sign of appearing before the university. Under the influence of his present feelings, he suddenly stopped the printing of his dissertation, when he had received the first proof, and commenced a hasty travel to visit his friends in different places, for the last time, and bid them an affectionate adieu.

From his notes of the incidents of this period, it would appear, that he went first to Amsterdam, chiefly for the purpose of applying for ordination. The Classis met on the 2d of April, and at this meeting, they approved his call,* invested him with the ministerial office, and consigned him to the Church of New-York. This important business done, he begun in earnest the performance of the painful duty which the prospect of his departure, as not far off, imposed upon him; and while at Rotterdam, thus engaged, he received a letter from an Amsterdam friend, censuring his conduct in relation to the theological degree, and strongly urging him to the final step necessary to its acquisition.

That Mr. Livingston had no ambition, or that he was not at all desirous of distinction, nor gratified when it was bestowed, is not pretended. We

* Another call was presented to him from one of the Churches in Amsterdam, but as it was not his intention to remain in Hölland, the call was respectfully declined.

have no wish to represent him in this Memoir, as free from the imperfections and weaknesses of human nature; but, while it is granted that he had his share of these, it is, nevertheless, believed that grace reigned in his heart, and that when he thought upon things of good report, or endeavoured to advance his reputation, he did so, rather to extend his usefulness in the Church, than to indulge an anxiety for the notice and applause of others. And it is believed that, in complying afterwards with the advice of his friend, he acted under a strong conviction of duty-a conviction that the degree sought would, if obtained, give some weight to his name, and would thus be a means of promoting his usefulness. He had a tender conscience—he was afraid of sin, and of the very appearance of sin ; and when he came to the conclusion of the letter, as he read the following quotation of scripture, "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin," the impression was irresistible, that he would be chargeable with culpable neglect, seeing he was apparently so near the attainment of the object, if he now relinquished it—and the degree, as before hinted, possessed at that day, in the estimation of the Church, all the importance he attached to it. He, accordingly, determined to follow the advice given; and set upon preparing, without delay, an abridgement of his dissertation

for the press. Devoting his mornings to the work, and what he had previously written being fresh in his mind, he accomplished it with ease, during the few days he spent at Rotterdam and the Hague, in making farewell visits; and upon his return to Utrecht, he had it printed. But the business was not yet finished, the severest task, and which would put his merits fully to the test, was still to be performed. He must defend his little pamphlet against learned and well-practised disputants, before a large assembly, consisting of the professors and regents of the University, and many other eminent personages.

The interesting and decisive day at length arrived:-It was the 16th day of May, 1770;-and Mr. Livingston was then just twenty-four years of age. The assembly convened at the appointed hour, a band of music attended, and much splendid ceremony was observed upon the occasionenough, indeed, to appal the courage of any candidate for distinction; and, no doubt, our young candidate, as he surveyed the imposing scene, could have said,

"A faint, cold fear thrills through my veins,
"That almost freezes up the heat of life."

Several learned gentlemen controverted some

of the positions advanced in his dissertation, but he successfully maintained them; and the disputation, which was in the Latin language, and lasted nearly two hours, affording sufficient evidence of his erudition, the professors, shortly after it terminated, conferred upon him, with the usual forms, the degree of Doctor of Theology. The diploma he received is signed by Meinardus Tydeman, Rector, and Franciscus Burmannus, Doctor and Professor of Sacred Theology.

Having now accomplished his wish, and having completed all the necessary preparations for his departure, Doctor Livingston took leave of Holland, and embarked at Helvetsluijs, for England, about the first of June, 1770. Upon his arrival at Harwich, to which place the passage had been a quick and agreeable one, he immediately passed up to London, and there tarried with Mr. John Harrison, a respectable merchant of that city, with whom he had occasionally corresponded, and who had politely invited him to his house.

He availed himself of his short stay in England to visit Oxford, and was introduced to Doctor Benjamin Kennicott, the celebrated Hebrew scholar, then engaged in that stupendous work to which biblical criticism is so much indebted-the collation

of Hebrew manuscripts. The Doctor had the honour of breakfasting with this learned and indefatigable Hebrician, and of being taken, after the repast, into the chamber where his amazing labours were performed. He had been already ten years employed in the preparation of his Bible, and was now only about half through it. "He showed me," says the Doctor, "several of his most admired manuscripts. The manner in which he proceeded was, to take one line from Van Der Hooght's Bible, which he considered to be the most correct copy of the Hebrew text, and paste that line upon the top of a page of a blank folio book, and then, under that line, to write all the variations which his manuscripts furnished in that line."

This extraordinary visit could not soon be forgotten; but a most gratifying memorial of it, in the hand-writing of that distinguished man, was obtained before they parted. In the Doctor's Album, which contains a variety of little sententious pieces in Greek, and Latin, and Dutch, with the names of Bonnet, Burmannus, Ravius, Tydeman, Vanderkemp, Elsnerus, and other eminent literati of Holland, underwritten, there are a few lines in Hebrew characters, beautifully formed, and accompanied with this sign-manual

BENJ: KENNICOTT,
E Coll: Exon: Oxon: