solicitude for their welfare, are manifested, in an affecting manner, in the following letter which he wrote to the students from Amherst.

My Dear Young Gentlemen,

AMHERST, JUNE 12, 1819.

It is impossible, that an occurrence so new, as my absence from college at the commencement of a term, should not be attended with unusual feelings, and those not always of the most pleasant nature. Anxious as I always am for your intellectual and moral improvement, you will easily perceive, that such solicitude cannot be diminished, either by reviewing the last term, or by the conscious inability, which I feel, of contributing any thing at present, either to the government or instruction of college.

There are two capacities, in which every member of a public institution ought to consider himself,-I mean that of a student, and that of an accountable being. Your opportunities for enlarging the mind, and increasing that intellectual distinction, which God has been pleased to make between human and brutal natures, are numerous and invaluable. By what you are conscious of in yourselves, and by what you observe in others, you perceive how differently these opportunities are improved, and to what different results they eventually lead. You perceive, that residence at college, is, as it respects this world,— as it respects character, a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death;-it renders more public your bad or your good conduct, thereby making your honor or disgrace more extensively known. You are not fully sensible, I am persuaded, how much not only the character of college, but your own individual characters are affected, in view of the public, either by indolence, dissipation, and impiety, or by the opposite virtues.

Reputation and happiness are, indeed, as it respects their nature, distinct; yet is the latter, in no small degree, dependent on the former. Permit me to ask, whether you have not found, either by experience or observation, that your happiness

may be very essentially injured or advanced by your own conduct and deportment during the space even of a single term. Have you not observed, that a student may not only very essentially impair his reputation in view of his fellow students, and in view of the government, in a time so short as three months, but that he may make, during that time, fearful inroads upon his own happiness? Call to mind a single student, who has closed a college term with happy reflections, when conscious, that, by associating with the indolent, disreputable, and vicious, he has diminished his taste for study, lost his previous standing in his class, lost the friendship and confidence of the better part of his fellow students, and incurred the displeasure of government? Suppose, that, in addition to all this, he is conscious of new inclinations to vice, a taste for guilty pursuits, a love for drinking and noisy dissipation; suppose, that he feels these propensities to be increasing, his efforts to counteract them ineffectual, and himself becoming more and more the unresisting slave of a vice, which the experience of others has taught him not only entails everlasting death, but spares not the temporal comforts, the health, or even the life of its votaries.

But, my dear young gentlemen, let me urge you to regard yourselves more distinctly as accountable, immortal beings. How often do you witness facts of such a nature, as show the uncertainty of all human hopes! By a death, which occurred in your near vicinity during the vacation, you have been reminded how inevitable are the arrows of death; with how much certainty they reach the heart, when sent by the command of a Sovereign God! You see what seeming casualties may suddenly deprive you, first of reason, and then of life! Why, in order to sport with their salvation, will mortals disregard all the facts presented to their observation, no less than all the remonstrances, which, in Scripture, are addressed to their reason, their hopes, and their fears?

Let me entreat you, young gentlemen, to distinguish the present term by your industry and Christian virtue. Do yourselves no injury. Excite no distress and mortification in the

breasts of your friends, and of those, who are most anxious for your present honor and everlasting welfare. Consider, that, as God has made you rational creatures, as such he requires you to live, as such will he reward or punish you through the countless ages of the approaching life.

I hope to be at Brunswick in about ten days; but such is the state of my health, as to render every calculation of this kind extremely precarious: and my language ought to be: It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good.

With great affection, I am,

Young Gentlemen, yours, &c.

