THE DISTINGUISHED DEAD OF MT. AUBURN. No. XLVII. BY T. H. SAFFORD. John Farrar, L.L. D. at Cambridge and at the West Point military academy. Notwithstanding his arduous duties at college, Professor Farrar found time to communicate papers to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he was also for a R. JOHN FARRAR, late Professor of number of years the corresponding secretary D'Mathematics and Natural Philosophy of that body, one of the committee of publi in Harvard University, was born in Lincoln, Mass., in 1779. His father, Samuel Farrar, was engaged in the Concord fight, at the head of a company of militia; subsequently he served in the American army during the siege of Boston, and also assisted in the capture of Burgoyne at Saratoga. Mr. Farrar educated his eldest son at Harvard College. The care of the home garden was assigned as one of the principle duties of John, who was the youngest son, and he frequently made journeys to Cambridge with home necessaries for the eldest son. While at Cambridge, young Farrar saw a company of college students practising with a fire engine, which so excited his imagination that he petitioned his father for permission to go to college, which request was cheerfully granted, and the lad was sent to Andover to commence a preparatory course. He was fitted at that place, and at the age of twenty years joined the Freshman class at Cambridge. cation, and for a time vice-president of the same association. A curious anecdote is related of his mental absorption in his work at this time. Previous to his marriage his house was kept by an elderly lady, and the professor was so completely abstracted in his manner and such a recluse in his habits that this personage took advantage of his absence of mind. She received into the professor's house and nursed a sick friend until his death. Upon the day of interment Proffessor Farrar asked her the question whose funeral they were holding in his house. In 1820 Professor Farrar married Lucy Maria Buckminster, a sister of the distinguished pastor of the church in Brattle Square. Mrs. Farrar's health failed, and in company with her husband, she sailed for Fayal. They had previously resided at President Kirkland's, and when they returned to Cambridge they again took up their residence at his house. Mrs. Farrar died in 1824. father, William Rotch, of New Bedford. Professor Farrar's labors at the college greatly increased, and by his severe application he nearly ruined his sight. His general health also failed, and he asked and obtained leave of absence; and in company with his wife and other friends, sailed for England, where they passed the winter with Mrs. Farrar's parents in London. After taking his degree, he studied divinity at Andover, and was at the end of his Professor Farrar married for his second term licensed as a preacher, but subsequently wife Eliza, daughter of Benjamin Rotch, Esq., received the appointment of Greek tutor at of London, England. Miss Rotch had been Harvard University, which office he accept-residing for a period of time with her granded. He displayed great aptitude as a teacher, and when a vacancy occurred he was appointed Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at the same institution. When Professor Farrar took the chair in conformity with his election, he found the required course in mathematics quite meagre, and nine-tenths of the students broke down while attempting to master even the college requirements. He commenced his duties in a vigorous manner, and soon inaugurated a reformation in the method of teaching both mathematics and natural philosophy, and greatly improved the text books. They were brought to a higher standard by his exertions, as he translated a number of French mathematical works and caused them to be introduced in college, and adopted as standard works both They subsequently returned to Cambridge. but his health failed him the second time, and he presented his resignation to the college authorities, who accepted it, and the Farrar family again sailed for Europe, and made the tour of the English Lakes, visited Scotland, and spent the winter in London with Mrs. Farrar's parents. In 1837 they visited Paris, and Professor Farrar revised | Mr. Farrar's first wife was buried by the side of her celebrated brother in the Buckminster lot; the second wife, Eliza, was interred last spring in a brick catacomb in the lot with her husband. She was one of the most distinguished female writers in the State of Massachusetts. IT MOLLY WHITE'S GOODNESS. BY MRS. FIDELIA W. GILLETTE. one of his books for publication. They journeyed in France, Switzerland, Italy and Germany, and the second winter was spent in Nice at the foot of the Alps; but the air was much too bracing for his health, and they returned to London, and for a period of time took up their residence at an institution established in the vicinity of London for the cure of nervous diseases, which was then under the care of a brother of Mrs. Farrar. They returned to New York, where they were obliged to tarry for two weeks for Professor Farrar to gain sufficient strength to return to Cambridge. He now became a confirmed invalid. He retained his love for books until the time of his death, and his friends