1833.] ^15 [Muhlenberg, 



their combination. Children often thus exceed in eminence illustrious 

 parents, by the possession of accumulated endowments, and the faithful 

 use of increased opportunities of culture. 



The sou continued under the more immediate care of his father during 

 the remainder of his ministry at Martinsburg, his pastorate in Philadelphia, 

 and the earlier years of his residence in Gettysburg. After the removal 

 of his father to the latter place, he became a student in Pennsylvania 

 College, and was graduated there in the year 1839, in a class of fourteen 

 members, most of whom are now deceased. 



As the bud conceals within itself the beauty of the future flower, so do 

 the unfolding powers of the youth foreshadow the direction, and extent 

 of the excellence of the fully developed man. From personal recollec- 

 tions, but chiefly from letters from some of his yet surviving classmates, 

 and intimate friends, we can say something of the peculiar traits of char- 

 acter he exhibited when he was a student in college, or in liis boyhood ; 

 lor he was still a boy, at least in years, having become a college graduate, 

 when he was but sixteen years of age. 



The writer spent one session of a collegiate year at Gettysburg, fifty 

 years since, with him whose earthly career has so recently terminated in 

 such golden radiance. He cannot speak very confidently of him at that 

 time, for in consequence of being older in years, and having removed to 

 another institution, he was but seldom thrown into his society. Memory, 

 however, still retains the image of his personal appearance, a frail, atten- 

 uated form, apparently destined to a brief period of existence. He is not 

 able to speak, from his own personal knowledge, of his intellectual pecu- 

 liarities, for the reasons already mentioned, and because, at that period, 

 when he was about ten years of age, they had not yet been sufficiently 

 displayed to form any satisfactory judgment. He can affirm this mucli 

 of him, that he never thought at that time that he was destined to survive 

 long, or to attain such extended and deserved fame in letters. 



The writer's deficient knowledge is fully supplemented by letters which 

 are before him, of his fellow-students and classmates, in which he is 

 graphically presented to us, as he appeared to them. One of these, now a 

 Doctor of Divinity in the Presbyterian Church, speaks of him, "as hav- 

 ing inherited some of his father's easy-going disposition, but capable of 

 great passions, and great elTorts," "fond of fun," "an inveterate punster," 

 "sarcastic," having "a ready and comical trick of exaggeration," a great 

 lover and declaimer ot Shakespeare, and of large literary culture. Another 

 classmate, the Rev. Dr. Charles Hay, of the Lutheran Theological Seminary 

 at Gettysburg, in a letter to the writer, in which he says, "they Avere 

 boys together, and bed-fellows for a year," speiiks of his departed friend in 

 the most kindly manner, and gives a very sattsfactory account of his whole 

 student life. The whole letter would be useful in print, but the limits to 

 which we have to confine ourselves, will allow us only to quote so much 

 of it as will be sufficient to give us a clear idea of his intellectual peculi- 

 arities at that period of his lite. He remarks : "The cast of our brother's 



