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, exhibited to us in this place, of a late valued associate of our studies. Faithful, 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, who 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 express with due commemoration its sense of its loss, other tidings of like sad tenor come to add to the solemn impressiveness of the lesson 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 experience beginning to be addressed to them, a band of affectionate

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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 enjoyed to make each other's acquaintance, his integrity and friendliness inspired them; and his instructors testify to his conscientiously diligent 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 I once stood to him, gave me sufficient opportunities to know, that he came hither with principles, 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 uncommon purity and conscientiousness, amiableness, and force of character; 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 indications 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 impulses, 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.

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 convenient channel for obtaining the information, his associates may be willing to receive from me some statements, relating to the termination 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 attentions 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 continued daily to take the air upon the ship's deck. On the twentyfourth, 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 exactness, 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 prepared to go,' and composed himself apparently as for his last struggle. But after a silence of three or four minutes, his eyes closed, and evidently 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's love 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 might seem unbecoming freedom in a younger person, urged them to secure their hope

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 certainly 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 angel 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 cominent. 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 attractions; the sustaining energy of that peace of God, which passeth understanding; the security which asks of death, 'where is thy sting?'

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*Is it the unusualness, or what else is it, in the scene, which gives such solemnity to a funeral at sea? The ship swung to the wind, and made to pause on her way, as if to attend to the tribute of human feeling ; the corpse, surrounded by a circle of mute men, with the flag of the distant native country spread over it, and again streaming above, in expressive signal of what is passing to some eye which may be watching it in the low horizon;- the service read in under tones of a voice, which you have been used to hear along with the storm; - - the one parting sound of descent into a grave, which cannot be revisited; and then the ensign dropping, while the sails fill, and the vessel springs forward on her

course.