Just at the same time in his journal he chooses as his “text for life” St. Peter’s words—“Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you.” But a great sorrow was at hand. Shortly after those lines were written his eldest brother Samuel was struck down by a hæmorrhage, and in less than three months he had passed away peacefully. This was a sore trial to Edward, and his letters abound with messages of deepest sympathy with his brother and the young wife soon to be left a widow. The words which he writes to his mother read like the experience of an advanced Christian, and the firm trust inspired by the “text for life” breathes through them all. The examination for his degree was rapidly approaching, so that study could not be neglected. This year the reading party went to Derbyshire, and the letters thence give delightful accounts of visits to the Peak, etc., but the coming cloud casts its shadow across all his thoughts; yet even so faith triumphs, and passages like the following, in a letter to his father, occur from time to time:— “Oh what a thing it is to think that the Peace which can never be taken away is not only bestowed upon you and upon him here, but that if it should please God to realise our fears, it will soon be bestowed upon him in perfection above! Sometimes when I think of his prospects, as far as he is concerned, I can scarcely wish him well again, and, if it were not for all of you, could almost desire to go with him.” On Sunday, October 23rd, 1833, the beloved brother passed away, and the journal records that Gurney and Edward sat beside him all through the night and to the end. Early in November Edward Hoare was back at Cambridge. His first letter is full of sympathetic thoughts concerning the bereaved ones at home, and it is not until the last paragraph that there is any mention of his work; this, however, is particularly interesting from one point of view. The great anti-slavery struggle was nearing its climax; and, considering the prominent part which Sir Fowell Buxton took in the movement, it was not remarkable that his nephew should have thrown himself warmly into it. Accordingly we read:— “I believe you were interested in my declamation. I have not got the prize, but they put me up on the paper as having made a very good one. The other three men, however, made better. I believe if I had not been so hot about slavery I might have got the prize, for at the time they expressed their great dissatisfaction at what I said about it.” Even as a young man he was not afraid to champion a cause which was unpopular with some who were in authority.