DISCOURSE OF DR. J. C. WELLING. 181 



what is reflection of light?" etc., etc. These queries certainly are 

 very far from representing the prudens qucestio of Bacon in even 

 its most elementary form, but they opened to the mind of young 

 Henry an entirely " new world of thought and enjoyment." His 

 attention was enchained by this book as it had not been enchained by 

 the fiction of Brooke or by the phantasmagoria of the drama.* 

 The book did for him what the spirits did for Faust when they 

 opened his eyes to see the sign of the macrocosm, and summoned 

 him "to unveil the powers of nature lying all around him." Not 

 more effectual was the call which came to St. Augustine, when, as 

 he lay beneath the shadow of the fig-tree, weeping in the bitterness 

 of a contrite soul, he seemed to hear a voice that said to him : " Tolle, 

 luge; tolle, lege" and at the sound of which he turned away forever 

 from the Ten Predicaments of Aristotle, and all the books of the 

 rhetoricians, to follow what seemed to him the "lively oracles of 

 God." No sooner had Henry recovered from his sickness, than, 

 obedient to the new vision of life and duty which had dawned upon 

 him, he summoned his comrades of " the Rostrum " to meet him in 

 conference, formally resigned the office of President, and, in a vale- 

 dictory address, announced to his associates that, subordinating the 

 pleasures of literature to the acquisition of serious knowledge, he 

 had determined henceforth to consecrate his life to arduous and 

 solid studies. 



There are doubtless those who, in the retrospect of Professor 

 Henry's youth, as contrasted with the rich flower and fruitage of his 

 riper years, will please themselves with curious speculations on what 

 " might have been," if his rabbit had never slipped its inclosure, if 

 there had been no crack in the wall behind the book-case, or if 

 Gregory's Lectures had never fallen in his way at the critical 



* He soon became so much interested in this book that its owner gave it to him, 

 and in token of the epoch it had marked in his life, Professor Henry ever after- 

 wards preserved it among the choicest memorials of his boyhood. In the fly-leaf 

 of the book the following memorandum is found, written in the year 1837 : This 

 book, although by no means a profound work, has, under Providence, exerted a 

 remarkable influence on my life. It accidently fell into my hands when I was about 

 sixteen years old, and was the first book that I ever read with attention. It opened 

 to me a new world of thought and enjoyment; invested things before almost 

 unnoticed with the highest interest; fixed my mind on the study of nature, and 

 caused me to resolve at the time of reading it that I would Immediately commence 

 to devote my life to the acquisition of knowledge. J. H. 



