault if he do not find even 23 higher pleasures, than others, in this respect less privileged, in religious meditations ; being able to form some less unworthy conceptions, than they, of the objects on which those meditations turn. And, on the other hand, he is satisfied that he will be doing a cruel wrong to that intellectual nature he so prizes, — that he will weaken and pervert, at least that he will not properly guide, strengthen, and feed it, nor ever know all its versatility, opulence, and power, — unless he take care to give it the advantage of that healthiest discipline, which only the religious spirit is able to apply. — In his speculations upon that generosity, which is deservedly such a favorite quality with youth, he has perceived, that if the word be used for an attribute of feeling, piety is at once the highest style of generosity, and, if we may further distinguish, its most reasonable and happi- est form ; and he has had the perspicacity to discern, from reasons of the case, and induction of such facts as have been before him, that any principle short of it, is a very miserable furniture for the tasks, and the trials, and the struggles, and the enjoyments of the world. — It animates him to think, that, acting in its own lofty and disinterested spirit, the accom- plishments he has been permitted to acquire, make him capable of rendering better service to religion, than others, with the best dispositions, have to offer; that already, for good or evil, he has great power in this respect, over the little world around him, and that directly, in the greater world, he is to be one of the watchmen of public sentiment, and guardians of private character. — He has speculated sometimes, 24 — who in his circumstances has not ? — on the perfect conception of a man ; and he has settled it to be the idea of one, in whom the intellectual and moral powers, which ally the human with superior existences, are broadly and evenly developed, — the life of the mind and the life of God, mutually sus- tained and quickened. His books have taught him this of good, — in addition to much else, — that in that bright idea there is no fictitious combination. ' Learning hath borne such fruit in other days, On all her branches ; piety hath found Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer Hath flowed from lips wet with Castalian dews.' That is the example, which fills his mind and satis- fies his heart. That is the example, which now and always he would exhibit, not to challenge others' admiring praise, but for the much better end of at- tracting the zealous imitation of every one whose sight it may bless. APPENDIX The allusion on the first page is to the death of Mr Frederic William Hoffman, son of David Hoffman, Esq. of Baltimore, who died at Lyons, in France, Dec. 9th last, and to that of Mr William Chapman, son of the late Jonathan Chapman, Esq. of Boston, who died at sea on his passage to the Cape of Good Hope, Sept. 24th ; the former a member of the Junior Class, the latter of the Sophomore. The ser- mon preached on the Lord's day after intelligence of the death of one had been received, and a eulogy had been pronounced on the other in the College Chapel, was from the text ; ' Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom.' Job xxviii, 28. The purpose of the Sophomore Class, who asked a copy for the press, will, I trust, be answered by the following extract. We may always be observing something of that excellent wisdom of the principle of the fear of God, which, in some of its chief characteris- tics, I have now been endeavoring to set forth. It is merely the fault of our own blindness, not of any eclipse or faintness of its lustre, if, at. any time, we see it not. But part of the administration of God's pro- vidence has reference to this indistinctness of our perceptions. He takes care that we shall be enlightened, if we do not covet and seek the light, as we ought ; and one of the benefits, conveyed to us, from time to time, at the heavy cost of missing from our side the wise and ex- cellent in youth or in age, is, by effectually warning us to number our own days, to make us reflect on the high wisdom, to which it concerns our safety that our own hearts be applied ; and, by compelling us to an 4 26 analysis of the qualities, which made them the objects of our respect and hope, to cause human affection to minister to the divine graces of the christian life. And this latter, as well as the former, which is more independent of us, is a use which every one should distinctly design and strive that his memory may serve, whenever it may please God that only by the influence of his remembered virtues, and no longer by his agency in life, he shall continue to do service in the world. Here is a great, a most substantial service ; and one which needs not a long life to do. On the contrary, if youth be the season of life the most susceptible of influence, then he who, called early away, addresses youth with sanctifying influences of the memory which he leaves behind, is privileged so far to be a peculiarly efficient benefactor, when the places, which have known him, shall come to know him no more. We could hardly have