THEIR AUTHORS AND ORIGIN. 371
stitution, and the limited character of his position left him room to prepare for the greater work of his later years.
At length the time came when he was to take the place for which he had prepared. In the year 1838, he became the Theological Tutor and President of Cheshunt College, and in the same year he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Brown University, America. In the year 1843, he suffered from a partial failure of sight, which was relieved by a winter spent in Italy. In 1850, he left Cheshunt to become the Theological Tutor and Principal of New College, London. After continuing his duties there, along with the fulfilment of many public ser vices, he was tempted by the return of robust health, at the close of 1856, to be more venturesome than usual, and in con sequence he took a severe cold, which was soon followed by dangerous and at length fatal symptoms. In the closing hours of his life the fifty-first Psalm was on his lips, and he uttered also, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit ! " "0 God, be merciful to me !" He died on the afternoon of Sunday, December the 21st, 1856, in the fifty-fifth year of his age.
Dr. Harris was eminent as a preacher and author. He was possessed of great refinement of taste, devoutness of feeling, and eloquence of expression. In society none were more con descending, gracious, and urbane than he. In the pulpit he was a great preacher, and the delivery of his principal sermons, ordinarily read with eloquence, was looked forward to as an event. Without the strength of Chalmers, he possessed a refinement and skill of diction, and sometimes an elevation and sublimity of sentiment and thought, all his own ; and with the pen he not unfrequently outstripped all competitors, gaining prizes where many other able writers entered into the contest without success. His taste enabled him to avoid whatever would offend ; he had talent to use the best thoughts, and to interweave the best words of others ; he was a master of happy expressions and pleasing turns of thought ; and, where it was necessary, he could bear all before him with an avalanche of argument and appeal.
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