Page:A memoir of Lewis David von Schweinitz.djvu/19

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10
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF

his connexion with the Nazareth institution, young Schweinitz was appointed to participate in the duties of instruction, by taking charge of some of the junior classes in that seminary.

In 1798 his father was called to Germany, whither he was attended by his family, and where the subject of this memoir, then a youth of eighteen, was in the same year established as a student in the theological institution at Niesky in upper Lusatia. Here, enjoying an intercourse with young men of decided and acknowledged talent, and entering on studies which excited a generous emulation, his faculties were roused to redoubled energy, and his application became proportionally intense. The late excellent J. B. de Albertini, then one of the professors in that institution, exercised a powerful influence on the mind of Mr. Schweinitz, and to his clearness and simplicity of views, his scientific and truly philosophical ideas, was the subject of our remarks indebted for much of that justness of thought and firmness of principle, which carried him with success through the active duties of life. The mutual esteem thus formed between the pupil and his teacher was afterwards, by similarity of pursuits and predilections, matured into the closest intimacy. While prosecuting his studies in this place, Mr. Schweinitz enjoyed, by means of his extensive connexions, an opportunity of mingling much in society, of which his cheerful and sprightly conversation rendered him the common centre of attraction. But neither in this situation, nor in his subsequent foreign journies, did his feelings ever swerve from an