rom that position
which once bounded my furthest horizon of personal hope, to live along
the line of past existence; to recognize the same influence everywhere
pervading it: and to perceive how its struggles have been assisted;
its errors softened down or vailed, and its successes enhanced, by the
constant presence of home-born regards. Embracing in a rapid glance
the events of many years, I call to mind how at an early age--earlier
than is generally safe or happy for youths--the incidents of life,
supplying an unusual stimulus to ordinary powers, gave vividness to
those dreams of human excellence and progress which, at some time,
visit all; how by the weakness which precluded them from assuming
those independent shapes which require the plastic force of higher
powers, they became associated with the scenes among which they were
cherished, and clove to them with earnest grasp; and how the fervid
expressions which that combination prompted, were accepted by generous
friends as indicating faculties 'beyond the reaches of my soul,'
and induced them to encourage me by genial prophecies which, with
unwearied purpose, they endeavored to fulfill. I renew that golden
season when such vague aspirations were at once cherished and
directed by the Christian wisdom of the venerated master of Reading
School--who, during his fifty years of authority, made the name of
our town a household word to successive generations of scholars,
who honored him in all parts of the world, and all departments of
society--whose long life was one embodied charity--and who gave
steadiness and object to those impulses in me which else might have
ended, as they began, in dreams. I remember, when pausing on the
slippery threshold of active life, and looking abroad on the desolate
future, how the earnestness of my friends gave me courage, and
emboldened me, with no patrons but themselves, to enter the profession
of my choice by its most dim and laborious avenue, and to brace myself
for four years of arduous pupilage; how they crowded with pleasures
the intervals of holiday I annually enjoyed among them during that
period, and another of equal length passed in a special pleader's
anxieties and toils; how they greeted with praise, sweeter than
the applause of multitudes to him who wins it, the slender literary
effusions by which I supplied the deficiency of professional income;
and how, when I dared the hazard of the bar, they provided for me
opportunities suc