PREFACE.

THIS book would not have been added to the multitude of similar memorials of friends and relatives, had it not been for the judgment, repeatedly expressed, of persons well acquainted with the subject of these sketches, that some notice of his life and character in a volume, would certainly do good. As an account of the trials and conflicts of a youthful Christian, nearly the whole of whose life was a protracted struggle after health, and nearly all his attainments the result of repeated disappointments, there is something in it of novelty and originality-something, at least, out of the ordinary channel of biographies. Of the current and changes of the mortal existence here recorded, there are no visible results, nor any consciousness in men's minds connected with the name; and, in general, a book of memorials is of

those whose successful or remarkable doings, or whose important position, at least, in a larger or a smaller circle, have given them some measure of reputation and of influence.

But in this book there is nothing either of fame or position connected with its subject, to give it popularity; and its interest must be owing to the pleasure men may take in pursuing the development of a repressed and noble nature, through a life of suffering. There are important Christian lessons contained in it, and growing out of it; and we would fain hope that this simple record of illness and of disappointed expectation, conducting only to the grave, yet there, and all the way along, pointing to heaven, may meet a want, if not a wish, in some minds, especially youthful minds, and be instrumental in quickening some hearts, perhaps distressed and desponding hearts, in the grand but often trying pilgrimage to the Saints' Rest.

NEW YORK, Sept. 1st, 1851.

INTRODUCTION.

ALMOST the earliest recollection of my beloved brother presents him as a beautiful child, with one hand in mine, and we together on the way to school. It was with a mixture of fraternal pride and love that I watched over him, and both of us seemed for a time to be moving in the bright world around us as in a dream. This play-mate care of childhood grew into a painful anxiety when ill health had become the element of his existence; but still, the fervency and strength of our affection were increased by it. I remember for the first time having the sole care of him away from home, when we were both very young, during a sojourn of some weeks for his health at an unvisited mineral spring in the wilderness, then lying in the same primeval state as when it was resorted to only by bears and savages. The images of that isolation from society were absorbed, on the part of both of us, in one feeling-that of intense and overwhelming home-sickness. There was only one habitation in a field of stumps and cornstalks, amidst the desolation of a half-burned clearing in the heart of the forest, and the time was heavy and long with us; but his patience, cheerfulness, and power of enjoyment amidst suffering, began even then to be remarkable.

An interval of youthful health was granted after this, before that dreadful cold was taken which issued in the fixed, unconquerable disease, that, years afterwards, terminated his existence; and during that period his life was bright, hopeful, and happy, and the development of his being, both physical and mental, as perfect as ever perhaps takes place under like circumstances. His face was radiant with loveliness, both of feature and expressiona sparkling animation mingled with its sweetness, the result of that elasticity and joyousness of spirit, which afterwards wonderfully sustained his activity beneath such a weight of oppressive chronic malady. Its characteristic bright cheerfulness, was, indeed, at length shaded with pain: habitual sickness and suffering will make their marks upon the countenance, not merely in wasting and paleness; and even the prevailing expression of resignation is a sad and touching one. Yet always there remained on the face and on the soul the frankness and disinterestedness of character, the pleasant, glad-hearted sympathy, the earnestness and simplicity of purpose, the warmth of affectionate feeling.

A single look-how long it will continue in the mind! If we doubted whether all things will come up in review, our own experiences would confound us. I remember, when we were both very young, I was in our yard at home, during one of my vacations, mending an old hen-house, for the amusement of my dear invalid young brother. He stood by, watching with his animated countenance my progress with the hammer and the nails. I got into some little difficulty, or it took me much longer to do the work than I had thought for, or else I may have got an ugly scratch, that put me for the moment out of temper; but I remem ber exclaiming to my dear little brother, who loved me, and looked up to me with great veneration, and for whom I would have done anything in the world to please him-I remember exclaiming, though with an under-consciousness myself, at the very same moment, of a foolish affectation or hypocrisy in what I was say

ing, and of the wrongfulness of my impatience, "Well, I'm thankful there'll be no mending of hen-houses in heaven; we shall have a very different employment there." The dear boy's countenance fell in a moment. It mortified and perplexed him. I remember the look he gave to this hour. He did not say a single word, but it was evident that his feelings were hurt. He felt grieved that I should be impatient in a slight task, which he had thought was a pleasure to me-a labor of love; he felt hurt and sorry to have been himself the occasion of trouble; and there was in his face an expression that told me, as plainly as words could have said it, that he saw anything but the spirit of heaven— anything but a true desire after heaven in my manner, and in what I was uttering.

I recollect, too, that the moment I had dropped that speech, and even while I was speaking it, I felt its silliness and its wrongfulness—felt that it was not sincere, but inconsistent with anything like the true gentleness and patience of piety, and that it conveyed an accusation, as if there was something beneath the dignity of religion in being at work upon that old hen-house! There the revelation stops. I remember nothing more of that day, nor of that year-nay, I cannot tell what year of his life or of mine it was, nor precisely how old either of us were, nor any other circumstances or associations. But that look of his, I see his dear face now, that look has held its place in my soul ever since-its REPROVING place; and it has kept that one scene as fresh in my memory as if it were but yesterday; and every time I think of it, it still brings the pang of regret that shot through me at first, that I should have clouded his young heart for a moment, even in the very midst of the pleasure I was giving him; that I should have deprived him, as it were, of that very pleasure, by making him feel ashamed and downcast, by such a foolish, Pharisaical speech, which seemed to intimate that there was something in the care of his hen-house quite beneath the grandeur of immortality