found it difficult to supply him with reading matter enough to satisfy him and appease his thirst for knowledge. He died in the early part of the month of May, in 1853. It was through his influence that the present admirable mode of instruction in mathematics was adopted that is now pursued at Harvard College and other institutions in this country. He had many commendable traits in his character, and was always ready to impart to all who desired it from his many varied and inexhaustible stores of useful knowledge. His conversational abilities were extraordinary, and he imparted knowledge to the students in so clear and pleasant a manner that it would not fail to deeply interest and instruct all earnest seekers for information. On Hibiscus Path there is situated an en-pathized, and of whose wants and sorrows all closure in which will be found a large sandstone monumental tablet, which is embel. lished with crockets and a prial; it is of the Gothic type of architecture, and its front is adorned with a cross. The panel beneath contains the following inscription: "To the memory of John Farrar, Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Harvard College. A lucid, eloquent and devout expositor of the laws of the material universe; in his manners dignified, simple, refined; in his dealings with others, kind and upright. After fourteen years of painful disease, borne with patience and serenity, he died, as he had lived, a humble disciple of Jesus Christ." On the rear is the following: T was a strange kind of goodness, that of Molly White's, so quaint and unique that the right hand never knew the left hand's doings. If Molly's own husband had been told that he entertained an angel in his house, he would have answered, "Yes, she is generous in her home, but her charity begins and ends there." Ay, like many another man, Molly White's husband entertained his angel unawares. Because Molly never blew her trumpet when she went with a bowl of gruel or a cup of jam to a sick neighbor; or a dollar-perhaps her only dollar-to some poor woman; or a smiling face to the home of despair, or a word of encouragement to the fainting heart, or a tear of sympathy and a prayer of faith to the house of mourning, she received very little credit for benevolence and tenderness. And, somehow, this all seemed to please Molly. You could seldom, if ever, get her name on a subscription-list of any nature; and certainly, if this subscription was for those with whom all the village sym lips are talking, then there was nothing that Molly could do, and her purse was sure to be empty. But just now, she would take her well-filled basket - well filled with the very articles she herself needed-and go off across the fields to some poor lone house in the clearing, or in the edge of the woods, or on the verge of the prairie, where the baby was dying, and the mother was wasting away under the burden of poverty and toil, and the unkindness of a drunken husband; or where the husband himself was sinking into the grave in the agony of despair, because no human hand was near to labor for his help. less babes and the dear wife who, through all trials, had been his comfort and his cheer; and here Molly brought such blessings that "John Farrar. Born 1790. Died 1853." | even want was turned into a healing minis try, and hearts buckled on for the first time the breast-plate of hope, and hands wore a new firmness and skill for the labor of life, and sickness had a brighter beauty than health, and even the pillow of the dving grew softer to the weary head, and the faith in human goodness had become stronger as the soul floated out on the river that flows from the door-way across to the quiet beauty of the unknown land. But if, perchance, the world, as we call it, looked in upon Molly's poor, and hands began to work, and busy tongues began to talk, then Molly fled away and looked up another parish that needed her more. We all knew—the all who knew Molly, and you need not count your ten fingers, by any means, to number these-that Molly's sick and poor were those whom no one visited, or would visit, till she had cleared the way with her aid and tact and sympathy. But the dearest way of helping, to Molly, was to show her poor how to help themselves. She loved dearly to find wood-sawing and corn-planting and potato-hoeing, or an opportunity to learn a trade, for the boys; and sometimes her own small, plain, but sunshiny home upon the plains, just away from the creek, was a complete school for the poor, wild, untutored girls, with whom, sometimes, the best of women had no patience, and for whom they had no hope-a school where they learned to make and to mend, and to get ready for the toilsome, and sometimes the cruel life, that lay all before them. And when her boys and girls went out to remunerative labor, she said, "Now, children, re member the first dollar is for your fathers and mothers. To be good and happy, boys and girls must lighten, even at a great sacri fice, the cares of their parents." And so she dropped into their hearts seeds that sprang up into green trees, whose branches bore the blossoms of healing. One of these poor young girls went out from her care to a distant city, and, unknown to her, Molly went with her in