failed, my hearers, of a more than commonly distinct discernment of the truth of the doctrine I have been urging, while, two days ago, we contemplated the faithful portraiture, exhibit- ed to us in this place, of a late valued associate of our studies. Faith- ful, I call it, in all its emphatic and high-wrought testimony to the worth which is departed ; for so a most unanimous and cordial consent of all, Avho had special opportunity to estimate its correctness, declares it to have been, while those of us, whose privilege in this respect was less, find, on our part, that the idea filled out in the high praise we listened to, was the same, which, in its outlines, had been conveyed to our own minds, and call up, if with melancholy, yet with most grateful feelings, the recollection of the uncommon, — shall I say, the admiring interest, — which the partial developments to us, of a character, in all its aspects so beautiful, had inspired. Yes, my friends, opportunities very limited in respect to time, are sufficient, well used, to do vast and enduring good with. I doubt not, that an influence has already gone forth, from the life and death of him, whom lately you have mourned, which it is little to predict will be owned by many for a precious blessing to their latest earthly day. While bereft and disappointed friendship was yet preparing to ex- press with due commemoration its sense of its loss, other tidings of like sad tenor come to add to the solemn impressiveness of the les- son we were learning. If, in the one case, the bitter cup had to be drained, of witnessing the failure of all that was within the resources of the tenderest and most devoted domestic assiduity, in the other the sad consolation was denied, of ministering to the fainting frame, and of converse with the departing spirit. While, in this instance, too, attached companions see the instructions of life's mournful ex- perience beginning to be addressed to them, a band of affectionate 27 brothers and sisters is now made to sorrow for a deservedly prized object of trusting and hopeful love. If he, who was earliest taken* but of whose departure we are last apprized, has not left vacant, in the parental heart, that place which.it belongs to the virtues and the devotion of a son to fill, yet that parental heart, on which the heavy blow is now made to fall, is the already stricken one of a widowed mother. Of him, too, thank God, we are justified in saying, that his spring time gave flattering promise of a bountiful and substantial harvest. I find evidence among his companions, of the confidence, respect, and good will, with which, during the short time they enjoy- ed to make each other's acquaintance, his integrity and friendliness inspired them ; and his instructors testify to his conscientiously dili- gent and successful attention to the proper pursuits of the place. I believe it all, and much more ; — more, that is, in respect to what is not equally apparent. A relation, in which T once stood to him, gave me sufficient opportunities to know, that he came hither with princi- ples, which, existing in such strength as that which they then showed in him, are not likely to be changed for the worse by a transfer to this place. I regarded him with peculiar interest, — as did others with similar means of information, — as a young person of un- common purity and conscientiousness, amiableness, and force of char- acter ; who gave gratifying assurance in the qualities of his mind and heart, that he would profit richly by the advantages which here he was seeking ; and that, when he should go hence, it would be to devote the ample acquisitions, which it was to be anticipated he would make, to none but high and commendable objects. He was confidently looked to, as one rising up to be an honor to his friends, and a blessing to others, in some important place of duty. I had occasion to be acquainted with the fact, that, in addition to other indi- cations of a governing sense of duty, he was then uncommonly well versed, for his age, in what are most strictly called religious studies. And in this connexion I hold myself,— and hope I may be considered, — to speak emphatically in his praise, when I add, that, before coming hither, he had already been associated with others, in imparting to younger persons the religious instruction, of which, in earlier years, he had been himself the subject. He had been, I say, a teacher of a Sunday school ; an office, which except under truly religious im- pulses, a person is not likely to undertake ; an unassuming, but most efficient office of Christian benevolence, which I hope and believe, — and that on the ground of past experience, — that not a few, whom I address, will find themselves undertaking, when they shall have been dismissed from these walls, into a world, which will then directly place before them many of its diversified demands for useful action. 