1870.] ^'" [Stilie. 



had been the most careful and judicious of parents while his boy was 

 at College, regarded him from the time he left it to the day of his 

 death, as a younger brother rather than a son. 



It is not to be supposed that because Mr. Binney attained the high- 

 est College honors, he had no time or inclination for studies beyond 

 the ordinary curriculum. Although a firm believer to the last, in the 

 simply disciplinary value of a thorough study of the Classics and the 

 Mathematics, he never had the folly to suppose that four of the most 

 precious years of his life were to be given merely to training his in- 

 tellect, without storing his mind with knowledge, or cultivating his 

 taste. His study of languages, and especially of Greek, led him into 

 a far wider field than that embraced by an accurate knowledge of 

 their grammar and their idioms. His proficiency was such that he 

 was able to do that which few young men at College ever do, to re- 

 gard the ancient languages principally as the vehicles of the litera- 

 ture of the people who spoke them. He was thus led to study in the 

 best way, the civilization of the free states of antiquity. No one had 

 a finer appreciation of what modern culture owes to Greek models. 

 He himself was thoroughly imbued with their spirit, and their infiu- 

 ence was conspicuous in liberalising his views and directing his stud- 

 ies all through life. 



There can be, I suppose, little doubt that Mr. Binney's strong reli- 

 gious nature inclined him after he left College to adopt as a profes- 

 sion, that of the Sacred Ministry. That he acted wisely in not fol- 

 lowing this inclination, no one who now looks back upon his career 

 can doubt. Mr. Binney's life as a layman was a living epistle of all 

 virtues, a daily exhibition in the midst of no ordinary trials and du- 

 ties, of purity, goodness, faith and truth, and it is not to be doubted 

 that the silent influence of such a life upon those around him was as 

 powerful and as healthful as if he had been the most brilliant profes- 

 sional teacher of those Divine truths, the fruits of which were so con- 

 spicuous in his daily walk and conversation. There is no warrant 

 for the statement which has been made, that he wished to devote 

 himself to the Ministry, and that he was persuaded by his Father 

 to study Law. His Father, no doubt wished and recommended it, 

 but his intervention was confined to pointing out the priceless value 

 of the life of a truly religious layman in the world, and more par- 

 ticularly that among such religious men in England, were to be found 

 several of her most eminent Judges and Lawyers. No one, indeed, 

 who knows how solemn a thing duty always was with Mr. Binney, 

 and how absolute was the confidence which his Father reposed in 

 him, can doubt that the decision when arrived at, was the result of 

 his own free and deliberate choice. 



Mr. Binney's career as a Lawyer was not a striking or brilliant 

 one. He studied his profession, as he did everything he undertook, 



A. P. S. — VOL. XI. — 19e '^ ' ' 



