DAVID GREENE was born in Stoneham, Massachusetts, on the 15th of November, 1797. His father was a farmer and mechanic, much respected for his industry and integrity, though not a professor of religion. The mother was amiable and judicious, with more than common energy of character. Her cast of mind is said to have been somewhat pensive, and her religious experience remarkable. She died in 1813.

David was among the younger of nine children. He was affectionate as a boy, and in school stood generally at the head of his class. After reaching the age of twelve years, he was largely entrusted with the care of the farm, the father's engagements calling him often from home. Samuel, an older brother, still remembered in Boston with much affection as pastor of the church in Essex Street, and a likeness and sketch of whom will be found in the previous number of this volume, — was graduated at Cambridge College, and it was owing to his influence that David entered upon a course of liberal education. His studies were commenced at Phillips Academy, Andover, in 1815, and were continued, with some interruptions, through the eleven subsequent years.

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The Rev. George E. Adams, D. D., his classmate in the academy, and in the college and seminary, and for a large part of the time his room-mate, says of him at the academy: "He was there reckoned a Christian, a halting, doubting one, taking his turn, with some hesitation, in religious exercises, but was not a church-member." In September, 1817, the two friends entered Yale College. We have strong concurring testimony, from a number of his classmates, as to the thoroughness of Mr. Greene's scholarship, and the excellence of his character while in that institution. Dr. Adams gives a faithfully interesting account of his religious experience. He says: "Mr. Greene, after a while, declined engaging in religious exercises at meetings, from conscientious scruples, and would do nothing to claim the character of a Christian; showing his propensity towards thorough and stern self-dealing. Still, he was moving on toward the ministry, and became, I am quite confident, a beneficiary of the American Education Society. Through the greater part of his college course he stood in this position, — not of the world, not claiming the place of a Christian, though more correct in conduct than most Christians. In our last year

"The influence of this mental suffering on his bodily frame and appearance was very great. He became pale and emaciated. No one could see him without reading in his countenance the agony of his soul. So far as I remember, he never experienced any sudden deliverance. The anguish wore itself out. Even when we graduated, he had not gained a clear confidence of his good estate, and talked somewhat despairingly of the future.

"One noticeable thing in his college life," adds Dr. Adams, "should be mentioned. He was never absent from any college exercise during his first three years, nor tardy, though he sometimes went from his bed and returned immediately to it. Professor Fisher once called him to his room to speak of this, as a very remarkable thing."

Mr. Greene completed his college course in 1821, and had one of the highest appointments in his class. The year following he spent in teaching a private school of young ladies, in Boston, where he gave satisfaction both to parents and scholars. In the fall of 1822 he entered the Theological Seminary at Andover, but sometime in the following year he was induced to take charge of the academy at Amherst, as principal; an institution which then furnished a large proportion of the students for the college, struggling for the prosperous existence it has since attained. His services there were very acceptable, and about this time he was

strongly urged to accept the office of tutor in Yale College, but declined.

Mr. Greene returned to Andover in 1824, and his own statement is, that he joined the church there in 1825. He was now once more a classmate and room-mate of his college chum. "He was studious, of course," writes his old friend, "always thinking, but looking on the dark side in regard to himself, a prominent man in the class, highly respected by the professors, made great account of by such men as Eli Smith, Daniel Crosby, and others. On account of his sternness, and perhaps severity in judging others (as well as himself), he may have had less of popularity than some."

"His religious and moral character greatly influenced his naturally quick and vigorous intellectual qualities. He was a good scholar, and a clear and comprehensive thinker; receiving the second honor in his class at college, and maintaining, throughout his course in the Theological Seminary, a position among the first students, both in the Hebrew and Greek languages, and in the science of theology. If his facility and gracefulness in speaking had equalled his intellectual power and attainments, and the sincerity and depth of his piety, he would have been one of the most eloquent, as he certainly was one of the most honest and wellinformed, of men. The writer of this distinctly recollects an oration at the

close of his seminary course, which was very remarkable in respect both to thought and style."

Mr. Greene became connected with the correspondence of the American Board near the close of 1826; and was one of two Assistant Secretaries, Jeremiah Evarts belng the Corresponding Secretary, -until the death of that eminent man, in 1831. During this period, his special department of labor was editing the "Missionary Herald," and correspondence with the missions among the Indians, which was then conducted on an extended scale. In the year 1828 he made a tour, extended through eight months, and over nearly six thousand miles; visiting the missions to the Indian tribes, both east and west of the Mississippi River, in north-west Ohio, and in New York. On this tour he visited not less than thirty mission stations, and reached Boston, on his return, in July.

