value of the soul, and the certainty of eternal retributions. Remarking on his addresses, the Author of the Sketch says, "it were difficult to conceive of a manner more earnest and rivetting, than that in which they were delivered. It was an earnestness capable of transferring to the subject.the praise due to the speaker; of leading the less prompt of apprehension to imagine they had felt the power of the sentiment, when they had rather been affected by the interest it excited in those around them, and by the energy of interior conviction with which it was uttered. No one perhaps was ever better acquainted with the art of enchaining an attention, he had seized, than Pres. Appleton; and, if the allusion may be permitted, of kneading the application of his subject into a mind, he had once compressed within his grasp."*

A passage in an article on the character and writings of Pres. Appleton in the Biblical Repository and Quarterly Observer for Jan. 1836, so well exhibits the prominent traits of his eloquence, as a writer, that it is thought proper to introduce it in this connexion.

"For truth, wherever found, he searches with single-hearted aim; and what has been ascertained by careful research be illustrates with precision and enforces with a calm and tender earnestness. To guard himself and others from whatever is deceptive, to divest truth of all illusions from fancy and from feeling, to set it forth in its own pure and simple form, this seems to have been his great aim; and rather than hazard uncertain opinions, he would restrain himself from those stronger expressions by which minds less severely trained to investigations are prone to utter their convictions, but of this habit, leading him to contemplate religion as it is without us, rather than as it shapes itself within-as a series of inquiries to be auswered, not less than a principle to be assumed as the guide of life and the source of hope; out of this fixed tendency to adjust the proportion of belief to the amount of well-weighed evidence, grew, we may presume, the fact that in his writings, (if we may repeat a somewhat antiquated distinction) religion is rather objective than subjective. It is not embodied in the subject of its influence, so much as delineated in its unchangeable objects and characters. It is not religion working its secret effects in the individual heart equally with religion assuming an outward and everlasting reality, removing objections to its truth, and unfolding the evidences by which the reason of man and the testimonies of God confine it. He is far, however, from the frigidness of feeling and the languor of imagination which are thought by many to characterize writers of this class. His affections were not those of the mere metaphysician; as, on the

His manner of prayer was singularly solemn and impressive. He used much the language of scripture, particularly those sublime passages in which the majesty and perfections of Jehovah are brought to view. No one could listen to him in the devotions of the sanctuary or the family circle, without the feeling, other side, his fancy was too vivid, his imagination too deep, for a barely practical talent. His whole mind seems in one word, to have been well proportioned and evenly balanced in its native elements. Whether their proportion and symmetry were retained through life, may be judged from the fact obvious to all who are familiar with his Works, that whatever were the original sensibilities of his heart, and they were certainly strong, or whatever his faculties of ideal conception, and they were by no means wanting, he brought them under a severe and steady subordination to the power of ascertaining and proving by logical deductions the elementary truths of morality and religion. Hence his eloquence is convincing rather than persuasive. We do not listen to him for winning words, for the voice sweeter than honey flowing from the lips; his is the chastened language of argument and conviction; his are quickening tones indeed, but yet quickening tones chiefly, if not only, because they are those of truth and soberness. We resort to him as a sage, not a declaimer; as the teacher of a self-guiding wisdom, not as the orator to take our wills captive to his own. As the instructions which he gives us thus acknowledge no dependence on the artifices of a splendid declamation, so have they as little affinity to that fantastic poetry of religion which leads us away from all outward things to converse with solitude and abstraction.

His philosophy, though spiritual, is rather discursive than ideal; a series of deductions, not a mystic, self-fed contemplation; a well proved faith quickening the whole mind, instead of an intense spirit inspiring faith. The great principles, in fact, of what used so fitly to be called discourse, of which Clarke and Butler and Edwards have furnished such wonderful examples, seem to have been wrought into his mind as an element of his being, and to have left their impression on all his writings. His intimacy with abstruse investigations does not impair, however, but increases the power and the worth of his practical instructions. To few writers indeed could the reference be made with greater assurance for proof that sound learning is wisdom as well as knowledge, an effective teacher of holy living as well as a guide to ethical science. What forms after all his grand peculiarity, is the precision, the perfect accuracy with which, by the application oftentimes of the simplest truism, he serves from a subject all which is adventitious, and presents the truth just as it is, in its own simple shape, divested of all, the very least incumbrances, so that nothing is left either to bewilder the eye, or to turn it away from the one undivided topic."

that he was holding converse with heaven. It was once remarked by an individual of distinguished attainments, as a Christian, that "it was worth a journey to Brunswick to attend Commencement, in order to hear Pres. Appleton pray."