28 Eulogy is not my office ; but, having been led thus far, and having had opportunity to know how happily a life, so worthily begun, was closed, I venture to suppose that, in the absence of any more conven- ient channel for obtaining the information, his associates may be willing to receive from me some statements, relating to the termina- tion of our young friend's history. If they affect other minds as they have affected mine, I shall look for no other reason for entering into such a detail. He left his home, in the vain hope of re-establishing his health under the influence of a milder climate, about the middle of last August. In the accounts, which his friends yesterday received) nothing is said of the first two weeks after his departure, except that his strength and spirits had revived in them to that degree, that he was observed to decline, as scarcely any longer an invalid, the little atten- tions which every one around him was prompt to offer. From this time, the weather of a warmer latitude manifestly increased his debility, and he was perceived to have abandoned all confident expectation of recovery ; though, till the twentysecond day of September, he con- tinued daily to take the air upon the ship's deck. On the twenty- fourth, after being not materially more feeble than usual through the early part of the day, he was affected in the afternoon with a faintness, on recovering from which he calmly said, ' I perceive my time has come to leave you.' He then closed his hands, — I use mostly the words of the record of the commander of the vessel, the graphic and touching simplicity of which is the best possible evidence of its exact- ness, — and his eyes directed upward, prayed audibly to his Heavenly Father for forgiveness of all past offences, and commended his spirit to the mercy of God through Christ. He then said, ' now i am pre- pared to go,' and composed himself apparently as for his last struggle. But after a silence of three or four minutes, his eyes closed, and evi- dently in prayer, he used expressions of which the following are preserved. ' I am spared a little longer ;'— < I have endeavored to make preparation for this event ;' — ' I have endeavored to prepare myself for God's will ;' — ' I die in the faith and hope of the Gospel.' After describing him as again lying quietly, his lips in motion, and his eyes closed for a time in inaudible prayer, the account goes on with a detail of kind messages sent to his friends at home, accompanied with mementos of his regard to them and those around him, — among others of his Bible to his mother ; (Oh! how often does the filial heart find room to blend the memory of God's love and a mother'slove together, in its last throb of gratitude!) Resuming his former quiet position for some minutes, he gathered his little remaining strength, and addressing two fellow-passengers, whom he begged to excuse for what mightseem un- becoming freedom in a younger person, urged them to secure their hope 29 and joy, in what, under such circumstances as they were witnessing, made his. ' Later in the afternoon,' the writer goes on, ' though I began to hope he might yet remain some days, he again spoke, after resting awhile, of his approaching end. I said to him, I hoped he might pass a comfortable night. He shook his head, and raising his hand, pointing upward with his finger, answered only 'to-night,' repeating the word, and adding, ' I am as well prepared to die now, as I shall be.' — There is nothing to be told more, except that, after being soothed for a time by listening to some passages of scripture, at length a delirium came on, in which the moving shadows cast by the hanging lamp, as it swung with the heaving of the sea, were taken and greeted for his distant friends ; and among them it is a satisfaction to one not of his kindred,but who cer- tainly loved him, and wished him well for time and eternity, to know that his name was often affectionately uttered. 'Throughout the scene,' says the writer, speaking of the period of discomposure of his mind, ' not a word was uttered, which might not have been spoken by an an- gel in Heaven.' About eleven o'clock of that evening, having made a sign to be supported on the arms of those about him, he resigned his spirit, without a convulsion or the movement of a muscle. The next day, what was mortal of him was committed to the deep, with all studious observance of the rude but imposing ceremonial, with which a company of saddened men, on the stern solitude of that element, dismiss the no longer animated clay.* This is the first time, my hearers, that I ever ventured to speak in public, of the exercises of a death bed. I hope it has not been in the spirit of curious intrusion upon the sacredness of that serious scene. I add not a word of comment. You, his associates, will bear witness, — if you knew the same generous, frank, simple, manly youth, who was known to me, — that there was no acting, in the narrow, wave-tost chamber from which your brother's spirit past away. — And if not that, then there was witnessed there a specimen of the promised triumph of that faith, which overcomes the world, — its distresses and its attrac- tions ; the sustaining energy of that peace of God, which passeth un- derstanding ; the security which asks of death, ' where is thy sting ?' * Is it the unusualness, — or what else is it, — in the scene, which gives such so- lemnity to a funeral at sea ? 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