the following letter: "DEAR MRS. K::- One of our poor girls, who must needs make her own way in the world, is coming to you. Will you please look after her as you can get a moment from your cares and pleasures, and shield her, with your power and kindness, from the wiles of temptation, and show her what is good and dutiful, so that if, bye and bye, life prove a failure with her, it shall not be because of your stewardship? Very respectfully, MOLLY WHITE." won This letter, so simple yet so full of interest for the poor girl for all poor girls the boon it sought; and the stranger, sometimes finding her help obstinate and inclined now and then to try a new place, would ask Molly's counsel, and always Molly's counsel prevailed. "Do not leave this girl," wrote the strange lady, in one of her hours of perplexity, “entirely to my guiding. Every word of counsel you send her sinks deep into her heart, and makes her such a good girl-such a blessing to my household! If ever evil should befall her, I believe her heart would pray to you for help, as the heart of the Catholic cries to the Virgin Mary." I believe very few women, even in a larger sphere, have done as much for this class of girls, in developing their energies, in showing them how to make life worth something, and in giving them glimpses of an exalted womanhood, as Molly White. I believe very few, among men or women, have done as much for the children as she, in bringing out their powers of endurance, patience, forbearance, perception and will. I could fill a volume with incidents in which the glory of a whole unknown life has dawned upon the opening vision of a little child through the magic power of her loving heart. And yet Molly White is not our village paragon of goodness. Our people have not placed her image as a guardian saint upon the streetcorners. A very excellent woman once said to me, that she never could interest Molly White in the poor. And then she told me of a time when there was a sick mother and six children, not far from her own door, and the father to feed and clothe, and worse than all, with a dollar a day for his labor, and all Silver Creek was doing so much, and when she went to Molly White, she could not do a thing. "When was that?" I asked. "That fearful winter, when the hard times fell so severely upon little out-of-the-way places like this." Father used to say that a good "Ah!"-I must tell it. Molly White | hearts. would never have said a word, but I could deed was better than money at interest. Dear father! whenever I think of his cheerful, genial charities, my kindnesses seem as nothing." not turn away with silent lips.-"Ah!" I repeated, "that was the winter she took care of Mrs. Dean and her three children, and I should think that about as much as one woman could do, besides being maid of all work in her own family!" "Took care of Mrs. Dean!" and she looked at me as though she thought I had lost my reason. Early one evening in the late autumn, when the air was full of frost, and the wind blew wild and cold across the plains, and Molly was alone, I went into her home, and found her enclosing a five-dollar bill in a tear-blotted letter, while a shade of inexpressible sadness rested upon her face. As I sat down, she knelt down beside me and leaned her head over on my bosom. I folded my arm about her, and drew my fingers tenderly over her forehead; for though Molly "Do you remember, Mrs. Dean lived next door to her, and how her children were sick all winter, so that she could do very little work, and even that little she must take home?" "Yes; but I have been told that her hus- White had a word of comfort for every one band's brother took care of them." "Her husband's brother, or any member of his family, did not enter the house through the winter; neither did they in any way assist them." "How can I believe it?" "Believe it, because it is true." "How you astonish me! And so Mrs. White did it? Do you know that she did it?" 66 "I do. I entered her kitchen one day, just as she was going across the garden with a loaded basket to Mrs. Dean, and I said, "There, Molly, I've found you out!' and she answered, ‘Please don't say anything about it; ' and thereafter, I watched and Mrs. Dean talked, and in the spring I found that Mrs. Dean had lived from Molly White's back door all winter." "I am really glad to know it," said the lady; but she did not notice that the poor woman's help went from Molly's back door. That was just like Molly White. She never went to the front door with her goodness. Once in the winter I said to her: Molly, is it just to yourself, is it right, for you to sacrifice so much in order to help others? for it always comes upon you at last. You go without clothing, you go with out help in your kitchen, in order to help the sick and the poor so much." "Oh," she replied, "I don't want nice clothes, and others around me suffering, as it were, for bread, I had rather eat only one meal a day, if thereby I could lift up or make any lighter the burdens that so crush human whom she saw in sorrow, though her faith in the Father's goodness never for a moment failed, I knew there were hours when her loving heart prized, above all things earthly, the sweet expressions of human tenderness. As I held