od.

From the first he had one of those pure and stainless natures that seem
to be good without effort, but his talents were only considered
remarkable for arithmetic. His elder brothers used to set him up on a
table and try to puzzle him with questions, which he could often answer
mentally before they had worked them out on their slates. His father
died in 1830, after so much invalidism and separation that his five-year-
old boy had no personal recollection of him. The eldest son, Mr. Forbes
Mackenzie, succeeded to the estate of Portmore, and the rest of the
family resided in Edinburgh for education. Charles attended the Academy
till he was fifteen, when he was sent to the Grange School at Bishop's
Wearmouth, all along showing a predominant taste for mathematics, which
he would study for his own amusement and assist his elder brothers in.
His perfect modesty prevented them from ever feeling hurt by his
superiority in this branch, and he held his place well in classics,
though they were not the same delight to him, and were studied rather as
a duty and as a step to the ministry of the Church, the desire of his
heart from the first. At school, his companions respected him heartily,
and loved him for his unselfish kindness and sweetness, while a few of
the more graceless were inclined to brand him as soft or slow, because he
never consented to join in anything blameable, and was not devoted to
boyish sports, though at times he would join in them with great vigour,
and was always perfectly fearless.

From the Grange he passed to Cambridge, and was entered at St. John's,
but finding that his Scottish birth was a disadvantage according to
restrictions now removed, he transferred himself to Caius College. He
kept up a constant correspondence with his eldest sister, Mrs. Dundas,
and from it may be gathered much of his inner life, while outwardly he
was working steadily on, as a very able and studious undergraduate. With
hopes of the ministry before his eyes, he begged one of the parochial
clergy to give him work that would serve as training, and accordingly he
was requested to read and pray with a set of old people living in an
asylum. The effort cost his bashfulness much, but he persevered, with
the sense that if he did not go "no one else would," and that his
attempts were "better than nothing." This was the key to all his life.
At the same time he felt, what biography shows many another to have done,
the influence