the pulpit as a candidate for settlement. However flattering the prospect, and desirable as he regarded a location among a people to whom he was already so ardently attached, he was constrained to decline their request. On Tuesday he left for New-York, where he arrived the next morning, October 15th.

On the same evening the managers of the Society met, and an application was presented to them from the Fairfield people for his release from their service. They deemed the reasons insufficient, and "resolved that the corresponding secretary," the Rev. Dr. Spring, "be a committee to wait on the Rev. Mr. Baldwin, and that, should it meet his views, he be directed to labor in the city for the term of six months." It was by the representations of Dr. Spring, that he was induced to take up his abode in New-York, and undertake the self-denying labor of a missionary among the poor and destitute.

This result he announces to his parents in a letter, dated Oct. 26:

"Providence seems, at length, to have fixed my station in this city, at least for a few months. It is some time since I engaged to serve a Missionary Society formed in this place, with the expectation that they would send me into the western part of the state. Buffalo was marked out as having a destitute region about it.

"I accordingly came hither, prepared to make my way to Buffalo, and to commence my labors in its vicinity. From that place I hoped to extend my tours, even as far as New-Connecticut. But a new missionary field' has recently come into notice. This city contains about 120,000 inhabitants. Of these more

than 50,000 are destitute of religious instruction. They belong to no religious society, and attend no religious meeting. Half of them, perhaps more, are unable to read; and of those who can read, not a few have never seen, and some have never heard of a Bible. You will, of course, conclude that they are very ignorant. They are so; and they are, for the most part, as vicious as they are ignorant. In short, they are heathen, except that they bear the name of Christians.

"Perhaps you will wonder how these people could have lived for years within the sight of churches and the hearing of bells, without improving their opportunities. The fact is, these poor people have no seats in those churches, or but very few of them at the most. There are but 50 churches in the whole city. These churches would not hold more than 60,000 people, if every seat and aisle were occupied. It is quite impossible for the poor in this city to find seats, or even places where they may stand, in the houses of worship. They are, besides, too ignorant and vicious, and unaccustomed to attend religious meetings, to desire to worship God in his house. Somebody must visit them at their homes, and preach the gospel to them from house to house. A number of missionaries are actually engaged in this good work. The Society have voted that I be requested to stay and engage in it. As the vote is unanimous, and the necessity of a pressing nature, I think it is clearly my duty to stay.

"I conclude that you will be disappointed at not seeing me in Ohio the coming winter. But I trust that you have given me up for the service of the Lord. I might have done better for myself, than I probably shall do, by coming to this city. Several opportunities

were afforded me of preaching as a candidate for immediate settlement. But I hope that I have been enabled to refuse them, from a desire to be more extensively useful. I am indeed a soldier, enlisted for Christ. Oh! do not cease to pray that I may be faithful and successful in the station which God has here assigned me.

"You will be pleased to hear, that my labors have been, in some measure, owned of God, though I am nothing. I still think the work of the ministry the most noble of all works. My largest desires are satisfied with the prospect of preaching Christ."

It was no ambition to be known as a city-minister that induced him to take up his residence in New-York. His inclinations were strongly in favor of his beloved New-England, and especially of Fairfield, where the hearts of the people were already his, and where he might have expected a very comfortable situation. But his heart was on the missionary work. He would have gone into the region of Buffalo, then almost a wilderness, and labored cheerfully among the backwoodsmen to win souls to Christ. A wider field and more pressing need opened before him in New-York, and constrained him to forego long-cherished inclinations and to engage in a work of peculiar self-denial ;—a work, as the Missionary Society then described it," accompanied by more deprivations, and greater self-denial, than the usual routine of duty on our frontier settlements."

This change of destination was, in a great measure, owing also to the representations of the Rev. Mr. Stafford, his former associate in college, who had for nearly two years been laboring in this most forbidding field, and to whose exertions the Female Missionary

Society, already mentioned, owed its origin. They were members of the same household, and daily conferred and prayed together in relation to Mr. B.'s duty. Mr. Stafford was exceedingly anxious to procure a helper, and spared no pains to represent to him the deplorable condition of the people for whose welfare he was laboring. He took him upon the ground, entered with him into the abodes of poverty and infamy, showed him their ignorance of God, and disregard for man. And it was enough. He resolved upon the work, and gave himself to it without delay.

CHAPTER VIII.

The scene of his labors.-Changes his location.-Description of his new field of labor.-Early Missionary efforts there.-Routine of weekly labors.-Cheering results of his preaching.— Unexpected trials.—Organization of the Seventh Presbyterian Church.

THE labors of Mr. Baldwin were at first directed to that portion of the city lying to the east of Pearl-street, and the Bowery, extending along the East River, above Peck-slip. A dense population inhabited the lower part of this district. In an area of less than 90 rods square, it was computed that there were then not less than 8,000 or 9,000 souls. "A great proportion of the people were crowded together from 4 to 12 families in a house, often two or three in a room, and those of all colors. With these houses the ground was almost completely covered." Houses of infamy were thickly clustered together within this space, and hither resorted

the dissolute, the abandoned, and the victims of prostitution. Scattered among these habitations here and there might be found a worthy family, who dwelt in such a region rather from necessity than from choice. But like Lot of old, they had their abode in Sodom.

It was in the summer of 1816, that the Rev. Ward Stafford, and the Rev. Samuel J. Mills of sainted memory, explored this field, and disclosed to their fellowChristians its abominations and desolations. Here the former succeeded in procuring the erection of a house of worship, in Bancker (now Madison) street, near Catharine-street, in the very midst of these abodes of vice. The house was called the Union Mission church, and was afterwards removed to Allen-street, near Grand, and known as the Allen-street Presbyterian church.

Mr. Baldwin having been introduced to this field in the manner already stated, without further delay, engaged in the work of preaching the gospel from house to house, in the neighborhood of the Mission church. In a communication to the corresponding secretary of the Missionary Society, dated Nov. 15, he gives the following account of his exertions:

"My active labors, in the service of your Society, commenced about the middle of October. They have been expended mostly on the people in the vicinity of the Union Free Church, but not confined to them. I have held several religious meetings in Mott and Mulberry-streets, and some in places more distant. My visits to the sick have been equally extended, though I have considered it my duty to pass by such as are connected with any particular religious denomination. I cannot say how many religious visits I have made, as