MEMORIAL DISCOURSE.

We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak.-2 COR. iv. 13.

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T was the lamentation of one of old, and a lamentation strikingly indicative of having fallen upon evil times, "The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart." When a servant of God, who has been honored in being allowed to exert a mighty and conspicuous influence for good among the men of his generation, rests from his labors, it is a debt which survivors owe, not so much to his own memory as to the grace which made him what he was, to see to it, that, while those labors are not forgotten or passed lightly by, the qualities by which the great results have been achieved should be in some measure appreciated; so that not only may the desire be stimulated in others to pursue a course of like beneficence, but something be also done to show how the aspiration may be carried out to a practical and blessed end.

In attempting to trace the outlines of a character and a course of life thus calling for special commemoration, we naturally seek some point around which all that is most essential and distinctive may be grouped;

some principle which may serve as a key to explain the too rare phenomenon of a life greatly beneficent, and which, developed elsewhere, may afford a reasonable promise of the bright example being exhibited again.

The words of the text have been selected with no special reference to the direct application originally made of them by the apostle, but as conveying, when taken in their most general acceptation, a thought which was very signally realized in the life and labors of Professor Shepard, and the realization of which was emphatically central among all the elements which constituted his high pre-eminence as a preacher of righteousness.

George Shepard was born at Plainfield, Conn., Aug. 26, 1801. Of the earlier circumstances which contributed to the formation of his character, we have only a scanty record. One fact we are assured of, that is full of interest; that in his case, as in that of so many whose memory is fondly cherished in the Church, the foundations of usefulness were laid in the instructions and the prayers of a pious mother. His father owned a small farm, and the years of his minority were largely spent in farming operations. His aptitude and inclination for intellectual pursuits were developed at an early age. At the district school, as we are told, "he was a good scholar in all the branches; while in arithmetic he distanced all competitors, and yet was so unassuming and modest as to disarm envy and jealousy." We are further told "that it was the custom of the minister, Dr. Benedict, to visit the school on Saturday afternoons, and examine the pupils in the catechism; and this" it is added,

"may be said to have been the commencement of his theological studies." With a view to qualify himself for a school-teacher, he entered the academy in his native place. His weekly compositions, prepared while connected with this institution, are characterized, by one who was a fellow-student with him there, as "containing more ideas than were commonly embraced in such efforts, expressed in a strong, vigorous, though somewhat sonorous style, after the Johnsonian model.” Meanwhile his leisure hours were assiduously employed in reading the old English authors, of whose works there was a considerable collection at his command. Up to the year 1819, there is no evidence of his having been the subject of any special religious impressions. His childhood and youth, however, had been singularly stainless. "He was always," as we learn from those qualified to testify upon this point, “a good boy. As a son, he was always dutiful; as a brother, affectionate; as a friend, warm-hearted and true." But during a revival of religion which was experienced in Plainfield in the year 1819, under the preaching of Rev. Orin Fowler, young Shepard was made, as he believed, a subject of renewing grace. There is no account in existence, so far as known, of the exercises of his mind at this period; but it is recollected that in the narrative, characteristically brief, which he gave of his experience, at the time he made a profession of religion, May 7, 1820, he expressed deep conviction of his own guilt as a sinner, and of the power and readiness of Christ to save, and a humble purpose to live devoted to his service. The young convert was soon subjected to a severe trial. He felt it to be his duty to give himself to the work of the gospel ministry.

But his father, who had no sympathy with his religious views, strenuously opposed the plan. He assured his father, however, that while he was willing to remain with him, as in duty bound, up to the age of twentyone, it was his full determination to enter then upon a course of classical study. His mother, who was a woman of great gentleness of character, did all she could to promote his views; and as he entered Amherst College a year in advance, in the fall of 1821, his father's opposition must have been in some measure withdrawn. But his intellectual preparation for the ministry was gained by various and hard toil; and the recollection of his own experience in this regard, doubtless, bore an important part in making him, through life, the earnest and untiring advocate of the Education Society.

Soon after leaving college he became connected with the Theological Seminary at Andover, where he graduated in 1827. The intentness and success with which his studies here were prosecuted may be inferred from the circumstance, that he was urged by Professor Stuart to remain in the seminary as Assistant Instructor in Hebrew. This invitation he declined, and accepted a call from the First Congregational Church in

Hallowell, Me., where he was ordained Feb. 5, 1828. Here was demand at once for the exercise of all his powers. Hallowell was at that time the centre of an extensive and flourishing business, and probably few places in the country of like size have ever contained so large an amount of intelligence and mental cultivation as were here concentrated. It was soon found, that, in the person of the young pastor, a power of no common magnitude was abroad in the

community. His unaffected kindliness of spirit, his fervent, single-hearted piety, his untiring devotion to his work, combined with his commanding eloquence, gained for him an influence among men of all classes, more nearly resembling that possessed by some of the old Puritan pastors in colonial times than any thing that these modern days have often witnessed. In the few years of his pastorate, ties were formed which would have effectually prevented his listening to any ordinary solicitation to settle elsewhere. But when, in. 1836, the trustees of the Theological Seminary at Bangor, then entering upon a new stage of its history, and one which opened a prospect of greatly extended influence and usefulness, fixed upon Mr. Shepard as the most eligible candidate for the professorship of Sacred Rhetoric, he felt at once that it was not a call to be lightly set aside; while the acknowledged importance of the work to which he was invited, and his own singular fitness for it, went far with a people that had been trained to take large views of things, towards subduing the repugnance naturally awakened in view of the proposed surrender of so highly prized a treasure. And the sacrifice demanded of them was rendered still less painful than it would otherwise have been, by the assurance which he gave, that it was his fixed intention never to leave the work upon which he was now entering, in order to become the pastor of another congregation, unless constrained by providential indications which could not be mistaken.

He came to Bangor. He gave to the seminary the labor of his life. In connection, indeed, with his duties in the seminary, he discharged, for a number of years, the duties of preacher and pastor to the Central

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