In the years of his secretaryship of the Maine Missionary Society, he perhaps sometimes felt that he had journeying to do in excess. But, generally speaking, he travelled with a peculiar zest. He was diligent in his attendance upon public occasions, because he loved to be present. They kept his mind fresh, and his heart warm. He loved to gather up the intelligence they furnished in respect to the fortunes of the Saviour's kingdom. He loved to see his brethren, and converse with them. Of course, he loved also to aid all he could in every good word and work. But he greatly enjoyed changing the scene from time to time, seeing men and things, going to the larger cities, looking up old friends, hearing now and then some Everett or Webster in a great speech, and sowing spiritual seed beside all waters. He always came back with a mind enriched, a heart enlarged; and out of the treasure-house of his retentive memory, in which he had stored up things to profit others, he would bring a great variety of interesting matter. He got through life without going to Europe. He never needed to go on account of his health. It is not known that he ever felt any special desire to go. The longest journey that he ever took was to some of the remoter Western States, in 1856, partly as a delegate to ecclesiastical bodies in that quarter.

"He who largely rendered was not slow

to seek hospitality in his journeyings. I think," says Mr. McKenzie, "he would hardly have been happy in staying at a public house in a town where he had been

before. It would have seemed to him to be doing violence to Christian hospitality."

He never would stop at a tavern if he could help it. He wanted to be with Christian friends, in a Christian dwelling, and confided in their readiness to receive him. Prof. Shepard says, "He could be at home in the humblest."

It is doubtful if he could ever, until the weakness and weariness of his very last days came over him, make himself

an old man. He evidently did not like the epithet overmuch, even when changed into Father Tappan, or the venerable Dr. Tappan. He was one of the few," says Professor Shepard, "whom, though he stood before you in all the physical marks of age, you could not in your thought make an old man." He grew young as he grew old; grew in the power of a kindly and sympathetic adapting of himself to all classes and companies. Young men, young ministers, took his hand, not as of a father, but a brother. There was a mellowing and freshening of spirit and character." He could be almost a child with children. In the good and noble sense, he was becoming more and more a child.

66

But these journeyings, and all these multiplied activities, were at length to cease. An accident which occurred during an afternoon drive to Hallowell, in September, 1862, impaired his vital powers beyond recovery, although he seemed, after a time, to rally from the effects of it, and accomplished, perhaps, the usual amount of official and unofficial work the following winter, spring, and summer. He attended the annual meeting of the Maine Miss. Soc., at Biddeford, in June, and read his report; the Anniversary of the Bangor Seminary in July; Commencement at Bowdoin, in August; the meeting of the American Board, at Rockester, N. Y., in October But he was seriiously enfeebled before he went to this last, and still more so when he came home. He kept at work, however; among other things attending the meetings of some County Conferences, and participating in the administration of the Lord's Supper, the first sabbath in November, to the church of which he had so long been the pastor.

But labor was becoming at length a burden. His missionary letters, even, it was hard for him to write. Appetite and strength were failing. Short walks exhausted him. From December fifth he was confined to his room; and though

sitting up a part of every day until the nineteenth, and attending to the business of his secretaryship with the help of an amanuensis, he was evidently growing weaker and weaker. His mind was clear, his memory unfaltering; but it evidently cost him an effort to think and to speak; and for the first time in his life he excused himself from friends who desired to see him.

In the earlier stages of this weakness he perceived, in some measure, what was taking place, and spoke of his impressions. As the process went on, the conviction grew within him that he should not recover. And now he was "in a strait betwixt two," but rather preferred to live and work, if such were the will of Him whose he was, and whom he served. He said so to his children one evening a week before his death, commenting at some length upon Paul's words, and expressing the belief that the apostle desired, on the whole, to ": remain," and not depart. At another time, speaking of the uncertainties of his case, he said that he was calm in view of them,

sure that God would do right; not, however, entirely without misgivings as to his preparation to stand in his presence, he saw so much short-coming in his life. To the remark, that, if he had fulfilled all righteousness, he would have no need of Christ, he replied, that that was true, and there was certainly no other foundation for him but Christ. He desired to cast everything else away, and rest solely on that foundation. Its sufficiency, he said, he felt assured of; his only doubt was whether he had built upon it. He had many hymns sung to him: "There is a fountain filled with blood," "Not all the blood of beasts," etc., etc.

