A Discourse on the Life and Character of the Reverend John Thornton Kirkland: Formerly Pastor of the Church on Church Green, Boston, and Late President of Harvard University, Delivered in the Church on Church Green, May 3, 1840

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Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1840 - 104 pages
 

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Page 30 - I trust hereby to make it manifest with what small willingness I endure to interrupt the pursuit of no less hopes than these, and leave a calm and pleasing solitariness fed with cheerful and confident thoughts, to embark in a troubled sea of noises and hoarse disputes; put from beholding the bright countenance of Truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies...
Page 11 - After God had carried us safe to New England, and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God's worship, and settled the civil government ; 'one of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity ; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches when our present ministers shall lie in the dust.
Page 59 - A sweet attractive kind of grace ; A full assurance given by looks ; Continual comfort in a face, The lineaments of Gospel books — I trow that count'nance cannot lye, Whose thoughts are legible in the eye.
Page 44 - But, the truth is, that the knowledge of external nature, and the sciences which that knowledge requires or includes, are not the great or the frequent business of the human mind. Whether we provide for action or conversation, whether we wish to be useful or pleasing, the first requisite is the religious and moral knowledge of right and and wrong ; the next is an acquaintance with the history of mankind, and with those examples which may be said to embody truth, and prove by events the reasonableness...
Page 42 - Nothing reserved or sullen was to see; But sweet regards, and pleasing sanctity : Mild was his accent, and his action free.
Page 9 - HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND, from the Accession of Henry VII. to the Death of George II. 8vo, Cloth, $2 00. HALLAM'S LITERATURE. Introduction to the Literature of Europe during the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries.
Page 70 - MR. Fox united in a most remarkable degree the seemingly repugnant characters of the mildest of men and the most vehement of orators. In private life he was gentle, modest, placable, kind, of simple manners, and so averse from dogmatism, as to be not only unostentatious, but even something inactive in conversation.
Page 9 - As meant to indicate a God to man, Gives him his praise, and forfeits not her own. Learning has borne such fruit in other days On all her branches; piety has found Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer Has flowed from lips wet with Castalian dews.
Page 42 - He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one ; Exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading : Lofty and sour to them that loved him not ; But, to those men that sought him, sweet as summer...
Page 40 - It may be said of him, as has been remarked of a kindred genius, that " he did not need the smart of guilt to make him virtuous, nor the regret of folly to make him wise."* In the summer of 1800 he received the honours of the university.

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