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him as an "unthinking, volatile, restless years of age." The family tradition is, young creature."

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"I became a member of his family when a child of seven years old, and remained under his roof the greater part of the time from two to three years. During that period, he treated me with the kindness of a father; and continued ever after, while he lived, to express toward me a truly parental affection.

** He took a deep interest in children and young people, and was fond of conversing with them, of promoting their improvement, of drawing them out, and of contributing to their enjoyment. He took a good deal of pains, while I was in his family attending school in the place, in showing me how to read and speak with propriety and impressiveness, and often called me out to speak the little pieces he had taught me, for the entertainment of his guests.

* I ought to

be a wiser and better man, in consequence of the favor conferred upon me, in being placed so early under his parental care, and in continuing so long to be blessed with his counsels and prayers."

He appears to have left Dr. Dana's in the spring of 1798. In July, his father writes Dr. Dana that he "still continues good and promising." It was about this time that his kinsman, Mr. John Tappan, who, though several years his senior, yet survives him, first saw him " an exceedingly interesting youth, of ten or eleven

1 Dr. Tappan's letter on Dr. Dana. Sprague's Annals, 1. 601.

that he was a very engaging boy.

He completed his preparation for college at home, partly under the tuition of the now venerable Dr. Jenks. He was matriculated at Harvard College in 1801, when not quite thirteen years old. Before he entered upon his third college year, his father died, August 27, 1803. This made some change in the circumstances of the family, his father leaving little property. But friends, among whom Chief Justice Parsons was prominent, interested themselves in their behalf, and he was able to go on with his college course. He seems to have been suitably impressed by his father's death, and to

have desired to make the best use of his opportunities. Writing June 6, 1804, to his only sister, then at Portsmouth, N. H., he says:

"When we reflect upon the situation in which we are, how ought we to double our diligence, in order to answer, in some measure, the expectations of our friends, grounded on the knowledge of the excellent counsels we have received, and examples we have seen! How ought we to strive to behave in such a manner as to gratify and comfort our dear mother! How ought we to labor to pursue that conduct which we have reason to believe would please our deceased father, were he on earth to witness it!"

August 27, 1804, he informs his sister that he has delivered his oration at the Junior Exhibition. He praises some of the other parts, but says not a word in praise of his own. With quite another spirit he writes:

"How swift, Hannah, are the moments of time! It is just a year to-day since papa died; since we saw him breathe his last; since we saw him, with his eyes raised to heaven, die the death of the righteous. How much reason have we to be humble, that we have made no better improvement of this dispensation; that we have no better obeyed his dying advice, when he charged us so solemnly to love God supremely, and our neighbor as ourselves!"

During the following vacation, he made

a visit to some friends in Weathersfield, Conn., taking New Haven on his way, and apparently attending Commencement there. From New Haven to Weathersfield he rode "in company with Dr. Morse and Mr. William Channing;"" with whom also, the following day, he dined "at Colonel Chester's; and, the next day, heard them preach two most excellent sermons." Returning to Cambridge, September 27, he found his Cambridge friends all well, and endeavored to entertain them with the account of his very agreeable journey.

"But every pleasure is blended with some pain, every joy with some sorrow. So it was when I found our much esteemed and beloved President Willard cut off from the land of the living. His funeral I attended on Saturday, at which I was much gratified with the excellent eulogy of Mr. Webber, as likewise with Mr. Holmes's sermon, the next day, from this text: 'They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament.'"

August 28, 1805, he took his leave of Alma Mater, delivering a Latin oration on the "Connection of Things Material and Intellectual," still extant, and not discreditable to a youth not yet quite seventeen. There is every evidence that he made a good use of his time and advantages while in college, and that he held a high rank in his class; furthermore, that his mind was of the sober cast, actuated by a high sense of moral obligation, no stranger to serious thought.

Before this time the family had gone back to their old abode at West Newbury. But he appears not to have forsaken Cambridge at once after his graduation, or at least not to have remained away. November 8, 1805, however, he writes from Cambridge:

"On Monday next I think of entering into a school at Woburn, which I shall keep two

* Dr. William Ellery Channing, who had not then developed his Unitarian views, which Dr. Morse afterwards was the first to expose and denounce.

months. I have always had a great inclination to try my talents of instruction. How I succeed, time must determine."

Some further extracts from the letter may not only be interesting in themselves, but throw light upon his mode of thinking and feeling at the time.

"As to college affairs, I have not much to tell you. The long-asked question, Who is to be president? yet remains unanswered, and there seems to be no clew by which to discover what will be the event. It seems to be generally thought, however, that Dr. Pearson is to be the man; and if it be true, as I believe it is, that the (Hollis) professorship has fallen into the hands of a man who has fallen off from the good faith of our forefathers, it is very desirable that the president should be of the old-fashioned stamp, that so he might give a tone of orthodoxy to the college. As to Mr. Ware, I have been in his company once or twice, and am exceedingly pleased with his appearance and manner. His sentiments, whatever they may be, he does not appear at all solicitous to bring forward. The list of books, which he has made out for some of the theological students in town, is very much like that which papa used to give; such a list as would enable a man to read and

judge for himself, by comparing arguments

on one side with those on the other.

