rld around me. At length
I could not see a happy company or a gay multitude without falling into
a sadness that marred and blighted everything. All joyous life, seen in
the light of this doctrine, seemed to me but a horrible mockery. It is
evident that John Forster's doubts sprung from the same cause. And then,
I had been accustomed to use the terms "Unity" and "Trinity" as in
some vague sense compatible; but when I came to consider what my actual
conceptions were, I found that the Three were as distinct as any
three personalities of which I could conceive. The service which
Dr. Channing's celebrated sermon at the ordination of Mr. Sparks in
Baltimore did me, was to make that clear to me. With such doubts,
demanding further examination, I left the Seminary at Andover.

We parted, we classmates, many of us in this world never to meet again.
Some went to the Sandwich Islands, one to Ceylon, one to the Choctaw
Indians; most remained at home, some to hold high positions in our
churches and colleges, Wheeler, President of the Vermont University, a
liberal-minded and accomplished man; Torrey, Professor in the same,
a man of rare scholarship and culture; Wayland, President of Brown
University, in Rhode Island, well and widely [46] known; and Haddock,
Professor in Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, and recently our charge
d'affaires in Portugal. Haddock, I thought, had the clearest head among
us. Our relations were very friendly, though I was a little afraid of
him, and with him I first visited his uncle, Daniel Webster, in Boston.
I was struck with what Mr. Webster said of him, many years after,
considering that the great statesman was speaking of a comparatively
retired and studious man: "Haddock I should like to have always with
me; he is full of knowledge, of the knowledge that I want, pure-minded,
agreeable, pious," I use his very words, "and if I could afford it,
and he would consent, I would take him to myself, to be my constant
companion."

I left Andover, then, in the summer of 1819, and in a state of mind
that did not permit me to be a candidate for settlement in any of the
churches. I therefore accepted an invitation from the American Education
Society to preach in behalf of its objects, in the churches generally,
through the State, and was thus occupied for about eight months.

Some time in the spring, I think, of 1820, I went down to Gloucester to
preach in the old Congregational Church, and was invited to become