IV. THE PARDONED SINNER-A LESSON AND AN EXAMPLE, 64 92 97 121 THE PEAK OF TERROR. WHAT WILL YOU DO? 215 WHAT THE FLOWER TAUGHT THE PRISONER, 229 THE SAVIOUR BY THE CRADLE, 253 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. JOHN TODD, the author of "Lectures to Children,” “Simple Sketches," the "Student's Manual," &c., was born, in the first year of the present century, in Vermont, one of the most northerly of the United States. The precise quarter was Rutland, a pleasant village in the shadow of the Green Mountains. His father was a physician in Vermont; a man of strong character, and deep Christian sentiment. His mother was a woman of quick and tender sensibilities. But the future author and pastor was destined to reap little from a father's instructions, to know little of a mother's fostering care. While he was yet a child, his family was overtaken by the darkest calamities. His father, while riding in the discharge of his professional duties, was thrown from his horse, and injured in a fatal manner; both his lower limbs were broken, and he survived but a short time. The effect of the catastrophe upon his wife was the saddest which can be conceived; she became a maniac; and, though her life was prolonged for a long period, she never recovered from that mournful condition. So, shrouded in disaster and gloom, did this most hopeful of writers and most cheerful of men find the world, soon after his arrival therein ! The income of the Vermont physician had, as is easily conceivable, been by no means commensurate with his practice; and at his death it became necessary that the family should separate. John, the youngest, was committed to the care of an aunt who resided in Connecticut, and under her care he passed the first years of boyhood. At the age of thirteen, abandoning his aunt's dwelling on Long Island Sound, he set out for Boston, and, alone and on foot, he successfully accomplished a journey of about one hundred and fifty miles. His object in undertaking this journey was the attainment of adequate means of study, and access to the fountains of knowledge. He applied himself with exceeding closeness and steadiness to his books; and confined himself so entirely for the purposes of self-improvement, that, when at length he left Boston for Yale College, he found his eyesight was lastingly injured. At the time of his entering the last-named seminary, he was in utter destitution as to pecuniary resources; and by way of connection and influence in the college, he had a letter of introduction to one of the professors. He bore a stout heart, however; and the same manly and hopeful courage which had enabled him at thirteen to surmount the toils of a journey on foot from Long Island to Boston, failed him not now. He smote all difficulties aside, and at last came off victorious: he graduated with high honour. It must, however, have been a hard struggle, for, besides his other afflictions, we hear of his having undergone a severe and protracted illness. The continual and toilsome endeavour necessary for his personal support, combined with the thorough and unflinching discharge of his duties as a student, tasked too severely his naturally tender frame: a hemorrhage in the lungs, with all the long disasters which that implies, was the result; and it was only by a journey to the south, and even then, it would appear, to the astonishment of his friends, that he recovered his health, Yet his college life, dreary as it looks, was not without its sunshine. The sick, struggling student found one eye to look upon him with tenderest kindness, one ear to which his accents were ever sweetest music, one heart, amid all the darkness of his prospects, and the dreariness of his circumstances, to beat in unison with his. From Yale College he removed to Andover, to study theology; and, soon after finishing his preparatory course, he was chosen to preside over the congregation of Groton, a small town some thirty miles from Boston. Here, with the love of his youth become his wedded wife, and laying the foundation of that esteem and honour with which his name is now associated, the toiling and poverty-smitten student may be pronounced to have found a resting-place: bravely had he won it, and well did he merit it. From Groton he removed to Northampton, to undertake the charge of a congregation, formerly superintended by Jonathan Edwards; and in this abode, "on the banks of the beautiful Connecticut river," he continued for four years. Thence he removed to Philadelphia; and, after six years, took his departure once again for Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where he now abides, |