"Last Sunday, Enoch," the eldest of the three brothers, "and myself, went to hear Mr. Buckminster in the forenoon. He is certainly a very good preacher, perhaps not a very useful one, for I still think Mr. Channing much better. I wish you would tell aunt, that, in some parts of his sermon, he struck me as orthodoxical. He combated

the opinion, as one of the most dangerous errors in Christendom, that morality was all that was necessary; and that, if a man lived well, he would certainly go to heaven. He said that the gospel was not intended so much to reveal the duties of morality, (for they were known before,) but to reveal doctrines for belief, in order to support and strengthen practice; for, without these articles of faith, a good practice could not be maintained."

After teaching two months at Woburn, he returned to Cambridge, and

3 J. S. Buckminster, of Brattle Street Church, then at the hight of his popularity.

spent some weeks "in reading and studying, in writing in the office" (of Mr. Bartlett, his guardian), “and visiting."

February 28, 1806, he writes from Woburn again, having resumed his school; is more favorably situated for study than he was before; takes care not to lose the advantages of exercise; on a very intimate footing at "Parson Chickering's;" rides with him one day to Cambridge, where he spends the day very agreeably; affected by the death of one of his scholars, for all of whom he has great attachment.

How long this second period of teaching at Woburn lasted does not appear; but, in May, he writes again from Cambridge, the week after election. He had heard Dr. Lyman's Convention Sermon.

"A very Calvinistic one, and therefore it did not please the Boston part of his audience. It does not strike one agreeably to see a clergyman stand up before so large a number of his brethren of different opinions, and advance his sentiments in so bold a manner, and hold them up as absolutely essential points of faith. We dined at Lawyer Parsons', with Governor Strong's daughter, and considerable other company."

In a letter from Dr. Tappan, which appears in the present Judge Parsons' Memoir of his father, he says:

"My oldest brother and myself, by his kind invitation, often visited him and his family at his hospitable mansion in Pearl Street, Boston. Whenever I was in his company, he treated me very kindly, and gave me such advice as he thought adapted to my age and circumstances."

In June, 1806, he commences a school at Salem.

"I have not yet determined what minister constantly to attend, but probably it will be Mr. Worcester. Last Sunday, I heard him preach a most admirable sermon from these

words: "The heavens declare the glory of God.' He is a Hopkinsian, to be sure; but it is said that he does not dwell upon his par

ticular tenets so much as many of them do. Dr. Barnard is a very agreeable man in the pulpit, and still more so in his house. One

evening last week I spent at the doctor's, and he was exceedingly entertaining. He told me a number of very fine stories, and he told them with very great spirit and animation."

October 13, 1806, he writes of a jaunt he had made to Newburyport and Ipswich, seeing his old friend Dr. Dana, conferring with him in regard to the publication of his father's lectures, and making him, on his mother's behalf, the present of a coat, at which "the good man's heart seemed full; it overflowed, I believe, at his eyes." The evening that he writes, he has been to see a Quaker aunt in Salem, on whose goodness he expatiates :

"How much preferable is the plain language and unceremonious salutation of a Quaker, if accompanied by a hearty welcome, to the round of unmeaning compliments and most fervent good-for-nothing wishes which flow from the lips of fashionable people, intended, as it would seem, to serve as a substitute for genuine friendship and hospitality! Genuine benevolence is a jewel of inestimable value. The lustre it diffuses around him who wears it is more glorious than all the pomp of wealth, and all the magnificence of honor, and all the brilliancy of learning."

The sequel of his life shows that this was, with him, no transient sentiment.

"See what a long dissertation," he continues, "the kindness of Aunt N. has led me to! You must expect that a young man, who expects one day to become a preacher, should now and then sermonize in his letters; especially when he cannot find much time to sermonize in any other way, as is pretty much the case with me. For what with school, and the visiting that must unavoidably be made, very little time is left me for study."

Here is the first intimation, in his letters, of his intention to be a preacher of the gospel. He was, however, growing up with no other expectation, and would seem all along to have been directing his thoughts and studies accordingly; under

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the guidance, somewhat, of the list of books which Dr. Ware had made out.

The extracts already made from his letters give some idea of the life he led at Salem. He says a good deal about the frequency of parties, balls, etc. From his youth up, evidently, he had keen enjoyment of society. Conversing about his life at Salem, as death approached, he expressed the conviction that he was then too much given to social pleasures. Balls, however, and dancing generally, he appears to have kept aloof from.

"I do not like the appearance," he writes his sister, "of a young man who continues to practise these amusements till his profession obliges him to desist, as is the case with many students in divinity."

He prayed constantly in his school. He pursues often quite a serious train of reflection in his letters.

