Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: But the teacher had withdrawn, and was back at Cambridge, no doubt feeling dismal and indignant. Dismal and despondent, at least; for the mother's self-reproaching habit was strong in the son already. The orphan-feeling brooded over him. He is wondering what he shall be, and his dreams are tinted by the thought:— " How foolish docs it appear to waste one's time in endeavors to gain distinction, or even happiness, when we look at the close of life, and consider that the grave closes alike upon all. ... I sometimes think I should prefer to devote my time to study and science, that I should glory in distinction ; but at others I say to myself, how much better it were, if possible, to settle down the pastor of some retired and obscure village, and, forsaking and forgot by the world, to devote myself solely to the cause of religion and virtue, to be the friend as well as the minister of my people, and if old age should spread its wrinkles on my brow, to descend to my grave after devoting my life to the cause of my God and Saviour!" . This Wets in June, 1819. A little later the gloom had settled more deeply, and he wrote: — " Why am I discontented ? It is, it must be, because I want religion. I know it, I dare not tell myself how sinful, how neglectful, I have been and am. Religion and I are strangers: I know it only from report. Its real influence, its sanctifying power, I never felt. I have neglected its duties; I have wasted its privileges. Uneasy, discontented, and fickle must I continue, till I know more of its power, till I become a disciple of the Saviour, till I have repented for past sins, and feel that to do good is my desire, to be good my object." . . . ..." I believe there is a God ; for there is such evidence of him in nature that I must believe it. But ther...