Stilie.] "•" [May&, 



It is not to be inferred from what has been said, tliat Mr. Binney 

 led the life of a secluded student, for he felt the deepest interest in 

 the great movements which were going on around him, yet it is also 

 true that he had no ambition to occupy a prominent position in public 

 life. The arts of the politician were abhorrent to every instinct of 

 his nature, and he felt, as we all do, that by these arts success is chief- 

 ly gained in a public career. He was one of that class, who, observ- 

 ing quietly the current of human affairs, are not disposed to make 

 vain efforts to check its course until it threatens to sap the founda- 

 tions of society, and those who have hitherto guided it lie panic- 

 stricken and helpless. Such men form the true reserve force of a 

 nation ; never seen, almost never thought of in days when all is 

 smooth and prosperous, they are the only guides who are trusted in 

 the crisis of danger. Mr. Binney was a typical man of this class. 

 He was forced into public life when earnest men soiight to purify our 

 Mxmicipal Government, or when the suppression of riot and blood- 

 shed in his native city, required him to assume the singularly uncon- 

 genial duties of a Captain of a Volunteer Company. 



In his religious opinions, Mr. Binney was a conservative Church- 

 man. He had deeply studied the organization and claims of the 

 Christian Church, and was strongly convinced of the rightfulness 

 of its authority as a Divine agency in this world. With a most de- 

 vout and earnest spirit, he strove through this means to uphold a high 

 standard of Christian life and duty. He revered the memory of the 

 Saints and Martyrs of that Church. The virtues which distingiiished 

 them^child-like faith, humility, self denial, and an earnest love of 

 the weak and the lowly — were those which found in him the fullest 

 recognition and sympathy. His moral instincts and his mental cul- 

 ture were here also in perfect harmony, and his enthusiasm for Saint- 

 ly George Herbert, and his familiarity with Keble's Christian Year, 

 which he could repeat from beginning to end, were due, not merely 

 to his appreciation of the literary merits of those Poets, but also to 

 their praise of those virtues which it had been his life-long concern 

 to cultivate. 



Mr. Binney's peculiar views concerning the Church and its func- 

 tions, modified his opinions upon many important questions, especial- 

 ly in regard to those great movements of moral reform by which the 

 present age is so strongly characterized. With an ardent desire that 

 men should grow purer and happier, his sober and serious judgment 

 made him very slow in adopting any one of the plausible schemes 

 by which it was proposed to accomplish that desirable object. He 

 was no humanitarian. He had very little hope for the future of the 

 race outside the influence of Christian faith and duty. He saw too 

 much of the disturbing passions of mankind to believe that true pro- 

 gress could be made in any other way. In all his work for his fellow- 



