him utter a profane or indecent word. I never knew him do a thing even
of questionable propriety. He was bright and playful, but never
mischievous. He was a good scholar, not because he had very remarkable
talents, but because he made good use of his time--because he was taught
to regard it as his duty to get his lessons well, and he could not be
happy in any other course. His teachers loved him because he was
diligent and respectful; his playmates loved him, because he was kind
and obliging; all loved him, because he was an amiable, moral,
well-disposed boy. He evinced so much promise, that his parents, though
not in affluent circumstances, resolved on giving him a collegiate
education, and in due time he became a member of one of our highest
literary institutions. There he maintained a high rank for both
scholarship and morality, and graduated with distinguished honor. Not
long after this, his mind took a decidedly serious direction, and he not
only gave himself to the service of God, but resolved to give himself
also to the ministry of reconciliation. After passing through the usual
course and preparation for the sacred office, he entered it; and he is
now the able and successful minister of a large and respectable
congregation. He has already evidently been instrumental of winning many
souls. I hear of him from time to time, as among the most useful
ministers of the day. I occasionally meet him, and see for myself the
workings of his well-trained mind, and his generous and sanctified
spirit. I say to myself, I remember you, when you were only the germ of
what you are; but surely the man was bound up in the boy. I witness
nothing in your maturity which was not shadowed forth in your earliest
development.

Here again, let me trace the stream to its fountain--the effect to its
cause. This individual was the child of a discreet and faithful
Christian mother. She dedicated him to God in holy baptism, while he was