488 EZRA ABBOT. 



But ho gave himself, for its own sake and for his own sake, with an 

 earnest singleness of purpose, to the study of the New Testament, as 

 of the record of all that appertains to man's deepest needs and his 

 eternal well-being. One of Professor Norton's books came into his 

 hands, and, while he read it with vivid interest, it gave room for 

 questions ; and his was a mind that could not rest with a question 

 unanswered. He therefore entered into communication with I\Ir. 

 Norton. There is no surer index or gauge of a man's intellect than 

 his interrogations. Only he who knows how to ask is capable of re- 

 ceiving. Such was Mr. Norton's belief, and he at once sought to form 

 intimate relations with the young man who could ask so wisely. He 

 was in feeble and declining health, and needed skilled assistance in 

 the advancement toward completion of certain unfinished work. It 

 was at his earnest solicitation that Mr. Abbot first came to Cambridge. 

 Mr. Norton, in dying, left his Translation of the Gospels nearly 

 ready for the press, but the annotations in a fragmentary and im- 

 perfect condition. The chief editorial labor in the preparation of the 

 two volumes for the press devolved on Mr. Abbot ; and the volume 

 of Notes owes its existance to the painstaking industry and the keen 

 critical insight with which he completed and arranged the materials 

 expressly designed for it, but not fully elaborated, selected from the 

 minutes taken by Mr. Norton's students in previous years such com- 

 ments as had not been made obsolete by the author's maturer research 

 and riper judgment, and filled, in accordance with the author's known 

 opinions, such lacnnce as he had left unfilled. It may be doubted 

 whether, if Mr. Norton had lived long enough to carry this volume 

 through the press, it would have better represented his blended bold- 

 ness, caution, and reverence as a critic, or have done more ample jus- 

 tice to his transcendent merit as an interpreter of the sacred record. 

 Mr. Abbot afterward rendered similar, though less arduous, service in 

 preparing for publication from imperfect manuscript a portion of Mr. 

 Norton's intended treatise on the " Internal Evidence of the Genuine- 

 ness of the Gospels." 



At an early period of INIr. Abbot's residence in Cambridge he was 

 a teacher in the public High School ; and while he found there no 

 small amount of uncongenial drudgery, he proved himself "apt to 

 teach," and won the enduring gratitude of many willing learners. 

 Wliile thus engaged, he prepared a catalogue of the small library be- 

 longing to the School ; and, with his life-long habit of putting the best 

 work possible into whatever he did, he made of this little volume, not 

 a mere list of the books, but a complete bibliographical index to their 



