world. By his literary
acquisitions, his amiable disposition, and his desire to imbue the young
mind with knowledge and virtue, he was qualified, in a peculiar manner, to
become the instructor of youth; and for many years he superintended a very
respectable academy. As the pastor of a congregation, he manifested a
sincere and zealous regard for the happiness of the people under his care,
by whom he was greatly honored and beloved.

He possessed many virtues; but the prime and leading feature of his soul
was devotion. He was very solicitous to preserve and cultivate an habitual
sense of the Supreme Being, to maintain and increase the ardor of religion
in his heart, and to prepare himself, by devout exercises, for the
important labors of his station. Nor was it to his secret retirements that
his piety was limited; it was manifested in every part of the day, and
appeared in his usual intercourse with men. In the little vacancies of
time which occur to the busiest of mankind, he was frequently lifting up
his soul to God. When he lectured on philosophy, history, anatomy, or
other subjects not immediately theological, he would endeavor to graft
some religious instructions upon them, that he might raise the minds of
his pupils to devotion, as well as to knowledge; and, in his visits to his
people, the Christian friend and minister were united.

The piety of Dr. Doddridge was accompanied with the warmest benevolence to
his fellow-creatures. No one could more strongly feel that the love of God
was to be united with love to man. Nor was this a principle that rested in
kind wishes and pathetic feelings for the happiness of others, but it was
manifested in the most active exertions for their welfare. No scheme of
doing good was ever suggested to him into which he did not enter with
ardor. But the generosity of his mind was most displayed when any plans of
propagating religion, and of spreading the gospel among those who were
strangers to it, were proposed. In every thing of this kind he was always
ready to take the lead, and was ardent in endeavoring to inspire his
friends with the same spirit.

He was of a weak and delicate bodily constitution; and a severe cold which
he caught about the forty-eighth year of his age, brought on a consumption
of the lungs. The nearer he approached to his dissolution, the more
plainly was observed his continual improvement in a spiritual and heavenly
temper. Indeed, he seemed to have risen above t