her gently, I asked: "Not that-that were not so hard, if she died tenderly cared for." "Is she coming home, Molly ?" "Not just yet. If she gets better she will come soon. You may read the letter," and she reached over to the table and handed me the letter. I read, while she still knelt sobbing at my side. It was a letter from Molly's sister-a sister whose life had been full of sorrow, and who, in her hour of trial and homelessness, had found safety and love in Molly's heart and home. After her mind rallied and her strength increased, having much of Molly's own brave spirit, she had gone out into the cold, unhelping world to help herself. She had done nobly, and every spring she would write, "Molly, I shall be rich enough not to work so hard soon, and in the autumn I am coming home to help you." When autumn came, she would say, "Wait till spring, Molly; I will come then." But this letter toid of disappointed hope and weariness of heart. She had loaned her money to a selfish and dishonest relative, and he would not make an effort to pay it, and he was worth little or nothing. And so she wrote, "I am sick now, and cannot even get money enough to buy a pair of shoes, and I need them so much! This must be a very wicked world. Oh! I am so tired and so lonely! I want so much to go to father and mother, in that home where there is no selfishness and no cruelty!" Poor Molly! Katy was alone among strangers-or among selfish relatives-and so she sent her last dollar-all, ber busband had told her, that he could give her for the winter, unless he was better able to labor; the very money, too, that she was going to pay for herself a pair of shoes and a calico dressfor Molly's best calico was patched and faded, and her shoes out at the toes. Then winter was coming in, hard and long; her husband might not be able to work; her own health was failing; what would become of her and hers? She saw it all, but her loving heart would not be turned back. "She had shoemakers' thread and pieces of leather; she could mend the shoes; she could fix over, for the fortieth time, that old merino; on the sober, second thought, she did not need either shoes or dress-but she did need to do something for poor, suffering Katy. It was just as little as the widow's mite, she knew, but perhaps God saw how large her wish was;" and when she lifted her head, and looked up into my face, there was over her countenance such an expression of joy, that one would have thought she had received the greatest gift, instead of bestowing so small a boon. She sealed and directed her letter, and then she drew out the small, oval table, and spread over it the clean white cloth, and put on the pretty dishes of Canton blue, and the shining pewter cups, and we eat our supper of baked beans, baked potatoes, corn bread and stewed raspberries with a relish that many a mlilionaire would give half his fortune to possess. Blessed Molly White! though around the path of thy pilgrimage there are strewn no golden treasures though the rich bring thee not their homage, and the great world never sound thy praises, yet the hearts of the poor and the sorrowing will follow thee to thy rest in our wildwood cemetery, and the prayers of the repentant and the saved will ascend to heaven for thy eternal welfare! : It is evident there are many professing Christians who are not true followers of Christ. In a general sense, all who dwell in Christian communities are accounted Christians but how few of all these are, in any sense, followers of Christ? How few, even of those who profess to accept Christ as their guide, follow truly in his light. How few have a real right to call themselves Christians, if the term is interpreted as "following Christ." Why should men misapply or misuse so sacred a term? To wear it as a cloak to blind the eyes of men is worse than folly,it is sacrilege, and he who professes to be a Christian that he may more readily pursue selfish and unchristian ends may well be accounted "the wickedest man of all.' He may deceive men but he cannot hope to deceive his Creator, who seeth his inmost thought. And so, too, he who makes loud pretensions of loyalty to Christ, and in vain confidence boasts of his own perfection, yet walks in ways that strangely diverge from that straight and true one through which the Saviour leads, whose deeds do often condemn him, - he, too, will evidently be found wanting, and must fail to find that favor in the sight of God and his Master which he mistakenly expects. Who, then, are true Christians? who will comprise the little band that shall be accounted worthy to wear the title; the forlorn hope that shall be drawn forth to advance the glorious standard to the enemy's walls? Though few in numbers, it may be, would they not, thus singled out and drawn to the front, be more irresistible, more overwhelming, more potent for good, than when surrounded by the whole halting, hesitating, luke-warm Christian mass? Doubly effective indeed would they become, for nothing could then dim their lustre or cast reproach upon their banners. We should reduce the Spartan band to numbers startlingly small should we interpret the term "Christian" in its strictest sense. We must be liberal and allow there are different degrees of Chris |