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ing the hour for the Commencement' exercise, and with all Henry's love for the fife and the drum, and also for the violin, there was no music to him like the sound of the church-going bell. He never was tired of that music; and even when the nine o'clock' evening bell pealed out the hour when the street plays must be ended, and all boys must be at home, there was something pleasant in the sound of the bells. When other boys were sliding, coasting and skating, around him, on Christmas week, Henry would stand still, with the rope of his sled wound round his arm, listening to the 'Old North' chimes. And now the sound of the church-bell came to arouse his conscience; and there alone, with none to know him, he felt heartily ashamed to think he did not act more honestly in blowing upon the dandelion. The tears were in his eyes. His heart was heavy, and there was no peace for him till he made another trial. He plucked another stem. He held it up valiantly. He blowed upon the top with a vigorous breath, and every particle of the down departed! The ball could not have been brushed more smoothly. His hand was again on the rail. One spring, and he was over into the road, running as if for life, back to town!" (pp. 20-22.)

We discern, too, even in childhood, that fearless opposition to wrong which never in his after life forsook him. The spirit of the reformer breathes through the following little incidents :

"The great temperance reform had not yet commenced, and that portion of Boston where he resided probably needed its redeeming influence more than any other portion of the city. He saw the tempting cordial displayed on every occasion, even where his playmates met for a little social party; and he knew it was the same poison that stole the peace from families around him, and marred the beauty of many a noble form that his eyes once loved to look upon. He had no courage to tell how his soul hated the tempter; but the work was begun, where true reform always commences, in the heart of the individual. Alone with his God he made a solemn vow that no intoxicating drink should ever pass his lips; and he kept it.

"He had many trials to encounter for conscience' sake, but he always came off conqueror. Once a merry, rough old sailor, a favorite with him and his playmates, had just returned from sea, and, encountering his young friends in the neighborhood of a bar-room, true to his nature, he immediately invited them to drink. 'Now, Henry,' said one of his friends, you'll have to drink, or he'll be angry.' 'You'll see,' was the only reply. When his turn came, and the sailor passed the glass to him, he looked straight into his eyes, and said, Excuse me, sir, I have made a solemn vow never to touch intoxicating drink.' The sailor immediately laid down the glass, and

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seizing his hand, while the tears streamed down his rough cheeks, exclaimed, 'Bless you, my good boy! Would to God I could keep such a vow! How many a heart-ache.it would have saved my poor old mother!'

"At another time he had joined a boat party for a fishing excursion in Boston harbor. Near one of the many islands the boat ran aground, and the party was obliged to remain in that uncomfortable position nearly all night. Henry dropped asleep in the boat, and his companions, among whom was a relative older than himself, feeling some anxiety about him, as the boat was wet and the night air chilly, attempted to arouse him and get him to drink a potion to secure him against cold. They succeeded in partly awakening him, and put the cup to his lips; but the flavor of the mixture aroused him to consciousness, and he set his teeth against it as though he had received a sudden attack of lock-jaw. His friends laughingly gave up further efforts for his safety, and left him to his fate; but the story was told with great zest in after years, when the conscientious boy became a successful pleader for temperance." (pp. 25, 26.)

Such was the boy, "shy and sensitive by nature," yet with a conscientiousness and integrity that made him bold as a lion for the right.

Henry attended the free schools of Boston till his fourteenth year, and there received all his school instruction. He had, however, a retentive memory, and the same studious and persevering habits which marked his after years. At the close of his school-days, he commenced the business in which his father and elder brother were engaged. In a beautiful valley, in the town of Medford (now Winchester), about seven miles from Boston, was a hat factory, belonging to his father. "Here he was surrounded with a wealth of running waters, green meadows, stately trees, and distant hills, crowned with dark foliage, and here he commenced a discipline that gave much after power to the intense thinker and earnest worker." Here, amid the din of wheels and machinery, he wrote speeches and songs; here he read books of travel, history, romance, poetry, newspapers-every thing that came within his reach; but his study was Shakspeare and the Bible. In after life he speaks of this time:

"A sound has just struck upon my ear which has borne me back some twenty years; and I lay in the soft moonlight of the summer's eve, listening to the quivering notes of my Eolian harp, mingled with the music of the water-fall. What a toiling and dreamy creature

I was then,-aimless, life a tangled skein of mysteries, and Jacob's ladder but visible in a dream! The night was my time to live inalone, bending over the wondrous pages of Shakspeare, drinking in the streams of the many-colored light as they came through the windows of his genius. All I had thought, imagined, or dreamed of, was anticipated there; and I felt awe-struck, reverential, and humble, before the majesty of the poet's soul. Had he then appeared in my lonely room, I should have instinctively bowed down and kissed the hem of his robe. He made me dissatisfied with mere fiction,with the fairy tale, fashioned for the luxurious hour of the summer He made me ask after that elevated knowledge, that sublimity of character, that excellence in which I now see, in perfect mosaic, all the fragments of beauty, grace, and majesty I had found scattered around the pathway that led through the garden and broad fields of his works. That excellence I found in Jesus Christ. There I saw an acute intellect, an indomitable will, a pure and precise conscience, and a boundless love. I have now a higher Shakspeare,—one who turns to me the many-colored lights of the spiritual world." (pp. 29, 30.)

eve.

