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NOTICES

OF THE

LIFE AND CHARACTER

OF

PROFESSOR FRISBIE.

Memoir.

BY THE EDITOR.

I HAVE made a collection of several pieces, which my friend, Mr. Frisbie, published during his life, and have added some extracts from the manuscript notes of his lectures. These are the few products which now remain of his vigorous and original mind. They seemed to me to belong to the comparatively small class of writings, the sole effect of which is to make their readers wiser and better. I shall now give some notices respecting his life, which I have thought might be interesting.

Mr. Frisbie was born at Ipswich in New England, in the year 1784. His father was a respectable clergyman of that place, distinguished for his conscientiousness, and his sense of religion; a Calvinist. To his instructions and example, Mr. Frisbie may be supposed to have been, in a great measure, indebted for the first implanting of those religious sentiments, which

acquired strength as his character strengthened, and even, early in life, formed an essential part of it. From him, likewise, he derived the belief of some doctrines, which his maturer reasón rejected.

These doctrines, however, as I have heard him complain, retained an influence over his feelings, especially in moments of despondence, long after they had ceased to be a part of his faith. They tended to throw darkness and discomfort over his views of the character and moral government of God, and of the future condition of man. His father's death took place when Mr. Frisbie was in the 22d. year of his age.

After completing his preparatory studies in Andover academy, Mr. Frisbie was admitted a member of the University in Cambridge, at the Commencement of the college year in 1793. As a student, he was among the most distinguished in his class for his talents and acquisitions, and for correctness of conduct, integrity and manliness. The salary of his father, like that of most of our clergymen, was scanty. He was unable fully to supply the means of defraying the necessary expenses of his son; and Mr. Frisbie, during the whole or the greater portion of the time while he was an undergraduate, provided in part for his own support, by writing as a clerk, several hours

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