A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

REV. ROBERT BOLTON.xxviinature and importance of that obligation.The subjectof this account evinced his accurate sense of it byavoidingexpenses, which others would have thoughtallowable. He borrowed from his tutor and others,says my authority, the best books on natural andmoral philosophy, and read them over with the utmostdiligence, wrote abridgments of them, and returnedthem.His industry appears at this time to have been verypraiseworthy. In order that he might attain an exactknowledge of Homer, a book at that time of considerableimportance at Oxford, he wrote out the whole ofthe Iliad. The result of such perseverance and assiduitywas to enable him to converse or discourse in theGreek language in the public schools with as muchfacility as he possessed in his native tongue. Thus hisconfined resources, which denied him access to ma7iybooks, conduced to his more perfect acquaintance witha few, and by compelling him to transcribe them, hismind became stored with a most comprehensive andaccurate knowledge of their contents.In the course of a short time, however, he removedfrom Lincoln College to Brazen-nose, with a view to afellowship ; because, by the statutes of that society,Lancashire or Cheshire are entitled to electionin preference to others. He, however, resided therefor some time without the attainment of his object,and amid the same straitened circumstances. Hismerit as a scholar and as a man of integrity becameultimately known, and through the timely and generousaid of a resident fellow, he was probably appointedone of the college lecturers. By the stipends arisingfrom this source he was upheld till he was about thirty