It is not necessary to sketch the mature character of one so recently taken from amongst us. The shadow of his homely figure has scarcely faded from our streets, and the sound of his eloquent voice still seems to vibrate in our ears. It seems but yesterday that, on that cold and cheerless day, his lifeless but honoured remains were borne to the grave through the crowds of sympathising people who thronged the busy streets to see the last of him they knew so well and loved so heartily. Little could be added to the warm tributes that were paid so recently to the memory of the gifted, truthful, fearless, earnest, hard-working Christian teacher, who, in the prime of his life and the zenith of his powers, was removed from the sphere which he adorned by the purity of his character, and benefited by the power and graces of his intellect. But these tributes referred mainly to what he was, and what he did, in the later part of his career, and in the maturity of his powers. In some of them the references to his parentage, his birth, and his boyhood, were singularly inaccurate. In one periodical of large circulation and great influence, statements full of error and misrepresentation went forth to the world unchallenged. It is my purpose, therefore, in this paper, to correct the mistakes of those who wrote, being imperfectly informed; and to give, as I had it from the lips of his friends, his schoolfellows, and his relatives, a simple, but at all events a strictly accurate, record of the few and unromantic events of the early days of one who became so fruitful in goodness and in charity. With the view that this little sketch should at least be free from serious error, I made, the other day, a special pilgrimage to Vince's birthplace--the pleasant town of Farnham in Surrey. I stood before the lowly cottage in which he first drew breath; I sat in the little room where his father and his mother taught him practical lessons of truthfulness and sympathy; I looked into the little plain deal cupboard his father made for him, in which he stored the books he loved so well and studied so intently. I talked with his schoolfellows and the companions of his boyish days, and listened to those who were the chosen friends of his youth-hood, and I noted the brightening of the eye, and the more fervid tones of the voice, as one after another told me of the budding intellect, and of the germination of the warm and tender spirit, of him they were all so proud of.