Excerpt from Memorial of Rev. Philo French Leavens, D.D: Containing a Brief Biography and Selected SermonsWords seem inadequate when the attempt is made to paint even a brief picture of another. One longs for the skill of the artist with brush and canvas. What can give shape to the words, so that they will bring before the mind's eye the outline of the life we seek brie¿y to portray? How shall we catch and fix with glowing colors upon the canvas, the wondrous char acter of him whose picture begins this book?In thought, we travel to that New England home in Berk shire, Franklin County, Vermont, where, on November lgth, 1838, Philo French Leavens first saw the light. To gain any idea of the in¿uences which surrounded and helped form the man we knew, let us glance into that New England home, a brief description of which, together with some notes of his life, we find among Dr. Leavens' papers.Paschal Paoli Leavens, his father, was born in the early part of the last century, rounding out full seventy years of life before he went home to God.Those were stirring times in which he lived, times which made character as men struggled to reduce the hills to subjuga tion and help stabilitate the community toward right living.One has but to walk over those hills and note the ruggedness of the soil to realize that only men of un¿inching purpose and vigorous character could compel it to yield its treasures. Such a man was Paschal Paoli, who succeeded his father in the Berkshire home. He was a man of such thrift that he could win a success out of the heart of a Vermont farm, to do which is no easy task.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.