July 1, 1840. (Senior year at Andover.)—" In a late singular book, there is one passage that speaks to my own spiritual condition, and has sometimes touched my heart with a power that is almost wild.'Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear and with a manly heart.'"

It may be said that some of the foregoing passages betray pride and ambition in their author. He had some pride; and who has not; who, especially, that has enjoyed a life of uniform distinction? But it was not pride, far from it; it was meekness, and modesty, and an humble temper, that characterized his daily intercourse. True, he had a high self-respect, and it raised him above the meannesses to which a selfish man is prone. His keen sense of honor answered the purpose of a second conscience, and he was too highminded to flatter or to prevaricate or connive at any sly and insidious manoeuvre. He was too proud to make any use of Lord Bacon's maxim, that "the best composition and temperature is to have openness in fame and opinion, secrecy in habit, dissimulation in seasonable use, and a power to feign if there be no remedy." He was frank because he respected himself, but whenever he found that his self-esteem was becoming inordinate, he employed expedients too humiliating to be related, for subduing the evil.

That he had some ambition too, will not be denied. Sensitiveness was his permeating quality, and as he was sensitive to everything else, so was he to the esteem of his fellow men. Having a strong aspiration after all good, he was not regardless of the good there is in the esteem of the wise. The love of excelling he considered an original principle of our nature, not to be eradicated, but controlled. He did not pretend to have banished it from himself, as some men have pretended, and have therefore courted the praise of the world for their superiority to the love of praise; but he struggled and prayed that his native desire of excellence might be turned into the

channel of virtue, and operate as a simple desire of rising in holiness and in the favor of God. During a long and confiding intimacy with him, I never detected the least symptom of envy, nor any inclination to an artifice for self-promotion. I never heard him whisper a syllable against any one who might be considered his rival, but he always extolled his companions in proportion as they came near or went beyond his own attainments. He was more fond of confessing a fault than of pretending to a virtue, and he often acknowledged his ignorance, but seldom told of his acquisitions. It seemed that his desire of excelling so far as it degenerated into a faulty ambition, was far less faulty than the indolence of those who fear to move upward lest they should become vain and airy, and therefore sink downward into an imbecile and stupid life.

It may be objected, that the secret confessions of fault which the preceding letters contain should not be exposed to the world. They would not be, if the present memoir were designed for a eulogy. They would not be, if the character of its subject needed to be glossed over and his foibles artfully concealed. But of what advantage is a biography above a fictitious tale, when but half the truth is told, and the character of a man is painted as that of an angel? The christian philosopher objects to novels because they give false views of life and benumb our sympathies with man as he is actually found. And what are too many of our biographies but likenesses of nothing which is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth? The true idea of a memoir is, that it shall impart the general and combined impression of its subject, that it shall give no undue prominence to his foibles, nor make a needless exposure of his uncovered sins, and shall by no means imply that a man may live selfishly among us, and be canonized when he has gone from us; that he may sin cunningly here, and only his virtues shall be rehearsed hereafter. As the love of posthumous favor is one

incentive to virtue, so the fear of censure from our survivors is a dissuasive from vice.

MR. HOMER AT THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.

After his graduation, Mr. Homer was desired by some of his friends to spend a year in the instruction of youth. It was thought that his labors in such a sphere would help to prepare him for the hardnesses and conflicts of professional life. He had been in the schools from his early childhood, had encountered but little of the selfishness and bluntness of the world, and a divorcement from the select circles in which he had mingled would give him one important kind of discipline which thus far he had not received. But he was wedded to his studies, and the thought of interrupting them was more than his literary spirit could endure. He accordingly entered the Theological Seminary at Andover, in October, 1836. Soon after the commencement of his studies, he writes to an intimate friend,

November 4, 1836, "There is an altar to which we have common access. Remember me there. For myself, in the new and interesting situation in which I am placed, with my hand just touching the ark of God, and my mind advancing every day to the crisis of its development, I have never so deeply realized the necessity of looking upward for guidance and support. 'Without are fightings, within are fears.' A few weeks will undoubtedly decide whether I am to do much or little in my Master's service. And how consoling to me the reflection, that other hearts in christian sympathy are bearing the same burden to the same mercy seat. I have read somewhere, perhaps it is in Jeremy Taylor, that the union of prayer in Christians, (however widely separated), for the same object, is like the clouds of incense ascending from different altars, and in separate columns, but blending in rich and graceful harmony above."

