very proud* Doubtless that indomitable will' had already 

 resolved that he should not be the least of the men that 

 he and his schoolfellows would presently become. He 

 was shy, and made few friends among the boys. -He kept 

 his own secrets, and his companions do not remember that 

 he gave any hint, while at Montgome-ry Academy, of his 

 peciiUar power. Neither looking backward nor forward, 

 was the prospect very fa,scinatin^ to his dumb,' and proba- 

 bly a little dogged, ambition. Behind were the few first 

 years of childhood, -sickly, left much alone in the cottage 

 and garden, with nothing in those around him (as he felt 

 without knowing it) that strictly sympathized with him ;, 

 and yfet, as always in such cases, of a nature whose devel- 

 opment craved the most generous sympathy : these feif 

 years,"'too, cast among all the chtoms of a landscape which 

 the Fishkin hills lifted from littleness, and th4 broad fiver 

 inspired with a kind of grandeur ; years, which the univer- • 

 sal silence of the counti^f, "always so imposing to yoUng 

 iifiaginations, and the rainbow pomp of the year J* as it 

 came and went up and down the river-banks and over the' 

 mountains, and the general solitude of country Mb, were 

 not very likely to enliven. Before, lay a career of. hard 

 work in a pursuit which rarely enriches the workman J with' 

 little apparent promise of leisure to, pursue his studies or 

 to foUoV- .his tastes. It is natural enough, that "in the' 

 midst of such prospects, the boy, delicately organized to 

 appreciate his position, should, have gone to his recitations 

 ahd his play in a very silent — if not stern — manner, aU 

 the more reserved and silent for the firni resolution to 

 master andlaot be mastered. It is hard to fancy that he 

 was ever a blithe boy. The gravity of ' iriaturity came 

 early upon Him. Those who saw him only in later years 

 can, probably, easily see the boy at Montgomery Academy, 



