Truly YoursAmos Lawrence
R Andrews Print.
EXTRACTS
FROM THE
DIARY AND CORRESPONDENCE
OF THE LATE
AMOS LAWRENCE;
WITH A
Brief Account of Some Incidents in his Life.
EDITED BY HIS SON,
WILLIAM R. LAWRENCE, M. D.
———
BOSTON:
G O U L D A N D L I N C O L N,
59 WASHINGTON STREET.
NEW YORK: SHELDON, LAMPORT & BLAKEMAN.
LONDON: TRUBNER & CO.
1856.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by
WILLIAM R. LAWRENCE,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts
BOSTON:
Stereotyped by
HOBART & ROBBINS,
New England Type and Stereotype Foundery.
———
Press of George C. Rand & Avery.
To his
ONLY SURVIVING BROTHER,
A M O S A. L A W R E N C E,
OF BOSTON,
This Volume is Affectionately Inscribed,
BY
THE EDITOR.
PREFACE.
Among the papers of the late Amos Lawrence were found copiesof a large number of letters addressed to his children.
With the hope that the good counsels there given, during a successionof years, extending from their childhood to adult age, might still bemade profitable to their descendants, he had caused them to be carefullypreserved.
These letters, as well as an irregular record of his daily experience,were scattered through many volumes, and required arrangement beforethey could be of use to those for whom they were intended.
As no one else of the immediate family could conveniently undertakethe task, the editor considered it his duty to do that which could notproperly be committed to one less nearly connected with the deceased.
The present volume, containing what was thought most interestingamong those letters and extracts, was accordingly prepared for privatecirculation; and an edition of one hundred copies was printed and distributedamong the nearest relatives and friends.
It has been thought by many that the record of such a life as is hereportrayed would be useful to other readers, and especially to youngmen,—a class in whom Mr. Lawrence was deeply interested, and with[vi]whom circumstances in his own life had given him a peculiar bond ofsympathy.
Although many, among both friends and strangers, have urged thepublication of the present memorial, and some have even questionedthe moral right of withholding from the view of others the light of anexample so worthy of imitation, much hesitation has been felt in submittingto the public the recital of such domestic incidents as aretreasured in the memory of every family; those incidents which cast asunbeam or a shadow across every fireside, and yet possess little or nointerest for the busy world without.
At the solicitation of the "Boston Young Men's Christian Union,"the "Boston Young Men's Christian Association," and the students ofWilliams College, through their respective committees, and at therequest of many esteemed citizens,