J. APPLETON.

He soon after returned to Brunswick, his health not essentially improved. During the summer and the first part of autumn, hopes of his restoration were at times indulged, to be soon again blasted. On the 12th of October a profuse hemorrhage rendered his recovery entirely hopeless.*

It was mercifully ordered, that his illness should not be attended with severe pain; and that until the last few days of his life, he should be in the perfect possession of his understanding. During that long and trying period of feebleness and apprehension, which preceded his dissolution, his Christian graces appeared unusually clear and bright; he enjoyed, in a greater. degree, than in health, the consolations and hopes of the gospel, and ripened rapidly for glory. Peculiarly apparent were his humility and deep sense of unworthiness. "Of this," he often said, "I am sure, that salvation is all of grace." "I would make no mention of any thing, which I have ever thought, or said, or done; but only of this, that God so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him

*The circumstances of his sickness and death are, for the most part, taken from the Memoir by Rev. Mr. Tappan, who had favorable opportunities for knowing them, and was with the family during the last days of the President's life, as a friend, on whom they relied much for comfort in their sore affliction.

should not perish, but have everlasting life. The atonement is the only ground of hope." To a friend, that desired to know the state of his mind, he gave the following account. "In general,

I am quite comfortable; but not uniformly so, though I have seldom what may be called distress or great anxiety. I have sometimes sweet views of God's holy providence. But I am, indeed, a poor sinner, lying at the foot of sovereign mercy. Most emphatically, and from my soul, do I renounce all hope in any thing done by myself, as a ground of justification. I fly, I fly with my whole soul to the blood of a crucified Saviour." When the progress of his disease did not permit him to lead in the devotions of the family, that service was generally performed by one of the college Tutors. In a letter to the writer, in which he speaks of the exhibitions of Christian character and feeling in the President on these occasions, one of these gentlemen, Rev. Mr. Cummings, now of Portland, remarks: "Once in particular, I recollect, that the part of the prayer which had special reference to him, took the character of thanksgiving and praise. At the close of the service, he requested me to be seated, and then thanked me, for thanking God on his behalf, and expatiated upon the goodness of God to him, in a manner the most grateful and delightful. On these occasions, too, I had the most instructive and impressive demonstrations of his humility, and sole dependence for salvation on Jesus Christ our Saviour. If any man might hope for heaven on the ground of his own righteousness, I suppose it will be conceded, that President Appleton might; but I never heard a man more fully and unequivocally abjure such a basis of hope than he. I distinctly recollect his once closing a conversation on this subject with the following lines of Watts, uttered with a manner and emphasis peculiarly his own:

'Jesus, to thy dear faithful hands,

My NAKED SOUL I trust.'"

In truth, a devout and thankful frame of mind was very con

spicuous. He frequently spoke of the goodness of God in ordering the various circumstances of his sickness; and uniformly mentioned every comfort, as a mercy from his hand. The latter part of the time, until his mind was disordered, he was accustomed on receiving his medicines, or a portion, however small, of any liquid, to ejaculate a petition for the divine blessing. From his clear and impressive views of the perfection of Deity, and full confidence in the rectitude of his dispensations, proceeded a cordial submission to the divine will. He, at one time, expressed anticipations of severe suffering, supposing it to be unavoidable from the nature of his disease. His wife told him, she hoped he would not give himself anxiety on this account. He assured her, that he was not anxious, adding : The will of the Lord be done! He felt that he had ties to this world, as numerous, and as strong as most men: "I am not," he remarked in a letter to the Rev. Mr. Tappan, dated July 1, "indifferent to life. How can I be, with such a family as I have; so young, and so dependent on parental attention and guidance. But the event is with God; and I hope, that I am willing it should be so. I am not very anxious as to the event. I hope it is my desire, that Christ may be honored, whether by my life or death." In another letter, written soon after, having mentioned some particulars, relative to his disorder, he thus proceeds: "You see, my dear sir, that my prospects do not brighten, as to returning health. But God is holy, wise, and good. I am in his hands, what can I wish more? Jesus Christ has said, He that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live. Blessed words! and blessed Saviour!" In an interview with a ministerial friend, after he began to consider his disease as likely to prove fatal, on being asked, if he could submissively leave his family with God, he replied: "I have been the happiest man in the world in my domestic connexions; I have endeavored faithfully to instruct my children, and they have conducted so as greatly to endear themselves to me. I shall leave them but little property, but they will be in the hands of him who made them. God has been uniformly good to me all my life, and it would now be