rum might possibly be overlooked, when sent out by those who gave liberally to foreign missions. Then the friction between the old and new schools I caricatured-the old school holding children are sinners when they were born; the new school, sinners when old enough to know how. The professors, Drs. Henry Mills, Baxter Dickinson and Laurens P. Hickock, were all able men, the latter especially became distinguished at Union College and a philosopher of celebrity; but there was the voice of Presbytery to be heeded, and the old paths only were held as safe and sacred.

Conservatism and all, this was truly a serviceable school of the prophets, located in lovely Auburn, the home of Judges Conkling and Blatchford and the then eminent Ex-Gov. Seward, who was heard frequently in great cases like the Freeman murder case, where his opponent was "Prince" John Van Buren. attorney general.

Its alumni were numerous. Distinguished as associates I recall the noble missionaries, F. E. Williams and Charles Little; Dr. Henry A. Nelson, professor, theologian and writer; Dr. Henry W. Parker, poet, artist, naturalist and professor in Iowa College, late author of "The Spirit of Beauty," a volume of the highest original and literary character. Prof. Parker wedded Miss Helen Fitch, a gifted authoress and the belle of Auburn, tenderly remembered as long a sufferer from a frightful casualty. Revs. H. A. Strong, Job Pierson, Edward Taylor, E. F. Williams and others, still honor the pulpit; while J. H. Kasson, my townsman and friend, and Robinson, the devoted and ardent, have passed away in varying service not to be forgotten.

War truly emancipated theological seminaries, as it did politicians. The vassalage and pulpit circumspection of that day, I set out in a scrap found among the old papers of course, sarcasm.

Sample sermon skeleton, advisory to the class of 1847. The text, "Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves." I. What the characteristics of the serpent?

(a) Fertile in promises to mother Eve.
(b) Has eye of a charmer - the bird falls.
(c) Coils in danger-circumspection.
(d) Crawls when pursued.

II. In the symbol of a dove.
(a) Harmless in flight.
(b) Gentle in cooing.

(c) Instinctively in storm takes refuge in a cote. Remarks. Gentlemen, advisory to your congregations, say on Fast and Thanksgiving days, we

1. Deprecate the California gold fever.

2. Denounce fanatical Mormon crusaders.

3. Execrate the bloody Mexican war.

4.

Commiserate black men—leave slavery to Providence.

5. Study the symbols of the successful minister of the earth, the dove of the air.

-the serpent

A CALL.

Union village, thirty miles north of Albany, was the place of my first settlement. It was a village romantic in nature, of attractive houses, a refined people, of radical, diverse opinions on the great issues of slavery and temperance. The Congregational church had come out from the Dutch Reformed, refusing to fellowship any church tolerating a rumseller or a slaveholdera protest only a quarter of a century in advance of Presbyterian and Methodist orthodoxy and ethics. It required heroines and born cavaliers to stem a tide of flunkyism, a cowardly pulpit and social intolerance.

That church was equal to the occasion in that locality; erecting a fine edifice, and with ample means and high social culture, enlisting thought, not less than awakening admiration. As a young minister I had no high advanced standard to urge; it was rather an effort to keep up with the procession on a stern, rugged march, entered upon by a noble people in calm resolution. Certainly their high social standing and kindly spirit, with the heart of true reformers, made them a peculiar people.

In politics, new issues were met confronting the slave power on the election of Gen. Taylor, who, though really a kind-hearted man, was the hero of a war severely denounced.

The liberal party, headed by John P. Hale, received, I think, the entire suffrage of the voters in our Society. In the eyes of a gross sentiment there was the greatest scandal in the abolition of the corner negro pew, yet more so in name than in resulting fact. The families keeping house-servants and coachmen, found their employes in church, without pressure or command, occupying not a corner, but a side of the church; they were so numerous that a

colorphobist asked the usher on entering to do him a favor by giving him a seat not "on the shady side of the house." The name of Negro church was a by-word, but there was only a toleration of a class in worship as ready as that of the nurse or the drivers on duty, and defended without an idea of the social quality as degrading; it was a salutary, kind effort to uplift a class, yet wearing the badges of the slavery of their fathers; in a word, a Christian recognition of the oneness of the race.

I give an incident. Rev. Mr. Fillmore, of Cambridge, a popular pastor, a relative of the then President Fillmore, proposed an exchange. On the way, accosted by a parishioner, he was asked as to his mission. "Going to exchange with Grinnell, to preach to nabobs and niggers". -a hyperbole at least-it was in no sense true. The audience was not of nabobs, but of cultured people, tolerating a class to whom the low designation of "nigger" was never applied. The families could afford to be singular, equally with the affluent Quakers in plain colors far out of fashion. Still, in a "one idea" they found no cardinal virtue or excuse for minor neglects. The first ladies sang in the choir. The rich man's daughter played at the organ-thus music, Sabbath-school, temperance and reform, filled the church, and there were added to its numbers on one day near half a hundred by profession.

