ting in our feeble way the triumphs of Christ's love at his table, she, no doubt was singing the new song, and enjoying a more intimate and blissful communion. O may we meet her there! Which of us can any longer think of loving for this life alone, when we hear her mild sweet voice warning us to love for heaven,-to cherish all our earthly affections in such a way that they can be perpetuated beyond the grave."

On several occasions when the subject of this memoir was bereaved of a friend, he gave expression to his feelings in verse. The following lines he wrote soon after the sudden bereavement to which the last of the foregoing letters has reference:

"I hear thy voice, fond sleeper, now,
Not as it rose in gladsome hour,
When joy illumed thy radiant brow,

And life bloomed fair with many a flower,

But now with solemn tones and still

That wake each chord with finer thrill.

I hear thy voice in many a scene

Where thou in buoyant hope didst roam,
Not such as when thyself hast been

The cherished idol of thy home :

But now in accents richly deep

From the low grave where thou dost sleep.

I hear thy voice in melting song,

Not as its cadence charmed the ear

Amid the gay and happy throng

Who gathered round thy beauty here.

A spirit's joy, a spirit's lyre
Thy strains of melody inspire.

I hear thy voice in fondness call,
Not as it gave its witching tone

To sway with soft and gentle thrall,

And soothe the sorrows of thine own.

But quivering now with purer love
For us below, for those above.

I hear thy voice! It cometh oft
In sorrow's gush and memory's swell,
When sigh we for its welcome soft
Or whisper of its sad farewell.
It comes with happy tone and blest

And bids us to thine own sweet rest.'

MR. HOMER'S RELIGIOUS CHARACTER.

The depths of the sorrow which has been indicated in the foregoing letters were disclosed to but few of Mr. Homer's friends. His most sacred feelings he was not apt to reveal. Hence his religious character was understood only by those who were intimate with him. He kept no daily record of his emotions; he was afraid that while writing his diary, he should often "turn an eye to the window," and the private journal would, after all, be prepared for public inspection. What will men think of this, if it should ever be exposed? is a question that slyly creeps into the mind of even a secret diarist. He feared the influence of a religious record upon his own heart. If a man be moved by strong impulses of piety, while he is making the record, he will use glowing language, and this, meeting his eye a month afterward, will give him a higher notion of his goodness than he can entertain truly or safely. If he be moved by no such impulses, he will express deep lamentation over his spiritual sloth, and when he reviews the mourning record, he will form too exalted an opinion of the humility that prompted it. If he have defrauded his neighbor in a bargain, he will not be so willing to write a plain narrative of the fraud, as to pour forth his sorrow for a want of trust in divine providence; and the grief expressed for this comparatively respectable failing will remind him, years afterward, of his delicate moral sensibility, rather than of his flagrant crime. "Last week," said Mr. Homer," I derived great pleasure from reading the religious diary of. It is rich, rich, in religious experience. He

seems to have elaborated his love to Christ until it appears to be almost seraphic. But alas! I shall never read that diary again, for I perceive that a year or two before his death he re-wrote it. What must a man's expectation be, in penning his religious journal the second time?"

It is to be regretted, however, that these injurious tendencies of keeping a private record assumed so great a prominence in Mr. Homer's mind. The positive good resulting from this practice would, in his own case, have overbalanced the evil. But his most sacred feelings he shrunk from disclosing, even to himself. He was not communicative on all other themes, and silent on his own christian experience, but his reserve on this theme was precisely what we should expect from his native delicacy. Indeed his whole religious character was in keeping with himself. He was not a doctrine in theology, neither was he sanctification, but he was Mr. Homer sanctified in part. He looked and spoke naturally when religion was the theme of discourse, and all his modes of manifesting religious feeling were such as accorded with his temperament and tastes. The phrase, naturalness of piety, is an ambiguous one, but if it were not it would well designate his character. The perfection of goodness is to make a right use of the nature which God has given us. As it is one of the highest attainments to be natural in anything, so it is the last attainment of a good man, to regain entirely the nature that was lost in the fall. To shun artificial developments and mere conventional forms, and to let one's free and full heart flow out in the channel of true benevolence is a great thing; far greater than to catch a certain good tone, and to be familiar with a round of phrases that may happen to form the Shibboleth of a community.

Like himself his piety was retiring. Others were more regular than he at the public meeting for prayer; but there has seldom been found a Christian more punctilious in observing his hours of secret devotion. "After I had retired

at night, I always heard his voice in earnest prayer," is the testimony of one who lived in the room contiguous to his at Amherst. The same witness is borne by one at Andover. That he allowed his secret prayers to be audible is indeed somewhat of an anomaly in his religious life, for he was fond of shunning the least appearance of parade, and if any one thing more than another were his abhorrence, it was Pharisaism. If the sound of his piety did not go forth from the crowded hall so loudly as that of others, he was faithful to the hour of religious concert with a few absent friends. Like himself too, his piety was kind, condescending and considerate. He was not a noisy member of a Peace Society, nor clamorous for Moral Reform, but he cultivated the amiable instincts of his nature, and delighted in diffusing happiness among those around him. His motto was, "Caritate et benevolentia sublata, omnis est è vita sublata jucunditas." He did not strive nor cry, nor was his voice heard in the street. He did not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax. He was ever marked for his kindness to those who were feeble in the christian faith. "He plied them with the arts of a sacred courtship," and allured them to higher attainments in the spiritual life, and while he reproved them they loved him. He delighted in taking up what others had thrown away, and doing what he could for the rescue of one that was given over to uncovenanted mercies. Often was he asked by one of his friends, What protégé have you now in your train? It was pleasing to see the readiness with which his spirit, by an instinct, sought out the persecuted, the down-trodden, how quick he was to defend from all injustice the weaker of two opponents, and if the question between the two were exactly balanced, he was only to learn which was the stronger ere his sympathies clustered around the feebler. From the earliest days of his religious life until the last, he felt a peculiar sympathy for those who had not the cheering influences of the right faith. He exerted an in

fluence over them which none of his brethren could attain. He would labor to insinuate the truth into their minds and charm away their prejudices. He would concede to them whatever he might with an approving conscience, admit the force of their objections, if there were force in them, and confess that he had felt the same, and tell how he was rescued from their power. Then he would intrench himself upon the strong grounds of his faith, defend its essential features with a determined zeal, preserve his kindness and equanimity amid somewhat acrimonious assaults, and in some pleasing instances he has convinced the gainsayer and relieved the doubter. Not that he always would directly introduce the subject of difference, but like Herbert's country parson, with his great object "he mingled other discourses for conversation's sake, and to make his higher purposes slip the more easily." He never meant to be rash in his assaults upon the faith of his opponents, but he premeditated both the subjects and the style of his discourse with them, and laid his plans for skilfully alluring them to a religious life. He once walked his room until eleven o'clock at night, for the purpose of devising the best scheme for reaching the conscience of one whom he pitied, but he could devise no safe expedient, and therefore did nothing.

In some respects it would have been wiser for himself to associate more than he did with those who were confirmed and mature in the christian life; but while there were minds which could be led by him through a maze of scepticism, and which needed the peculiar attractions of his fellowship, he chose to forego his individual benefit. In a letter to one who had but recently entered upon a religious course, he says, "I am rejoiced that you do not think of losing your interest in any of your old companions, although they may not sympathize fully with the change in your views and feelings. You may do them much good. I know that the intellectual arrogance of a vain philosophy furnishes a most unprofitable