When his Christian life commenced, there is nothing to show. It is not known that he himself was able to fix the point. It would seem that the religious influences surrounding him from the first were continually producing an effect. The impression among his friends is, that the more manifest beginning was in his twelfth or thirteenth year. He had not, however, when at Salem, joined himself to the visible church. Perhaps it was owing partly to this that he was drawn into no special religious activities there, so far as appears, nor into attendance upon any devotional services during the week. How much he put himself privately under the influence of Mr. Worcester does not appear, nor indeed whether there was any special acquaintance between them, though there must have been more or less.

He writes his sister in regard to her education, expressing the opinion that "a superficial education is little better, if not worse, than nothing," and offering to defray her expenses at a school in Newburyport, "happy that it is in his

power to testify his sincere wishes for her improvement and happiness."

In another letter he advises his sister to be sparing in her reading of novels, as "much better for the dessert than for the substantial part of the feast."

He continued at Salem teaching more than three years. At a meeting of the Trustees and Overseers of Bowdoin College, in May, 1809, Mr. Andrews Norton and Mr. Benjamin Tappan were chosen tutors of that institution, their term of service to begin at the succeeding commencement. Both accepted the appointment, the former holding it one year, the latter two. They had been three years together at Harvard, Mr. Norton being of the class of 1804.

The first letter written by Mr. Tappan to his family after entering upon the duties of his tutorship is lost, unfortunately, so that there is no record of his first impressions of Bowdoin College, or of its honored and revered President, Appleton. The number both of teachers and of pupils was then comparatively small; the buildings few; the grounds far less attractive than at present. Cleaveland, however, was there, as well as Appleton, and there was some pleasant society out of the college. The tutors seem to have boarded at the same house, and generally to have walked, ridden, and visited together. One of their rides was to Bath, where they called upon Mr. Tappan's former teacher, Mr. Jenks, now the venerable Dr. Jenks, then pastor of one of the churches there.

"Professsor Cleaveland we call on every day, and spend a half hour in pleasant chat. The President, who, by the way, is one of the best men in the world, we visit once a week or fortnight. The pleasantest family to which we have been introduced since I wrote before is that of Dr. Porter, of Topsham, who married a sister of

Rufus and William King, and is treasurer of the college."

So he keeps up his social habits, though he says in another letter:

"I spend my time in a very sober way, visit but little, and consequently read and study a good deal."

He accompanied Professor Cleaveland on some of his "mineralogical expeditions;" one to Harpswell, where they called on "Parson Eaton," one of the remarkable characters of Maine at that day, of whom Sprague's Annals contains an interesting account.

Mr. Tappan's letters say little in regard to the incidents of his tutor's life proper. One rather amusing scene he relates of his manner of dealing with some midnight rioters in college, showing, at least, that he was not wanting in determination and courage. He had a reputation, with some, for severity. He always had high notions of discipline, and found it difficult to be patient with blundering recitations. It may be that he was too stern sometimes. When one who was a student at the time Mr. Tappan was tutor, in the half-century historical discourse delivered in 1846, among his playful allusions to the past, said that Tutor Tappan used to be thought somewhat severe, the only and the very character istic reply made by Dr. Tappan, in his speech at the dinner afterwards, was, "It must be remembered that, when I became tutor, I was a young man, not quite twenty-one years of age."

The following paper, presented on the expiration of his tutorship, in 1811, bears witness to his conscientious fidelity:

"Impressed with a sense of the strong obligations we are under to you for your assiduous care, unwearied attentions, and unremitted exertions for our improvement in science during the year past, we, members of the Freshman Class, beg leave to express our grateful acknowledgments, and tender you our sincere thanks. The important services which you have rendered us are entitled to our lasting remembrance- -a remembrance, which, we are persuaded, neither the

progress of time, nor the changes of situation,

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But these two years are chiefly interesting in their relation to Mr. Tappan's after-life. In these years, he was to complete his preparation for the ministry; indeed, to commence his career as a preacher.

His opportunities for theological study were, of course, better than they had been before, and he gave himself to it more earnestly. Unfortunately, his letters to Dr. Dana, of which there was quite a series, and which, as is shown by Dr. Dana's letters in reply, spoke of his theological studies, and propounded various questions, besides saying something of his religious feelings, cannot be found.

The image, however, stands forth plainly enough of an humble, ingenuous, prayerful student, anxious always to know the teachings of the Divine Word, and bowing reverently to them. How much he conversed with Mr. Norton on theological topics, does not appear. He speaks of him as preaching "elegant sermons," but as "not being orthodox and animated enough to be popular.” He does not seem to have been at all drawn to the views which Mr. Norton held, and which afterwards, as professor in the Cambridge Divinity School, and in his books, he set forth with such learning and ability. But Mr. Tappan, of course, with such a man at his side, thus reminded also how many others held the same opinions, would be all the more careful to assure himself that his own faith rested on solid foundations. Dr. Dana gave him some excellent counsel, particularly on the wisdom of knowing "how much need not be known," and of being "well grounded, both in head and

can ever efface. Permit us, sir,to declare our ardent wishes for your future prosperity and happiness. "With sentiments of esteem and respect, heart, in positive truth; in the undenia

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