THOMAS EDWARD. 85 



the wish that some employment congenial to his tastes 

 might be provided for him, he has never, according to 

 his own report, experienced any feeling of pride that 

 he was above his awl and his lapstone; nay, rather on 

 the contrary, the more he has advanced in his studies 

 the better has his work been turned out as a shoemaker. 



His sobriety has always been with him a strong 

 point. While some of his fellow- workmen have idled 

 their time and spent their earnings in drink, he has 

 quietly and perseveringly followed his studies, achieving 

 a success of greater practical worth than thousands of 

 men who have had every facility for early education, 

 followed by a university career. 



The true value of natural history studies is well 

 represented by Thomas Edward, and it is for this 

 purpose that I have included his name in these sketches. 

 Possessing no advantages of an early education ; rarely, 

 if ever, free from the anxieties which inevitably sur- 

 round struggling circumstances, he has laboured on 

 through every variety of trouble, but never relaxing, 

 from Ins earliest years, his love for nature, which had 

 become part of himself. 



Such lives as his show the truest nobility of soul. 

 In all his studies he has never lost sight of the great 

 Author of the universe ; and all natural history 

 studies, unless they tend to this, must be very empty 

 and unsatisfying in their results if they do not lead 

 to an unquenchable admiration for the Creator of all 

 things. Nay, the rather a mind imbued with these 

 studies soon learns to stand in amazement at the 

 wonderful forces displayed, yet the absolute perfection 