December 18, 1836, he writes, "The work which 1 have in view seems every day to be enlarging before me, and I am constantly reminded of the importance of such industry and regularity as must op

erate as a check on many of my enjoyments. I believe that I have acquired some new views upon this subject, since I came to Andover, which make my college life and acquisitions look very insignificant. Yet it should always be my desire and aim, not to confine myself to mental cultivation, but to be making constant efforts for spiritual advancement, that I may grow in knowledge and in grace together."

Soon after he entered the institution, he began to meditate upon the course of his future life. He first attended to the claims of the heathen upon his services. He writes to two of his friends the following account of his meditations :

"February 12 and 18, 1837.-1 mentioned to you just as we separated last Sunday evening, that my mind had been considerably occupied of late, with the claims of the missionary service. I prefer that you say nothing about it at present, as how soon, or how, the question may be decided is uncertain. On the first Monday in January last, (1837), I commenced the examination of the subject, without the least doubt as to the manner in which it would be settled. I tried to consider the subject prayerfully, and I confess my views and feelings did undergo a decided revolution. I found that some arguments which I had thought conclusive in favor of my remaining at home, were without foundation. I think that on that day, the attractions of home and country and friends, and the bright visions of future happiness which I had cherished, were robbed of their charm, and I saw the full wants of perishing millions, myself in darkness upon a single point."- "When the peculiar sensitiveness of my temperament, the strength of my attachment to home, the habit of dependence I had always cultivated, all seemed to hold me back, I asked myself if Henry Martyn had not these infirmities to a far greater extent, if he did not leave his home under circumstances more affecting and wounding to those sensibilities, than could accompany me, and did not God raise him above them all? With half his piety, with half his scholarship, with half his devotion to the work, a tenth part of neither of which I can now aspire to, yet by cultivation and industry and resolution I might attain, would not God bless my feeble labors, and make me in such a sphere a happy and a useful man? Ah, my dear friend, this is not a question between the infirmities of the flesh, and the claims of God, but between the opposing calls of duty; not a question between earthly enjoyment and self-sacrifice, but between duty and du

ty. Can I be more useful abroad than at home? Upon this now rests the whole question. My facility in the acquisition of languages would give me the advantage over many, perhaps over most that go on missions. But is my mind better adapted for communicating with such spirits as are found on heathen, or on christian shores? Can my influence be most extensive and most blessed abroad, or at home? Here I wait for light. The remarkable change which took place in my views when I prayed for divine direction, I am sometimes inclined to regard as the only indication which God will give of my personal duty. Yet I would not be hasty. A mistake abroad is worse than a mistake at home; the one may be rectified in time, the other never. If I could go with the assurance that I might strengthen the hands of my fellow laborers, instead of proving to them an insupportable burden, I believe in the view I have sometimes taken of earthly attachments, I could leave the brightest visions I have ever dwelt upon. What is life, so short, and eternity so near at hand. If I have succeeded in making myself intelligible, write me your views upon the subject."

After a severe conflict between opposing claims, Mr. Homer finally concluded, that his duty was to remain at home. He next examined the question whether he should look to the ministry as the sphere of his principal labors, or to the office of a teacher; and he decided that his peculiar tastes and aptitudes promised him a greater degree of usefulness in the chair of instruction than in the pulpit. It became, therefore, his fixed purpose to qualify himself as far as he could in his leisure hours for the duties of a teacher. With this view he intended to pass two or three years at the German Universities, as soon as he had attained some experience in the ministry. He by no means meant to forego the privileges and the pleasures of a pastor's life; he chose to bear for a season the responsibilities of a parish minister; so might he become more familiar with the influences and the energies of the gospel, deepen his interest in the religious welfare of his race, and learn the sacred arts of persuading men to virtue. He wished, also, to enliven his sympathies with the various classes of men, and to acquire that freshness of feel