with Dr. Ross, than ever.

We both grieve

only for ourselves. Our beloved and eminent children are only taken from danger and unavoidable sorrow, to a nobler, holier, and happier state of being. It were impossible that parents in our circumstances should not have indulged high expectations of benefit to the world, and happiness to ourselves, from children so endowed with all that was solid and brilliant in talents, and sweet in disposition; and blessed too with an influence from above, disposing them to consecrate all to the honor: and glory of God. But God has taught us that their stay on earth is not necessary to themselves, to us, to the world, or to His cause. ""Tis," says the great John Howe,

a piece of divine Royalty and Magnificence, that when he hath prepared and polished such an utensil, so as to be capable of great service, He can lay it by without loss."

WE were accompanied to Glasgow by an affectionate relative, Mr. Coombs, of Ludgate-street, London, who chose the season of our journey to execute a purpose he had long formed, of visiting Scotland. He added, then, as on many other occasions, to our happiness: nor will he, I am certain, feel hurt to see his name recorded with gratitude in the Memoirs of William Friend Durant. We were received most politely by Dr. and Mrs. Wardlaw, who were destined to become the kindest friends of my beloved son; to be the sources of a large share of his comfort in life; his affectionate attendants at the bed of his death-and who now write, “Our eyes and our hearts fill, when we think and speak of him." After spending a week together in that city, we left him. He and I slept in the same room the night preceding my departure. We prayed together, hand in hand, before we retired to rest, and after we had risen early on the morning. His conversation was manly and

christian; but he breathed a warmer affection towards me, and expressed a more unbounded confidence in me, than he had ever uttered before. At six in the morning, our coach was to depart. In order to secure a good place, his cousin and I ascended a few minutes before the time; and he accompanied us for the purpose of riding out a couple of miles. The carriage, however, became crowded with passengers, and he was obliged to descend. I shall never forget the tender and agonizing look of that moment. He stood gazing at us for a few seconds; but presently I had lost him; and conjecturing the cause of his disappearance, I sighed-perhaps wept with him. I then thought, and afterwards found from himself, that he was unable to bear the sight of my departure. I commended him afresh to the guardian care of our Heavenly Father; and felt no slight alleviation of my sorrow at parting, from the thought that God had provided for him such a friend as the gentleman in whose house he was to reside-and under whose roof he was, alas! destined to breathe his last!

At College, a perfectly new world opened before him. To literature, science, and intelligent companions, he was no stranger. But he was, in effect, an only child; had mixed with no children in his studies; and had never, till that time, received five lessons, except in arithmetic, from any teachers but his father and mother. He knew not a single individual in the University. So entire a change in his habits-formed as he was, too, for affectionconsiderably lowered his spirits; and his first letters were tinged with a gloom that threw, for a season, no slight degree of shade over my own mind. He found nothing, as he expressed it, to which his heart could cling. He could not, however, be long a stranger; and when known, he could not be long without admirers and friends. The professors and his class-fellows soon discovered his rare talents, his various attainments, and his indefatigable industry.* To Mr. Walker, professor

* His industry might have cost him his life, during the first session. He was accustomed, sometimes not less than two or three nights in the week, to throw himself upon his bed in his college gown, in order that he might lose no time in dressing

of Humanity, he was indebted for the most marked and polite attentions; and that gentleman often expressed his high opinion of his abilities. In his class, my dear boy gained the highest literary distinctions which his standing at College permitted. Though he had, before the last Session, left Mr. Walker's class, that learned professor pronounced upon him, at his death, a eulogium, the most gratifying to the heart of a fond and disconsolate father. He entered, at the same time, into the Greek class: but Professor Young, one of the profoundest, most ingenious, and acute philologists of his age, went his last long journey before him; or he would probably, as spontaneously and conscientiously, have borne

and undressing. I found this out accidentally; but he promised, at my earnest request, not to be guilty of so great an imprudence in future. And after I had received his promise, I was satisfied. Could the first literary honors of Europe have been gained by a breach of his word, I was sure that it would not have been broken. When he had once pledged himself to any thing, I never reminded him, even by an inuendo, of his engagement. I should have felt it to have been indelicate; he would have felt it as a reflection on his integrity and our confidence was mutual.