to the holiness and justice of God, and that it would be right in him to cast me from his presence. Since that time I have had occasional doubts with regard to my christian character, but have had clearer views than ever of the nature of sin and holiness, and of the divine perfections."

pe

Soon after his conversion, he derived great benefit from Spring's Essays on the Distinguishing Traits of Christian Character. "I used," he said, "to take down the book, from its particular place on a particular shelf, every Sunday, and bring my mind to its severe scrutiny; and if during the week, I was tempted to sin, a glance at the book on the shelf, would, as its contents frowned through the cover, deter me.' One of his most characteristic letters, written about this riod, is on the importance of secret prayer, and he appears to have commenced his religious life with excellent plans in reference to this duty. He adhered to them with exactness until his death. The effect of his conversion upon his intellectual character was marked. He became more manly and mature. He also became more and more gentle in his temper, and more ready to turn the other cheek to his smiting playmate. In one of the most characteristic letters of his childhood he writes to a relative, "A little boy from Boston, whose parents I believe you know very well, but whose name I believe I will not mention here, a few days ago, as I was playing with him, because I did something that he did not like, called me 'religious,' thinking that he would plague me. But, in fact, it was one of the best names I had ever received. It was the first time that I ever heard any one call me so." "This trivial passage I have mentioned now, not that I think that in itself it deserves a relation, but because as the sun is seen best at his rising and setting, so men's native dispositions are clearliest perceived whilst they are children, and when they are dying. These little, sudden actions are the greatest discoverers of men's true humors."1

1 Words of Robert Boyle.

In August, 1831, he left the school at Mt. Pleasant, where it may be said of him, as Izaak Walton said of one before him, "The beauties of his pretty behavior and wit shined, and became so eminent and lovely, in this his innocent age, that he seemed to be marked out for piety, and to become the care of Heaven, and of a particular good angel to guard and guide him. And thus he continued in that school, till he came to be [accomplished] in the learned languages, and especially in the Greek tongue, in which he after proved an excellent critic."

MR. HOMER'S EARLY YOUTH, and residence AT AMHERST

COLLEGE.

The biography of a man of letters may often be comprised in these words: he was born, he studied, he published, he died. Of Mr. Homer, it can scarcely be said that he published; for he shrunk with peculiar sensitiveness from any exposure of his compositions to public criticism. There is no remarkable feat of his performance, no foreign travel, not even a personal accident, not so much as the overturning of a stage-coach in which he was journeying, nor the loss of a book, nor a week of serious illness, nor any imminent danger or hair-breadth escape, which can be mentioned to change the scene in the drama of his life. His whole biography must be spun out from his intellectual and hidden existence. It is generally said of him by those who watched his earlier years, that he was a happy and a faultless boy. Not that he was free from sin, but that the graces of his character so won upon his observers that his foibles were less distinctly

He wrote several anonymous articles for the newspapers, and for the Shrine, a College periodical; a brief review of Tappan on the Will for the Biblical Repository, and a few notes on the poet Homer, for Professor Fiske's edition of Eschenburg's Manual of Classical Lit

erature.

noticed. Not but that he had his hours of trouble and complaining; but ordinarily his life was blithesome and joyous.

After leaving Mt. Pleasant in August, 1830, he pursued his classical studies in Boston until September, 1831. The succeeding year he spent at Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. Toward the close of the academical year, he was appointed to pronounce the valedictory addresses at the ensuing anniversary of the school. All of his class being older than himself, some of them by six or seven years, and most of them being far more manly than himself in stature and appearance, he recoiled from this exercise, and endeavored to obtain release from it. But there was no exemption; and with heartfelt pain he appeared on the platform at the head of his class.

From Phillips Academy he removed to Amherst College, which he entered in September, 1832. Here he felt at home. This was the spot of his literary and religious nativity. He loved the quiet of its groves, the richness of its valleys, the graceful curvatures of the mountains that are round about it, and the sacred trains of thought that are suggested by the neighboring spires, the still villages, and the river that winds calmly by them. During his four collegiate years he resided in a private house, at a distance from the college buildings; and although some of his fellow students who lived in those buildings would often find it difficult to hear the prayer bell in the morning, he had a quick ear in that regard, nor was he tardy in obeying the summons. It is easy for a student to become a sincere invalid on a cold morning, when some recondite lesson is to be recited; but Mr. Homer never understood the conveniences of college sickness, and his slender form would press its way through the snow-drift and against the driving sleet, just as if there were but one course possible to be pursued, and that the course of duty. Says the President of the institution, "When Mr. Homer entered college, he sustained a fine examination, and though he had several worthy competitors, he soon took the first rank in his class,

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which he held to the end of his collegiate course. This he did, not by any intuitive and mysterious process, but by diligent application to study. He never dreamed, I believe, that he was a genius, even in his Freshman year, when so many flatter themselves that they are the people, and wisdom will die with them.' Whatever shorter road there may be to the temple of science, he never troubled himself to inquire for it, but was content to toil on in the old beaten track. He made it a rule to get every lesson, and to get it well. I doubt whether he ever made a poor recitation while he was in college."

"In the forms and syntax of Latin and Greek," says Professor Fiske," he was more thorough than is common, even among those generally accounted good scholars. Yet his mind never seemed to rest satisfied with a mere mastery of his author's constructions. He had a singular felicity in penetrating the spirit of an ancient idiom, and bringing it out to view, and commending it to the feelings by an appropriate modern phraseology. When he had failed of making the full analysis of a construction, and did not detect all the elements of it until he had received hints or questions at the moment of reciting, it was sometimes delightful to notice how he would eagerly seize them, and comprehend at once the force and significancy of the combination, and present the meaning with singular perspicuity and elegance, clothing every idea with a fascinating drapery at the very instant of its conception. This could not fail to be observed by his companions; perhaps it was more fully appreciated by the teacher. If I sometimes helped him in breaking the shell, he always seemed to find a sweeter meat than I had tasted. While he had a strong relish for poetic beauty, and possessed an imagination highly active, and truly rich in ideal pictures, he had also a striking fondness for exact thought, and for lucid order and symmetry in arrangement, and neatness and accuracy in style and performance."

In Mental and Moral Philosophy he took a pleasing interest, and some of his essays in this department would not have dishonored him at the age of twenty-four. When he had finished Butler's Analogy, he remarked, that his closing lesson was but the beginning of his attention to that book, that' he should pursue the study of it as long as he lived; and it is an interesting fact, that this was one of the last books which he studied, and among the last notes which he left in pencilling, were notes upon his favorite Analogy.

He never resorted to any dishonorable means for obtaining the favor of his teachers, but he treated them with spontaneous affection and respect. He considered who they were and where they were, and honored their office as well as their character. He looked with utter contempt upon those notions of smartness, with which young men, especially from our cities, are often possessed, and by which they are led to disturb the order of college. When any youthful hero deemed it a point of honor for him to oppose the discipline of his teachers, he was taught by Mr. Homer that such bravery is a low and craven spirit; that the true courage of a student consists in getting his lessons, and if one wishes to do some great thing, and make himself known as superior to vulgar prejudices, he must move when the bell calls him, and keep his door closed in study hours, and take off his hat when he meets a superior.

He mingled in the social circles at college with chastened hilarity. In the literary associations he held a conspicuous place. He joined in their debates with enthusiasm, and bore the conflict of opinion with marked urbanity. He was chosen president of the Athenian Society, the Chi Delta Theta, and the Society of Inquiry, all of which he aided by his generosity as well as zeal. He had much of the esprit-du-corps in relation to the college, and appeared to study not more for his own good, than to advance the literary character of the institution. Several brief notices which he published in the