ble house in the neighborhood, where he had been wont to attend for the purpose of making sport of serious things.

"Not that he was an infidel, maternal instruction had pre. occupied the ground-but he would indulge in that thoughtless impiety, which, while it provoked God, and grieved his people, emboldened the unbeliever in his career of wicked. ness. In such a character, the change to piety is more conspicuous and decided than in one uniformly adorned with an amiable morality."

Says a third,*

"That he exceeded most others when he entered college, in levity, thoughtlessness, and mirth, is a fact of which you have been often assured. So completely did the world and its follies engross his attention, that during his convictions in his junior year, he told me, 'he had no recol. lection that the thought that he must die had ever occurred to him until that time.' In getting his lesson in astronomy. he said, 'All at once he had such an overwhelming display of the Almighty power and majesty of God, that he was for some minutes lost in astonishment and wonder; and then for the first time he thought of the condescension and goodness of God in sparing and preserving so insignificant a being as himself. His convictions were of that deep cast which marked the freedom and strength with which he engaged in every thing he undertook, even his amusements. He spent considerable part of the two or three last days of his anxiety and concern in my room-some of the time almost frantic with despair-fearing there was no mercy for one who had lived so many years without thinking of death and his duty to God. After passing some hours in the room alone one day, in prayer and reading, he left it and went hastily into the woods. I sat by the window, and waited to see him

• Rev. B. Chase.

return; and as he came, I saw that look of despair was ex. changed for a smile. Coming in, he exclaimed, ‘О, С, I went into the woods to kill myself, for I could not endure such dreadful despair. But when I arrived there, I thought I would make one more prayer, and then act. I knelt down,' said he, 'though I feared the trees would fall and crush me, and before I rose I found such joy and peace as cannot be

described!""

The development of religious experience varies much in form and manner in different individuals, according to the varied shades of opinion and habits of thought in the different Christian societies with which they are connected. Among all the true disciples of Christ there is unity of spirit; yet the work of conversion might be described in different terms by a member of the English church, and the descendant of the Puritans, the one being taught to guard against enthusiasm, and the other to repress no sentiment which may serve darkly to contrast the sin and misery of our nature with the power and mercy of God. In some minds the love of God springs up under the gentle encouragements of the Gospel, while others are moved to seek it from a sense of guilt and the terrors of a coming retribution. The still voice of reason and the fair countenance of virtue win some to goodness, while others seem at first inclined to walk in her paths by the thunders that alarm and the despair that overcasts them in every other way.

The conduct of the subject of our memoir at this crisis, was marked with all the sincerity, zeal, boldness and determination, natural to him, and exalted by a sense of duty and the love of Christ. Those who were present represent the scene as one of peculiar interest, when he first publicly avowed his Christian faith and hope. "Imagine to yourself," (says his friend,) "a youth of noble appearance, known to have been a leader among those uncontrolled by religion, rising in the midst of a crowded room, frankly, but with modesty and meekness, expressing regret and shame for the sins of his past life,* his utter renunciation of them, his reliance by faith upon the Saviour, and his purpose to devote himself to his service and glory. Imagine that you heard him in that tone of manly fervid eloquence for which he was afterwards so much distinguished, appeal to those around him, and urge their reconciliation to God, and finally, with humility and earnestness, imploring for them as well as himself, the choicest blessings of the Almighty, until all were affected to tears, and you would have a faint idea of the scene when the youthful Larned first confessed Jesus Christ before men."

From this hour he entered with energy upon the discharge of his duties as a Christian-regularly attended the meetings held by the religious for prayer and mutual improvement, and turning his thoughts from the law, to which, as a profession, they had been directed, determined to consecrate his life to the service of the Most High in the ministry of Christ.

During his collegiate course he showed himself capable of excellence in general scholarship,

* "With that, like one that hopelesse was repryv'd
From deathe's dore, at which he lately lay,
Those yron fetters wherewith he was gyv'd
The badges of reproach, he threw away."

Spenser.

yet being somewhat averse to continued study and abstruse inquiries, won his chief distinction in liter ature and oratory, though in one of his letters he speaks of having amused himself with calculating eclipses. So distinguished was he, even at this period, for his compositions and eloquence, as to call forth the remark from the president of the College,* "that in these respects he was not surpassed by any youth of his years, whom he had ever known," and that should he enter the ministry, and his life be spared, "he would, as a pulpit orator, have no superior in the country." Though much of his time was devoted to reading and social intercourse, and comparatively little attention given to his lessons, such was the quickness and force of his genius, that he uniformly acquitted himself with credit at his recitations.

During this year he delivered an oration "on the establishment and effects of British power in Hindostan," which shows a cultivated intellect, taste, and imagination,† very rare at the age of sixteen, and clearly foretokening the distinction which he afterwards obtained.

* President Davis.

+ The following are the introductory sentences of this oration: "The loss of national independence is a subject of mournful contemplation. Such is the nature of man, that no government, of whatever description, can crumble into ruins without an epitaph. It is not with a nation as with an individual; the man dies, and his memory descends with him to the grave; but when a nation falls a sacrifice to the slow but fa al operations of revolution, every cause of its decay is scrutinized, with all the sagacity of the politician, and the keen investigation of the philosopher. Tosympathise with unmerited suffering is natural to the human heart. This practice, so amiable in its nature, and so beneficial in its consequences, has its foundation in a principle implanted

The following extract from a letter to his sister, dated at Middlebury, May 5th, 1813, is interesting, as being from among the earliest specimens of his correspondence, and as expressive of his deep sense of the vanity of all things compared to the hopes which Christianity inspires.

"Day after day convinces me of the fading nature of all things below-but still I go on as though I did not believe it. In a little time at most, we shall be in the grave-of how much value then will be earthly popularity, riches and honors -and yet how great a proportion of the world are grasping and grasping and grasping at a shadow, which continually eludes them, while the real substance might be obtained by