The great truths of the Bible thrilled his soul even at this early period, and he had a fondness for religious meetings unusual for one of his years. In 1830 his father built a dwelling-house in the neighborhood of his factory, and the family removed from Boston. The lovely scenery and his father's hospitality brought many visitors to the house; and among these were many Universalist ministers. He formed the acquaintance of the Rev. D. D. Smith; who, finding the young student at work in the factory with his copy-book beside him, became interested in him, and begged something for publication in the Universalist and Ladies' Repository, of which he was then the editor. The request was granted and his first article was published.

His elder brother died in September, 1832, which event was to him a deep bereavement. He thus speaks of his loss:

"I have had one to cheer me on in my pursuit after knowledge,-one who would always lend a helping hand to my young efforts. That one is dead! and I feel my talents are too weak, too insignificant, to write his eulogy; but I may be permitted to quote a few lines from my journal, kept at the time of his death.

"He, who but a short time since was all hope and animation, is dead! and in him we have lost the proudest ornament of the family. He was the affectionate and devoted son and brother, the sincere and generous friend. His goodness and well-stored mind added lustre

to the social circle; his nobleness of soul, and many generous, manly deeds, gained him the esteem of all who were so fortunate as to secure his friendship. But the prayers and heartfelt wishes of many could not avail. The summons has gone forth, and he has obeyed it.” (pp. 39.)

At this time he removed from Medford to his father's store in Boston; and now he commenced writing regularly for the Ladies' Repository. But his situation as clerk was not congenial to him. The ledger and the daybook were not his kindred spirits. Through the encouraging words of Rev. D. D. Smith he wrote a sermon, the preaching of which is thus related by himself:

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"On the 9th of August, 1834, I arose and made ready to ride with a ministering friend to Quincy. Not one word had ever been said between us about my making any attempt to preach; but as I was leaving my room, a thought took possession of me, and I stepped to where I had a sermon which I had written as a trial of skill, and I said to myself, If he asks me to preach, I'll preach.' I put the manuscript in my pocket, and went forth to meet my engagement to ride to Quincy. Not a word passed about preaching, but the time was passed in a very agreeable conversation on the sights and sounds we greeted in one of the pleasantest of the very pleasant lines of travel round Boston. When we were on Neponset bridge, my companion finished the singing of a hymn, and then paused in silence for a while. That silence was broken with the expression, Now, Henry, don't be frightened, but have good courage.' 'What do you mean?' said I; 'you are not going to hurt me! I added jocosely. O, no!' he answered; 'but you have got to preach, this morning.' 'No, no!' said I, in absolute fright at such an idea. Why, you've got your sermon with you, haven't you?' I could not say no, and it seemed to me the strangest thing imaginable that he should suppose I had a sermon with me, or should propose the perilous act of my attempting to preach. I, so timid that I had scarce courage to go to the circle of our own friends, and had never been able to summon spirit to speak at school, though coaxed and scolded to do so. But my friend talked on as though it were a settled matter. His tones were exceedingly kind, and the persuasion of his words carried strength in me to attempt any thing that was good. He told me he had expected I should preach, and had made no preparation on his own part, and I felt I must attempt the work. Though I knew him to be as ready for speaking as waters from the waterfall to run, yet at that moment it seemed to me that the case was just this: He had no sermon; I had confessed I had one, and a sermon must be preached. How my whole being quaked and shivered from that

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moment till we got to the church! I followed my friend in, and when I went up the pulpit stairs it seemed to me impossible to place my feet down on them. A thousand elastic springs seemed to have worked themselves into my feet, and they were as nervous as when the opera-dancer has suffered martyrdom in the fantasies of the poetry of motion. My friend read the selection from the Scriptures, aud then gave me the hymn to read. It was the hymn commencing, "Upward I lift mine eye,

From God is all my aid;'

and, supposing that a large church required great effort of voice to fill it, I read that hymn with a stentorian voice. The people looked up, not wondering at the wisdom carried by so little and flaxen a head, for they had not as yet received any thing of mine own;' but they did marvel from whence came that strength of voice! I read the hymn, only one foot keeping down on the platform at a time; and as I knew, from reading at school, that a full strength of voice did something in covering up timidity in the reader, this idea added to the size of the church, that looked tremendous, seen by me from the pulpit, made me read with a volume of voice not to be confined to a little space. When I sat down, my friend remarked 'You read well, but don't read quite so loud next time.' I was moderate in my tone at the next exercise, and then came the sermon. My text was, 'God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.' O, how I did tremble! The fear, the trepidation, or call it what you please, almost overwhelmed me. How I lived I know not. It was impossible for me to keep more than one foot down; the other would fly up, as when a poor creature with naked feet is made to dance as a whip touches now the flesh of one and then of the other. I was sustained by a power I little appreciated then; for after a little while had passed, I was calm, selfpossessed, and fearless. From the first I had no desire to shrink back. I do not know that I thought of such a thing, or dreamed that it was possible to escape the fiery ordeal. It appeared to me that I had a work to do, and it must be done." (pp. 42-44.)

From that time he preached regularly every Sabbath. Behold then the "shy, sensitive boy," a young and ardent preacher of Universalism!

His first settlement was at East Cambridge, where he was married in the year 1836. During his settlement in this place, we see that ready sympathy with his people in times of sorrow and of joy-that peculiar gift of consoling the afflicted and comforting the dying-which were ever his characteristics. In the chamber of sickness he was ever welcome, and he felt it was a holy privilege to

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