A tender and true piety pervaded his heart, and breathed its fragrance over a life as beautiful and transient as the flower of the grass. Accustomed from infancy never to neglect his prayers, morning or evening, and to keep the day of God sacred, he delighted in these exercises. To lay aside all implements of light amusement, and to read or hear only books adapted to that consecrated day, had been required of him from his earliest recollection. He was grieved if he saw any violate these injunctions. There seemed to have been laid in his heart a firm basis of Christian principle, on which he was beginning to rear a noble superstructure. He never discovered more ardent delight than while listening to the inspired pages, or greater brilliancy of intellect than when conversing on their doctrines and practical illustrations. The life and sufferings of the Redeemer, and the hopes held out to sinners through his mercy, were his treasured and favourite subjects. He often with great earnestness solicited instruction respecting them, and his absorbed and delighted attention would survive the endurance of his physical strength. Of religious books he was particularly fond. He conceived the strongest attachment for 'Doddridge's Family Expositor.' He would voluntarily resort to its perusal with the greatest apparent satisfaction. Observing that his cousin and sister received weekly lessons from that excellent volume, in the explanation of difficult passages, he said to his instructor with a mournful air, "You give the elder children a lesson in Doddridge, but you don't let me recite with them." He was told that it was probably too difficult an exercise for him, and that therefore he had not been permitted to join them. On being asked what he understood as the meaning of the expression, where John is said to come in the "spirit and power of Elias," and to "turn the hearts of the fathers to the children," he gave without mistake the two interpretations to which he had listened some time before. Thus, while this infant disciple was pursuing religious knowledge as a delightful and congenial study, he was also cherishing a lively sense of the obligations that it imposed. He received the truth in its love and in its power. It began to be within him a prompting and regulating principle. Whenever the full flow of childish spirits became excessive or ill-timed, they were restrained by suggesting a precept drawn from the Scriptures.
Among his modes of recreation, riding on horseback in the freshness of the morning was highly enjoyed and prized. One morning, when the usual period for this exercise had been somewhat delayed, his tutor asked, "Would you like to take your ride?" and he replied, "I am afraid we shall not be back in time for prayers. So I would rather not go."
Of his departed mother his recollections were tender and vivid. He delighted to speak of her as the habitant of a world of joy. His affectionate spirit seemed content to resign her that she might be with Christ. To a beloved relative, whose efforts for his religious instruction were unceasing, he said, soon after the death of his mother, "Aunt, do you not wish that the judgment day was come?" "Why, my son?" she enquired. "Because then I should see my dear mamma and my blessed Saviour."
The religious exercises of Sabbath evening were to him a season of high enjoyment. After the catechism and other appropriate duties, some book of piety was read, and the children indulged in such discourse as its contents naturally elicited. Piety, disrobed of gloom, was presented to them as an object of love, and by his heart was most fondly welcomed.
On Sabbath evening preceding the Christmas of 1831, he was observed to enter with extreme ardour into the conversation that flowed from the perusal of 'Parlour Lectures,' an analysis of Sacred History adapted to juvenile minds. His father, whose labours in the pious nurture of his children had been as untiring as successful, being absent from the city, he drew his chair as near as possible to his aunt, listened eagerly to every remark, poured forth the rapturous pleasure that filled his breast, and desired to protract the enjoyment beyond its usual period. It was to be his last Sabbath on earth. In the course of the ensuing week he became a victim to the scarlet fever, and on Friday, December 24th, 1831, went to his Father in heaven.
Thus passed away, at the age of nearly seven years, a being formed to excel in all that was beautiful, intellectual, and heavenly. Precocity in him was divested of the evils that are wont to attend it. All his associations of thought were healthful and happy. There was no undue predominance of one power at the expense of the rest. No one department of character eclipsed the other. The mind and the heart pressed on together with equal steps, in a vigorous and holy brotherhood. The soul, like a lily, fed with dews of Hermon, breathed its first freshest incense in piety to God.
That he was highly gifted by nature none can doubt. That he owed much to education is equally certain. It would be difficult to define the precise point where the influence of the one ceased and that of the other began; so finely did their hues and pencillings blend in the flower thus early offered to its Maker.
Strict obedience to his superiors, and the duty of stated prayer, were so early impressed as to be incorporated with the elements of his character. Simple habits, rural tastes, control of the animal appetites, and correct deportment to all around him, were carefully inculcated, while a thorough course of classical instruction under his father's roof protected him from the dangers of promiscuous association and sinful example. The most favourable results might reasonably be anticipated from a system of culture so vigilant that temptation could not assail from without, nor spring up within, without being detected; so judicious that wealth had no power to enervate either the body or the mind; so affectionate that the tendrils of the heart were free to expand in innocent happiness; so faithful in its ministrations to the soul, that the Divine blessing seemed visibly to descend upon it. This wise discipline combining with the Creator's exceeding bounty, rendered him what he was: a being to be loved by all who looked upon him, and to be held in lasting remembrance by all who knew him.
To borrow the expressive language of one who had long superintended his education, and was intimately acquainted with his mental and moral structure, "So insensible was he to all those passions which prompt to self-defence and self-protection, and so entirely under the influence of that forgiving spirit which being smitten on the one cheek would turn the other also, and that overflowing generosity, which, after the cloak is taken, would give the coat likewise, as utterly to unfit him for the society of selfish, avaricious, overbearing men, whence I have fondly thought, that he was thus early invited to a mansion where he might enjoy the communion of more congenial spirits."