in his charitable construction of whatever might be deemed offensive; in his zeal to promote peace; in the ready sympathy with which he entered into the situation and feelings of others, and partook of all their joys and sorrows;-in the entire self-forgetfulness with which he cheerfully made every exertion and sacrifice by which he could render a service. His benevolence was not a mere natural impulse. It was directed by a sober judgment. It did not degenerate into a weakness; it was thoroughly commingled with moral and religious principle, and was exercised with strict integrity and sincerity. He never shrunk from the infliction of wholesome pain. He never flattered weakness or folly in others, nor disguised his perception of wrong in their character or conduct. He was very faithful in the duties of counsel, exhortation, and rebuke, and the perfect gentleness of his disposition, which failed not to make itself felt. by all who conversed with him, prevented his plainness of speech from being attributed to any but the kindest intentions. He might well speak the truth, for he could not but speak it in love. These qualities peculiarly fitted him for the offices of private friendship. He was indeed such a friend as is rarely met with. Those who had the happiness of knowing him in that relation, feel that they have sustained a loss which they cannot hope to repair in the present life. But they have not lost him. Their intercourse with him was exactly of that kind of which faith may be most assured that it shall be renewed in heaven.

Mr. Goodwin received early religious impressions which he ever retained. His piety was a deep and settled principle, pervading and qualifying his whole character. He habitually saw God in all things. Nature was to his eye an expression of the Creative Mind, and he received all the events of life, great and small, prosperous and adverse, as the appointments of a benevolent Providence. His piety was a practical principle, leading to devotion and submission to the Divine Will. Conscience was to him God's most intimate presence in the soul, and he reverenced and obeyed it as such. And he rejoiced to enlighten conscience by the precepts, and to strengthen it by the sanctions of the revealed word. He was a sincere follower of Jesus, whose Gospel he prized as a treasure of inestimable value, and was a diligent inquirer into the truths it contains. He was a scriptural Christian. In the determination of all questions of truth and duty, his ultimate appeal was to the law and the testimony, and he rested in their decision as ascertained by a

liberal and enlightened interpretation. He was not accustomed to speak of his religious emotions, but they were perceived to give a tone to his conversation, and to influence his whole life. How he was sustained by his religious faith under the most trying affliction of his life, we have already shown in his own words. It supported him also in the near prospect of death. He was not of that temperament to which submission to death is easy. The sunshine of his own spirit made this world a bright and happy place to him. Warm in all his affections, full of hope, sustaining all the most delightful relations of life, zealous and able to do good, he felt that he had much to live for. His first wish was for prolonged life. He would that, if it were possible, the cup might pass from him; but he was enabled to add, "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt."

In his preaching he was sound, plain, and practical. It was not his habit to discuss deep subjects in the pulpit, or to rise into the highest regions of thought and imagination. He aimed at bringing home the truths he taught to the hearts and consciences of his hearers by familiar illustrations drawn from the common affairs of life. His manner was earnest and persuasive. Though he never preached extempore, the familiar tones of his voice, and the ease and freedom of his manner, gave to his discourses the effect of extemporaneous speaking. He was a popular preacher in his own and the neighbouring pulpits, and was lis tened to with delight by some of our most intellectual congregations.

He took a lively and active interest in every enterprise for the promotion of the moral, intellectual, and social condition of the town. The public schools received a large share of his at

tention. He was a laborious member of the committee for the supervision of them, and spent much time in examining them, and in preparing reports, and was indefatigable in suggesting and effecting improvements in their condition. At the Lyceum he was, when his health allowed, a constant attendant, and an occasional lecturer. He engaged in the superintendence of the town library. By an excellent regulation of that institution. it was required that no book should be placed in it without having been read through and approved by a committee appointed for that purpose, and that brief accounts of the principal books purchased should be published in the newspapers of the town. Mr. Goodwin served on this committee, and wrote many of these notices. He gave his name and influence to an association

formed a few years since at Concord, for the laudable purpose of beautifying the town by planting trees along the road sides. That these services were duly appreciated by his people, and were rewarded with a high degree of confidence and affection on their part, appears from the following extract from an obituary notice written by a parishioner and intimate friend, in the name of a committee chosen for that purpose, and published shortly

after his death.

"Mr. Goodwin had become so much one of us, we have been so accustomed to the thoughts of him in our daily habits, to interweave him in our interests and affections, that he seemed to be almost a necessary part of our plans of life, of improvement, and of happiness, as well as of immediate enjoyment. By his death a dreary blank is left everywhere; the streets where we saw his daily sprightly walk, the domestic fireside where we enjoyed his cheerful conversation, the church where we heard his eloquent instruction, every place, lately so full of him, now sadly waste, reminds us how great a means of good is gone from us; and the fondness with which our souls dwell upon the past, the uncertainty and the dark gloom spread over the future, forcibly convince us how irreparable a loss we suffer in his death. But yesterday we were rejoicing in hope, in prayerful trust, that God would spare him for us; to-day we are cast down in grief. The mysterious hand of Providence removed him from us almost in the vigor of his usefulness. We saw not the pallid cheek, nor the sunken countenance, nor the faltering step, nor heard the whispering voice, and because we did not see them we vainly hoped they were not there. It would indeed have been a melancholy satisfaction to us, could we have smoothed the pillow of death; if we could have offered our dear brother and pastor our tender and sincere sympathies, if we could have heard his last dying instructions. It would have strengthened our spirit to have seen his soul triumphing over death, and to have witnesssed how the doctrines of his life, faith in Christ, and the hope of immortality, sustained him in the approaches of death."