These personal inquiries into the Indian missions, were of great advantage to the young Secretary, in his relations both to the Prudential Committee and the several missions. And there was need, then, of all the practical wisdom that could be obtained. The difficulties in the way of bringing the poor Indians under the civilizing and saving influences of the gospel were fast accumulating. In the Southwest, the greed of the white man for the lands of the Cherokees - blinding and ruthless, like that of Ahab for Naboth's vineyard, rising above all considerations of mercy and justice was soon to chain and incarcerate the missionaries, Worcester and Butler, and to send their defenceless people far away from the graves of their forefathers, to die by thousands under the hardships of their migrations. Not the logic and eloquence of Evarts, in his appeals to the nation, through the letters of "William Penn," nor of some of the ablest statesmen in the halls of

Congress, could stay the calamity. Mr. Evarts is well known to have anticipated the righteous judgments of heaven, at some future time, to follow those high-handed deeds of violence. And when the shock of arms was heard in bloody conflict, not long since, at Chattanooga and along the Missionary Ridge, what reflecting mind did not think of an avenging Providence ? Elsewhere, similar unfriendly causes were in operation; and to these were added the influence of unprincipled traders in ardent spirits, and the not less unscrupulous partisans of slavery.

In November, 1829, Mr. Greene was married to Mary, the eldest daughter of Mr. Evarts, who was spared to him almost twenty-one years; in which time God was pleased to give them twelve children, all but two of whom are still living. Four of his sons served in the Union army during the late war, three of them as captains; and one of these three fell in a battle preceding the taking of Vicksburg. The domestic life of our brother was most happy. He bore his full share of the responsibilities and cares of the family, and was kind, though decided, in his parental government. The household, with him, was a religious institution, with morning and evening worship. His children were all dedicated to God in baptism, and instructed in the principles and duties of religion, and he had the pleasure of seeing nearly all of them become members of the visible church. At the solicitation of Mr. Lowell Mason, Mr. Greene consented, not long after his marriage, to aid in compiling the Hymn Book for the service of the sanctuary, called " Church Psalmody." Of this book, more than a hundred and fifty thousand copies are believed to have gone into use. The service was performed as an extra labor, and was not altogether without injurious consequences, for a time, to his health.

The death of Mr. Evarts led to the

appointment, in 1832, of three Corresponding Secretaries, instead of one; and Mr. Greene was one of the three, but with no material change in his department of labor. In 1836 he removed with his family from Boston to Roxbury, three miles from the Missionary House, a distance which he found equal pleasure and profit in usually traversing twice a day on foot.

Of Mr. Greene's official life, during the ten years following his removal to that rural city, there is not much calling for special notice. His daily duties demanded all his powers. There was no more of routine and sameness in them than there is in the most laborious pastoral life. While his time and thoughts were specially devoted to one or two departments, such as the Indian missions, the home correspondence, etc., he was in actual contact, more or less, with the working of the entire system. Problems of difficult solution not unfrequently arise, demanding the united wisdom of all, though often not of a nature to be advantageously discussed and resolved in the large annual meetings of the Board. There are, however, numerous subjects of great practical importance, that have been brought forward with great advantage in those meetings. In the year 1838, the practice was commenced of presenting to the Board some one or more of these subjects by the secretaries, in a written form, under direction from the Prudential Committee; and more than seventy of these "Special Reports (as they were called) have received attention from the Board at its annual and special meetings. Twelve such "Reports were written and presented by Mr. Greene, and several of these have a permanent value.

During all this time, Mr. Greene shared the responsibility with his brethren in drawing up the Annual Reports of the Prudential Committee;

and after the removal of Dr. Armstrong to New York city, in the year 1838, he had charge of that part of the domestic correspondence which had to be conducted at Boston. The editing of the "Missionary Herald," after 1843, devolved on Mr. Treat.

In 1847 the Prudential Committee proposed that Mr. Greene make a second tour among the Indian missions, westward of the Mississippi River. This he was incapacitated for doing by a collision on a railroad, and the service was performed by Mr. Treat. The injury from the collision seemed at first slight, but it was aggravated by exposure, and resulted in a paralysis, which, though partial and temporary, was attended with such weakness of the nervous system as made it expedient, in the opinion of medical advisers, for him to exchange a sedentary life for such an one as he could find only on a farm. Accordingly, in 1848, he declined a reëlection as Secretary, greatly to the regret of his associates and the friends of missions. An extract from the letter he then addressed to the Board affords an insight into the state of his mind in that trying period of his life.

"In retiring," he says, "which I do most reluctantly, from the station with which the Board has so long honored me, and in which I have found my labor and happiness most pleasantly combined, and in performing the delightful, though arduous duties of which I had, till recently, hoped to spend whatever of life and strength might remain to me, I feel constrained to declare my ever rising estimate of the excellence and honorableness of the foreign missionary work, and my ever strengthening confidence that it is a work which the Lord Jesus Christ regards with peculiar approbation, and which he, by his truth and his Spirit, amidst and despite of all the delays, embarrassments, and opposition which