Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 530

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Memoir of the Rev. Walter M. Lowrie.

Ser.

eighth year his father was absent from home during the winter months. This left the principal part of his early training education to his ex- cellent mother, and well and faithfully did she perform this responsi- ble and sacred trust. From his infancy he possessed a mild and cheer- ful temper. He was a general favorite with his playınates, and always ready to engage in the usual sports of the play-ground. It was often the subject of remark, that he was never known to get into a quarrel, or even an angry dispute with his associates. To his parents he was always obedient and kind, open and ingenuous; he was never known to use deception or falsehood. His brothers and sisters shared his warmest affection and love, and his time with thein seemed to be made up of

pure enjoyment.”

"At an early period he was sent to school, where he learned the usual branches of a common English education. It was soon perceiv- ed by his teachers, that it required but little effort on his part to get the lessons assigned to him and the place he usually occupied was at the head of his class."

In November 1832, Walter, then not fourteen years of age, entered the preparatory department of Jefferson college, at Canonsburg Penn. He was graduated at this institution, with the highest honors in Sep- tember 1837. It was during the third year of his residence at the college, in the winter of 1834–35 that his attention was first perma- nently fixed upon the concerns of religion. At that time the college and surrounding neighborhood enjoyed a season of refreshing from the presence of the Lord." Nearly every student in the college was made to feel, as they never felt before, the vast importance of a pre- paration for eternity. Walter was deeply convinced of sin, and for some time mourned as one without hope but he at length obtained a joyful hope that his sins were pardoned, and ever after he made it his highest aim to live to glorify God and to prepare for the enjoyment of hiin in heaven. His mind was early turned to the gospel ministry as the profession in which he would choose to spend his life, and this being decided, his thoughts were at once directed to the heathen world. Before he left the college his purpose had been fully formed to go as a missionary to the heathen. His sympathies were particularly drawn out to the African race, and it was his ardent desire to labor for them in Africa itself.

After leaving college in September 1837, Mr. Lowrie spent the win- ter in his father's family, then residing in New York, and in the fol- lowing spring entered the Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian church at Princeton, New Jersey. Here he remained during the usual