“‘He sees the face of right as manifold As are the passions of uncertain man, Who puts it in all colors, all attires, To serve his ends and make his courses hold. He sees that, let deceit work what it can, Plot and contrive base ways to high desires, That the all-guiding Providence doth yet All disappoint, and mocks the smoke of wit. “‘Nor is he moved with all the thunder-cracks Of tyrants’ threats, or with the surly brow Of Pow’r, that proudly sits on others’ crimes, Charg’d with more crying sins than those he checks. The storms of sad confusion that may grow Up in the present for the coming times, Appall not him, that hath no side at all But of himself, and knows the worst can fall. “‘Although his heart (so near allied to earth) Cannot but pity the perplexèd state Of troublous and distressed mortality, That thus make way unto the ugly birth Of their own sorrows, and do still beget Affliction upon imbecility: Yet, seeing thus the course of things must run, He looks thereon not strange, but as foredone. “‘And whilst distraught ambition compasses, And is encompassed; whilst as craft deceives, And is deceived: whilst man doth ransack man, And builds on blood, and rises by distress, And th’ inheritance of desolation leaves To great-expecting hopes: he looks thereon As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye, And bears no venture in impiety.’” Such is the record of Henry Ward Beecher in college. It is one of which none need be ashamed. It may be pondered with advantage and followed with profit by every one standing himself upon the threshold of that eventful period in his own life. It is the record of a man who was loyal to duty, to truth and purity. Independent in his line of thought and study, yet obedient to the government of the college, industrious and aspiring, his course was essentially a period of education, a drawing out of his powers, a training-school of his whole nature, a fitting preparation for that high place which he came ultimately to fill in the confidence and affection of the nation and the world. CHAPTER VIII. Lane Seminary—Dr. Beecher Called—Home at Walnut Hills—Amusing Incidents—Family Meeting—Death of Mrs. Beecher—Extracts from Journal—First Mention of Preaching in the West—Experience in Ecclesiastical Matters—Despondency—Meeting of Synod—Influences of the Times—Revulsion—A Rift along the Horizon—“Full iolly Knight.”