We shall now add a few extracts from Mr. Goodwin's writings, for the purpose of giving, with as much fidelity as we may by such means, and within the limits of a single article, a specimen of his mind. The following extract from his last report from the school committee, exhibits his views of the importance of our system of public schools, and on the subject of education in general.

"Your Committee embrace the opportunity afforded by this Report, to offer some suggestions on one of the great obstacles to the

improvement of our schools. They mean, the difficulty of obtaining a suitable number of well-qualified teachers. It cannot be denied that the office of a school teacher is in reality one of the most arduous, the most responsible, and the most important in results, to which a human being can be called. It is not knowledge merely, that is required for its duties. There must be aptness to teach, tact in communicating, and tact in governing. There must be also, if possible, a fondness for children, a general acquaintance with their habits and dispositions, a power of exciting their interests and their affections, and, above all, a high and true self-discipline. If it be true, that the instructer of our children is in the place of pa rent or guardian, during the hours of school, then there are few situations in life out of the domestic circle more deeply interesting, and involving a higher responsibility, than this. It is apt to be thought, if a school is doing no good, it can at least do no harm, and on that ground some parents rest satisfied with that from which no complaint is to be heard. But from this view your Committee dissent. If a school is not doing a positive good to the children that attend it, it must do, they are confident, a positive harm. If good habits of study and discipline are not formed, the child is not stationary, but is going backward.

"Now the difficulty which presses upon us, in common, we presume, with most of our towns, is the want of an adequate preparation in those who apply for the charge of our schools. For the source of this difficulty, we naturally look to the want of a sufficient inducement to make this preparation. The occupation in most of our schools is irregular, continuing only for a few months in the year, and the pecuniary compensation for the time it continues, is often less than is furnished by most of the branches of mechanical industry. Then we have no institutions where the business of teaching is made a separate branch of study, where those who are disposed might resort to be fitted, and where we might look for a regular supply of well-qualified instructers. In this state of things, the selection of a teacher is altogether an experiment, and the question whether the experiment is to succeed or fail, cannot always be determined by the most diligent Committee, till a valuable portion of the time allotted to the children is past. This evil is a growing one, and it is time that we looked about for a remedy.

"In the kingdom of Prussia, which may boast, perhaps, of the best system of public school instruction in the world, the schools are entirely in the charge of the government, the business of teaching is elevated to the rank it so richly deserves of a separate profession, the preparation of the teacher is amply provided for, and an adequate support for himself and family till the hour of his decease is furnished and regulated by law.

"Whether something may not be done by legislative enactment

in our own State to provide for the education of teachers, and for a more general and careful supervision of the schools by the appointment of one or more officers of public instruction, must of course be left to the wisdom of our civil fathers. It will not be the least of the benefits arising from the school fund of Massachusetts, if it shall serve as an inducement to the people and the legislature to adopt a more regular and uniform system in regard to all the schools in the Commonwealth.

"In the mean time, it is believed we have it in our power to do something at home towards elevating the rank of the teacher in our own and the neighbouring towns. It is natural and it is right, that the experienced and successful should demand more for their services, than those who engage in teaching for the first time, or those who, having engaged in it for a short period, have not acquired the highest qualifications. This is the ground for a distinction which may easily be made. The propriety or the policy of setting aside an experienced, a faithful, and a capable instructer, for one whose qualifications cannot be known, simply because the former is not to be obtained for the customary price, is not easily understood by your Committee. They believe, on the contrary, that by greater care in the selection of teachers, by a greater demand for high qualifications, by a more rigorous examination of such as apply, by increasing the compensation of such as prove to be satisfactory, and, in short, by encouraging through all the means in our power, those who are capable and faithful, the evils under which we are laboring may be greatly diminished.

"Your Committee have seen beneficial results from continuing the same teachers in a school for a term of years, or at least so long as they can be profitable to the children. The advantage of an acquaintance with the peculiar dispositions and habits of the children, and of a growing interest of the children in them, will, it is manifest, when other things are equal, give them a decided superiority. It will also tend to give more of the character of permanence to the employment, and may operate as an encouragement to many to enter it.

"With these views, your Committee dismiss the subject to their successors, sensible that they have been intrusted with a highly responsible and difficult service, one of the highest pleasures attendant upon which consists in the consciousness of trying to do good."

The following is a large part of a discourse on Atheism, from the text, " Without God in the world," (Eph. ii. 12.)

"How is it to be accounted for, that man, bearing in his own bosom the image of his Creator, and surrounded on every side with the proofs of his heavenly origin, can yet stand up in the face of them all, and deny that origin? This, I conceive, is a question