Once he specially desired the penitential psalm sung, "Show pity, Lord; O Lord, forgive." This seemed rather to express his prevailing state of mind. Once when food was brought to him, and he spread forth his hands and invoked God's blessing before partaking

of it, as always, the words with which, in plaintive and feeble tones, he began, were, "God be merciful to me, a sinner." The last Sunday night of his life, he said there were many things he would like to say. Being asked, "Is there anything specially upon your mind?" he replied, "I wish to bear my testimony to the truth, the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which I have preached!" "You hope this gospel has been the wisdom and power of God to the salvation of your soul?" "Yes!" On the following morning, during an hour of full consciousness, and of affectionate conversation with his family, there was a sort of transfiguration of his benignant face, that they can never forget. "It was as if the door of heaven opened a little then, and a ray of glory stole out, and, some hours before the time, fell on that pale, worn face, so exceeding bright was it." Words that he spoke, also, seemed to indicate that Christ was near.

"Yes,

"Is Jesus near to you, papa?" very near. Jesus can make a dying bed... God is good . . . God has been very good to me .. What a precious Saviour!" "You are going to heaven, to be with mother and Catharine; and we all hope to come to you. — Your grandchildren love you very much." "I love them very much, and hope they will give their hearts to the Saviour, and come to heaven; and I think they will," with great emphasis. "You are almost home. In my Father's house are many mansions." A beautiful smile lighted up his face.

He died on Tuesday, December 22d. He was buried on Christmas-day, the 25th. "This wise man," also, as was said at his funeral, having "bowed at the babe's cradle with his gold, and frankincense, and myrrh."

"There has been no such funeral in Augusta. As the procession moved from his residence to the great meeting-house, filled with citizens, and from the meeting-house, in which his voice had been heard with cer

tain sound for half a century, to the grave, the waiting bells in all the steeples broke the solemn silence, giving measured and mournful utterance to the respect and grief of a bereaved city."

He sleeps in the cemetery at Augusta, by the side of her whom he loved so well; and his daughter, mother, brothers, sister, near.

"It almost seems to me that Maine is buried in his grave. He was so associated in my mind with all its highest interests and with its religious, which is its only true life, that I cannot realize that it survives his departure. The more I knew, the more I honored and loved him. When I went to the Kennebec, twenty-six years ago, a stranger in a strange land, he was a father to me; and yet of such a youthful, genial, and sunny spirit, that he was no less an associate and brother. I never can cease to remember with gratitude and pleasure his kind interest and counsels. If I had been his own son, he could not have been more tender, thoughtful, and true. And how many ministers once young, and yet young, can bear the same testimony to his kindness and worth! Indeed, it was his nature to do good and be good to all men. I have often said, and said because I believed, that he was the most unselfish and truly disinterested man it was ever my fortune to meet. And then he was so wise, too, in all his methods of doing good,-wise in the worldly sense, and wiser in the spiritual. What resources of human and divine knowledge! how familiar with all subjects, books and men! I used often

to say, that in our associations he would criticise a performance more ably and fairly, asleep than any other member of it could awake. Such a mind, united with such a heart, could not make him other than the noblest and best of men. In labors he was more abundant than almost any man I ever knew, at home and abroad, in season and out of season. And where is the village or city, in the broad State of his adoption, where his works of faith and labors of love do not remain to testify to his fidelity and love? And while Maine stands, their influence and sweet savor will continue."

6 Rev. Eli Thurston, Fall River.

NOTE. What is said on page 140, concerning the grounds on which it was agreed to proceed to the ordination, was written with some impres sions since proved incorrect. The Church at Augusta took explicit action against the views of the pastor elect; voting unanimously that the call, on their part, was grounded on the expectation that he would administer the Christian ordinances in the old way; that this was the way that ought to be followed; and that they could acknowledge no right of pastoral negative upon their decisions,- this last being one of the points that had been discussed in the conference. Still, for some reason, the proceedings with reference to the ordination were not arrested. There is an unwritten history in the case, which cannot now, perhaps, after the death of one of the parties, and almost all the persons who constituted the other -quite all the Church-be fully ascertained. To all appearance, the parties were content to assume the relations of pastor and people, and brave, on both sides, whatever risks were connected with an unreconciled difference of opinion and principle.

ONE of the most eminent and honored servants of Christ, lately gone to his rest, mournfully regretted, near the close of his life, his incomplete fulfilment of the duties of the pastorate. One of the foremost of our living preachers, on a careful review of his ministry, confessed to have been consciously insufficient and defective; and adds, that this consciousness was a greater trial to him than all the accusations of those who thought they saw in his writings serious errors, and speculations of a dangerous tendency.

