14 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



with the surrounding sail on the ocean of life, where the 

 storms and waves are tossing us about. And he has been 

 able to steer his craft thus far through life's meanderings, 

 and to adhere firmly to the first principles of virtue 

 taught him in youth, which ever appear like stars in the 

 firmament, or like a bright ornament among the rubies 

 that make life pleasant and beautiful. 



Thus he has occupied a place in the great hive of hu- 

 man industry, content with study, and producing the 

 sweets of peace and innocent pleasure by the sweat of 

 the brow. He possessed a mind that, with the advan- 

 tages of an early education, and aided by encouragement 

 from family connection or friends, might have raised him 

 still to a higher sphere of usefulness. 



"All superiority and pre-eminence that one man can 

 have over another, may be reduced to the notion of 

 quality;" which, considered at large, is either that of 

 fortune, body or mind. The first of these is that which 

 consists in birth, titles, or riches; and it is the most 

 foreign to our natures, and what we can the least call 

 our own of the three qualities named. In relation to the 

 body, quality arises frotn health, strength or beauty, 

 which is nearer to us, and more a part of ourselves than 

 the former. Quality of mind has for its source, know- 

 ledge and virtue. It is more essential to and more inti- 

 mately united with us, than either of the other two. 

 Every one knows that there are moments, nay, hours of 

 moral weakness, when the soul quails before its inevita- 

 ble portion — when the gloom of some terrible dread shuts 

 out every ray of hope, and a courage almost superhuman 