Under the blessing

Many, whose names have been more extensively known, have owed their reputation, not so much to their own merit, as to a happy coincidence of circumstances. They seized a favorable moment, or were aided by the powerful influence of others. It was not so with the distinguished individual, a view of whose life and character has now been attempted. Not ambitious of reputation for its own sake, a man to be invited rather than to thrust himself into public notice, he yet attained a distinction which may satisfy any reasonable aspirant. He attained it also, as the reward of distinguished excellence. of heaven it was his own creation, not the offspring of good fortune. Pre-eminent original genius is not claimed for him. His mental endowments were undoubtedly of a superior order, but his living precepts and example show, his own voice, could it speak from the dust, would declare, that he was indebted, less to the powers, distinguished as they were, which God had bestowed, than to an ardent, judicious and indefatigable cultivation of them. Let the student then be encouraged to emulate his admirable discipline. It is to be hoped also, that the reader, whatever may be his calling or station, may be incited to follow in his steps, of whom it has been truly said, that his life was not spent for itself, and his death, not confined to itself.

The following is the inscription on his tomb stone referred to in the Memoir, which was prepared by Prof. Samuel P. Newman, who then he'd the Department of Ancient Languages in Bowd. College.

HUIC TUMULO MANDANTUR RELIQUIAE.

REV. JESSE APPLETON, S. T .D.

MARITI DESIDERATISSIMI, PATRIS OPTIMI,

ALMEQUE NOSTRE ACADEMIE SECUNDI PRÆSIDIS.

Vir fuit ingenii acumine insignis, moribus
compositis, ac aspectu benigno
majestatem quandam præ se ferente :
sed morti inexorabili nihil est sanctum.
Eruditione magna,

inter literatorum principes justissime collocandus:
at Theologica scientiæ lauream præcipue meritus,
hac enim, quo homines audeant,

cognovit et tentavit.
Integra fide, disciplinaque salutari,
duodecim annos,

res Academicas administravit.

Nimiis tandem vigiliis laboribusque consumptus,
sublimi ejus animo supernis intento,
ad quietem se contulit.

Ita vixit, ut omnes moribundi, sic se vixisse,
velint; ita mortuus est,

ut omnes, sic se morituros esse, optarent:
tamen voluit inscribi, se salutem sperasse in Jesu.

Natus est Novemis die 17mo Anno Domini MDCCLXXII. Obiitque Novem: die 12mo Anno Domini MDCCCXIX.

Senatus Academiæ Bowdoinensis,

summa reverentia,

hoc monumentum posuerunt.

The following is a list of Discourses published during the life of the Author.

1. The immensity of God; a Sermon preached at Hampton, Nov. 14, 1797, at the Dedication of the New House, for Public Worship.

2. The sublime nature of Christianity proved by the extraordinary manner in which it was communicated to the world.Preached at Greenland, May 1805, at the ordination of Rev. James A. Neal.

3. Two Discourses delivered at the North Meetinghouse in Portsmouth, June 16, 1805, it being the Sabbath succeeding the interment of Mrs. Mary Buckminster, consort of Rev. Dr. Buckminster.

4. A Sermon delivered at New Boston, N. H. Feb. 26, 1806, at the ordination of Rev. E. P. Bradford.

5. A Discourse delivered before the members of the Portsmouth Female Asylum at a third service on the Sabbath, Aug. 10, 1806.

6. God's care of his church; a Sermon delivered at Gorham, Jan. 18, 1809, at the ordination of Rev. Asa Rand.

7. * A Sermon delivered at Saco, Oct. 24, 1810, at the ordination of Rev. Jonathan Cogswell.

8. * A Sermon delivered at Augusta, Oct. 16, 1811, at the ordination of Rev. Benj. Tappan.

9. A Sermon delivered at Freeport, at the ordination of Rev. Reuben Nason.

10. Discourse delivered at Bath, May 11, 1813, before the Society for discountenancing and suppressing vices.

11. Discourse delivered June 20, 1813, before the officers and students of Bowdoin College, occasioned by the Death of Frederic Southgate, A. B. lately a Tutor in said College.

12. A Sermon preached at Boston, at the Annual Election, May 1814.