Carey.] 1 96 (Nov. 17, 
shall now proceed to give such facts as have been attainable in regard to 
his unwritten history, and such indices of the works he has left behind 
him, as seem to claim a prominent place, and can be made to fall within 
the compass of the brief time allowed me for their presentation. 
SrePHEN CoLWELL was born in Brooke County, West Virginia, on the 
25th of March, 1800. He died in Philadelphia on the 15th of January, 
1871, having nearly completed his 71st year. He received his classical 
education at Jefferson College, Canonsburg, Washington County, Pa., 
where he graduated in 1819. He studied law under the direction of 
Judge Halleck in Steubenville, Ohio; was admitted to the bar in L821; 
practised the profession seven years in St. Clairsville, Ohio; and in 1828 
removed to Pittsburgh, where he continued so to do until the year 1836. 
Indicative of that ability and industry which marked his whole subse- 
quent life, and now so well accounts for the mass and quality of his at- 
tainments, are the facts that he graduated at the early age of nineteen, 
and entered upon his profession at twenty-one. 
The practice of the law, however, was not the sphere of mental activity 
for which by tastes and talents he had been best by nature fitted. The 
study of this science was, nevertheless, a happy preparation for the in- 
quiries in whose pursuit he afterwards became so much engrossed. Its 
exacter method, doubtless, corrected the mental habitude and the narrow- 
ing influence which an ardent mind is apt to catch from an exclusive de- 
yotion to the study of any single branch of literature or science. His 
writings everywhere bear witness in logic and diction to the corrective 
influence of his legal acquirements. Social science is that department of 
knowledge which especially receives its verification and practical ad- 
justment in jurisprudence and civil goverment applied—the philosophy 
of Law being the crown and summary of sociology in all its branches. 
Further, Mr. Colwell gave for a layman an unusual amount of study 
to the department of religious literature, and here also we find the guiding 
influence of his sociologic as well as of his legal training. A devoted re- 
ligionist from earliest youth to the close of life, he gave himself to an 
ardent study of doctrine and of duty, meanwhile laboring as zealously and 
almost as constantly asif he had filled the office of pastor in the Church, 
in the propagation of such opinions as demanded conformity of life from 
professors of religion. His publications bear witness of his faithfulness, 
as his life in its every relation illustrated the morality and the charity 
which his faith enjoined. 
Tt is not for us to sit in judgment upon religious doctrines, whether to 
applaud or to condemn them, His well known zeal, and his abundant 
labors in piety and charity, are here adduced for the simple reason that 
the portraiture of the man would be incomplete and most unworthy of its 
subject without distinct recognition of a feature so predominant in his 
character. 
Were I here to venture an opinion, fully warranted perhaps by the 
subject, I should be disposed to say that the study of the theologian must 