The monthly concerts for missions drew Quakers, skeptics, and the late witty E. D. Culver, member of Congress, all bearing a free lance. The warfare against the saloon was only less than against slavery, seemingly more effective. Reform men, the wood-sawyer, the Mohawk Dutchman, aided in keeping back license for a time, and liberal citizens erected a temperance hotel, only to lose its peculiar standing after a few years. As to the tipplers, I recall two ludicrous incidents.

McDonald was a reformed Irishman, but on the death of a daughter fell into grief, and I made a special effort to keep him sober to attend the funeral. At the cemetery what was my surprise when he stepped out in front of the company to speak, and this was his bull which afterward stung his proud spirit, and led to a permanent reform: "Friends, I thank you for your presence, and for burying my dear child, and hope the time is not far distant when I can in like service return your kindness."

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Another inebriate was brought to reform a kind of a pill doctor-by a laughable experience. Coming home late at night,

hungry and thirsty, he called to his wife up-stairs, for milk and a bowl of blueberries. Their location in the pantry was pointed out, only a dim moon shining. During his absence she had made a batch of pills, and had left them near the berries. Presently he called, in the midst of profanity, "Are there none fresher than these?"—they had made him sick. Horrors! horrors! and the reply, as she took in the situation, was, that instead of the berries he had taken the bulk of those pills. The ridicule which followed the maudlin episode ended the career of a medical practitioner, and caused his reform.

Time has not dimmed my recollection nor lessened my admiration for the heroism of that congregation, as I recall Dr. Corliss, the Moreys, Holmes, Masters, Gibbs, Bigelows and others, for all of whom save one, epitaphs have been written.

I mention President Arthur, whose personal opinions he gave me at the White House.

"I lived in Union Village at the found

ing of that church. George H. Corliss, the son of Dr. Corliss, was my playmate, now the great mechanic decorated by the kings of Europe. Not long ago I told him, sitting in that chair, that he would be remembered and his name mentioned long after some on the Presidential roll." Then added, "Young William Holmes had ten chances to one of mine for a rise in the world. He had fine dress suits, carriages and horses at command, and I was only the son of a poor Baptist minister." Knowing that Holmes lived in reduced circumstances at Grinnell, my Iowa home, he invited him to visit the White House. Learning of the family he rang his bell, asked by a note that the youngest son should have an appointment by the Postmaster General to the next railroad mail vacancy, which was soon filled by Mr. Frank S. Holmes. In further evidence of a statesman who never forgot his friends, is the fact that his high station did not prevent, on the death of Mr. Holmes, a telegraphic message of sympathy to the family.

My stay with this people was a pleasant one, with a full house and the church doubling in members. On most fair Sundays I spoke three times a day-the afternoon in the country. A conviction came that a change would inure to the benefit of both parties, though I did not seek invitations, for they were at hand. Was there a divinity shaping the future, bringing burdens and the sad separation of friends? My mother, for a long time in feeble health, was at Union Village treated with the kindest attention.

She died at the old home, sundering the link keeping me from the West, which had bound me nearer home, to witness at the bedside wasting and death.

The following letter is expressive of a mother's loss:

Mother is dead! Yesterday I replied to an inquiry, "She yet lingers," and this is the first time I write the mournful sentence-a truth I could not speak. From friends I have often heard the expression, "My mother is not living," but I little understood that loss as I now do, which stirs the soul to the depths of feeling, and is the occasion of extreme pain. We are called but once to suffer it during the longest life, and it is a loss for which no earthly blessing can give return.

A suffering mother was mine. For a period of years she had not known an hour free from pain, still she uttered not a murmur. Her mood was cheerfulness, and all her years of wasting furnished lessons of patience. There was pain in the thought that the kindness of friends could not be requited, and when the lips could not utter the words the heart indited, often her fast falling tears were the only expressions of gratitude.

A widowed mother. When a child twenty years agone, my father passed away, commending us all to the God of the widow and the Father of the fatherless. Now I recall the lonely sigh, and her care worn, saddened look has a new impression after many years, and her devotion to us is explained. She lived in us and for us. The youngest of our little circle, so full of promise, passed away; the eldest, far from home among strangers, was cut down in manhood; yet the fountains of her heart had not been so dried up, or exhausted, that at the mention of father, they did not flow. Oh! holy as heaven is the widowed mother's love.

"The love of many prayers and many tears,
Which changes not with dim declining years."

So she was endeared to us until her last breath.

She lived and died a Christian mother. Christ was the anchor of her soul; heaven she looked forward to as her home, and the voice of duty was heard as the voice of God. May those prayers and counsels meant for us that we might be useful, never be forgotten. May her expression this morning, "a blessed Sabbath," and her last words, "Christ is precious," be linked with her memory and magical words, until we have crossed the melancholy flood.