While yet in his course of preparatory study, he found himself brought face to face with that question which has met so many men, and almost always, when pursued, with one result, the question as to the organization and framework of the Church of Christ. He paused upon it with his wonted carefulness. The result of his enquiry I give in his own words. "It unfolded to me a new aspect of Christianity. The discovery afforded me unspeakable relief; but it was necessarily attended with many regrets. I had no relative, and no intimate friend connected with the Episcopal Church, and I seemed to be left alone in the world, in regard to my religious sympathies." It was a cross, but he did not shrink from it. He determined to take time for a final decision. Just then--it was in 1805--he was called to undertake the duties of collegiate instruction, and the call came in such a form that he would not refuse it. He could not have dreamed of all its bearings then, but we can see that this was another step by which he was led on towards a goal, how invisible then to him, how bright and glorious now to us! In his academic life, we trace the same great notes of character that I paused on in his youth. How many are there who remember yet, the gentle ways in which he won the turbulent and the perverse, to better things; the even gentler ways, in which he led on those whose steps were ordered rightly; the many whom he lifted up when they were down, and cheered when they desponded. And here too, in a broader field and with a wider range, his powers of acquirement and adaptation gained fresh triumphs. In three different departments of instruction, not different merely, but diverse also, he labored, and he labored well. He filled a large place beyond the College walls. In many lines of activity and labor, where we, who knew him only as an ecclesiastic, can hardly fancy him, he gained respect and confidence. And all this made him a many sided man; gave him a varied culture; adorned and fitted him with diversified acquirements; was, in short, a noble earthly preparation for what was to be his real life work. And now, as we stand by him amidst these accumulated labors and these gathering honors, we are fain to ask, have we not found that life work? So we should think. So, perhaps, he thought. Yet it was not so. His convictions, as has already been said, pointed him to our own Church, as the home of his rest; but he had never yet come in contact with it, nor had it been presented to him as a living reality. At last, in God's providence, after years had gone by, an event occurred which brought him into relations with those to whom, as yet, he had been a stranger. That event was his marriage in 1811.