If a pastorate so conspicuously faithful as that of John Angell James was painfully incomplete in his own estimation; if a ministry, which yielded such golden fruit as the "Sermons for the New Life," was, in the author's esteem, "consciously insufficient and defective;" it would seem to be a pertinent inquiry, whether or not all our ministries are not very imperfect, and whether we ought not to be more deeply conscious of it than we are.

Judged by the true standard, the ministry of Jesus and his apostles, there are but few, if any, complete ministerial examples. There is often great insufficiency in this regard, of which the agent is not conscious. It is a great thing, therefore, and the first step towards amendment, to be truly conscious of our defections. This we may attain by deliberate and prayerful comparison of our ministry with that of Paul, of Baxter, Doddridge, McCheyne, and others, who have been eminently wise to win souls. Not that every one who has been less successful than they has been necessarily an unfaithful steward. Other talents and qualities besides fidelity conspired to give them success; talents bestowed upon few in equal measure

with them. Yet God has sometimes put great honor upon small talents, when they have been wholly given to the work. "If there be anything on earth which is truly admirable," says Dr. Arnold, “it is to see God's wisdom blessing an inferiority of natural powers when they have been honestly and zealously cultivated.” And we know who hath said, "Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are; that no flesh should glory in his presence.1

Three chief causes of incompleteness in ministerial character and work may be named.

1. Want of health.

Let the intellectual character and accomplishments be of the highest order, and the sincerity of aim and of consecration be without defect; if the body be unsound, especially if it be the seat of nervous and gastric disorders, the soul will be fettered and among lions. Its energy will flag or be divided, and its work will not be perfect. There are diseases which seem to help clearness of intellect, and at least not to hinder spiritual aspirations. The almost incredible labors of Calvin, Baxter, and others who were in frail health, show this. But how many more are fettered and dragged down all their days with an oppressive load which no advantages of talent or culture can possibly surmount!

11 Cor. i. 26-29.

Good physical training becomes, therefore, a positive demand of the ministry. And we may properly expect in due time, as the fruit of the increased attention now paid to this branch of education, a race of ministers that shall possess, with far greater intellectual culture, at least equal muscular vigor with those who in former days managed their farms during the week, and their spiritual fields on the sabbath.

2. Want of thorough intellectual and practical training.

In the word training, we include furniture as well as discipline. One needs, to an effective ministry not only logical development, but large material with. which, and upon which, to exercise his

powers.

Not many have all this. Some have more discipline than knowledge, others more knowledge than discipline. Few are well and evenly balanced.

But, where there is balance between the furniture and discipline of the intellect, there may be, there often is, a serious want of practical wisdom. Theological students in many of our seminaries are expected to apply their lessons, when the time comes for active labor, without any previous experiment. Most unreasonably expected; for in what other department of life is such a course pursued? The teacher is required, by the best modern methods, to practise as well as learn; to develop and strengthen himself by direct efforts in the line of his contemplated business; and not merely to accumulate a mass of instruction from another, to be used by and by, if so he can. "Not simply the material of instruction, and the best methods of communicating it, are supplied theoretically to the teacher, but he is required, in the proper training schools, to put into practice day by day that which he receives, and just as he receives it."2

Report of Special Committee on the Davenport Training School.

Herein the method of studying theology with regular pastors has an undoubted advantage over the theological seminaries; for while the latter afford little opportunity for practical illustration and experiment, the former is rich in opportunities of this kind. The mind and heart of a devoted young man demand, as a condition of health and expansion, some active labor along with his protracted course of study. We well remember how certain young men at Andover were wont, of their own promptings, to go out into neighborhoods about the seminary, and get up meetings and sabbath schools in which to exercise their spiritual gifts. We rejoice that our own beloved theological seminary at Chicago has adopted the plan of blending the practical and experimental with the theoretical in the process of training for the ministry. Let it be faithfully carried out, and one prominent source of insufficiency in the ministry will be removed.

3. Want of hearty consecration to the work of the ministry.

This is doubtless the chief cause of failure in the ministerial office. If the heart be right, and replenished daily from the fountain-head, it will either find or make a way to accomplish its desire. No light impediment will be suffered to stand between it and the object of its love. Paul had "a thorn in the flesh," a real and serious obstruction to his perfect freedom and most eminent success. But, by the might of a true and full consecration, he was enabled to surmount all difficulties, and labor more abundantly than they all; yet not he, but the grace of God which was with him. So, "by the grace of God," will this wholeness of heart in every case make up largely for defects of health, of training, and other talents, which are nevertheless most highly desirable auxiliaries in the good work. "We charge the ill-nature of the world, more often than justice requires, to some fault of temperament; but there