came for me so often that I had to say he was the most incorrectly named of any man in the eldership, for he was Henry Doolittle.

How long could a young man, of slender build and delicate lungs, expect to hold out who preached three times every Sabbath, and held two or three meetings in the week, and made such pastoral visits in a congregation scattered four or five miles in every direction? It was miserable economy of life and health. And the pastor and people were equally at fault in the matter. They asked and he did not refuse. Every Sabbath evening, after two full services, the men in the village would get up a team, sometimes two or three teams, and carry me off four or five miles into the country, where notice had been given of preaching in a school-house, and there we would have an earnest meeting, in which the laymen participated while I did the speaking. Sometimes I lodged among the farmers on Sunday night, but more frequently rode home in the cold after a steambath in the crowded school-room.

Elder David Cory gave me a hint about subjects for sermons that has been of use to me ever since.

He was giving me his company and a ride to the County Poorhouse, where I was to preach. I said: "It is about time for me to get a text; how would this do-'To the poor the gospel is preached '?" Mr. Cory thought a moment, and said: "Yes, very well, very well; but I think it is hard enough to be poor without being told of it." I saw the point, and preached to them without the most distant allusion to my audience as paupers, but only as saints and sinners for whom the riches of grace were freely provided.

To come back to this field after fifty years was intensely interesting. I could not expect to find many of those among the living to whom I had preached half a century ago, but it was wonderful to me to find so few above the ground. The present excellent pastor, the Rev. A. R. Olney, received me with the greatest kindness, and we sat down to look over the records of the church and see the names of the dead and the living. They were carefully registered and numbered in

a manner that might well be copied by all clerks of congregations. The number, the name in full, the date of admission, of dismission, or death or removal, and to what place or church, the change of name of any by marriage, and remarks-these stretched across two pages of the register, and made a complete record that would often be of great service. Then the minutes of the church were so full and careful that they left nothing to be wanted. As we read over the names of the original SIXTY-SIX who composed the church at its organization, an incident, and sometimes many, came up in memory, and it was a pleasure to rehearse them in the hearing of one who now ministers to the children and grandchildren of those who were my parishioners.

was ex

In one case the record ran thus: " amined and ordered to be admitted to the communion on the next Lord's day, but she died before the Sabbath came.” I recalled the occurrence. She was dying of consumption. With the elders of the church I visited her in her sick-chamber. She expressed a strong desire to be received into the communion of the church; and, as she would not be able to go, we agreed to come and administer the sacrament at the close of the public service on the Sabbath. A day or two afterwards I was sitting by her bedside, talking to her of Jesus and his undying love, of heaven and the Saviour there. She was looking at me with large, wide-open eyes, and being too feeble to converse she listened only, while I spoke softly of the joy that was set before her. And when I put to her a question to which she might respond by a look or a word, I found that she was dead, and probably had been dead for some minutes while I had been speaking. So gently had the spirit passed away.

And of all the SIXTY-SIX but four are among the living now. Three of them were present the next day when I preached the sermon on the fiftieth anniversary of my ordination and settlement as their pastor! It was a day of intense interest to me, as it brought in review the great events of the last fifty years in the history of the church, the state and the world. And it may be that you would be interested

in some of the recollections awakened by this review. At any rate, as this letter closes at the beginning of the record, I will go on with it, unless something of more immediate interest occurs to require our attention.

SOME CHANGES IN FIFTY YEARS.

It is not given to many pastors to come back after fifty years' absence to visit the scene of their early labors. One who has that opportunity must expect to find himself a stranger at home. It is home because the face of nature is familiar. The fields and hills, the lakes and rivers have not so changed as to be unknown when he sees them again. But the people that knew him once are not around him now. He meets none in the street to greet him with an old-time smile. The children would be past middle life if they were living, and for the most part gone to parts unknown.

When I arranged to come back to my first pastoral charge on the fiftieth anniversary of my ordination, it was with a kind of feeling that was to meet the old people again. Many of them I well knew were dead; many had removed to other places. But still it was the same congregation nominally, and the succession of names and families would doubtless preserve its identity. But you cannot understand the peculiar sensations with which I looked upon the assembly, with but here and there one familiar face. And when I spoke to them it was as though I must speak so as to be heard in the other world, if my words were to reach the ears that heard me half a century ago. Who are these whose faces are upturned to me now? The most of them have come here to reside since I left the place, and they have no kindred here to whom I ministered in the days of my youth. And I may speak never so loudly, and cry, "Where are they?" but no answering voice will come back to say, "We are within the veil and are listening to you yet again." No, they

will not speak, and we do not know, and I do not suppose, that they hear the voices in which they once rejoiced. It is vain to speculate on lines that are hid in the mystery of the unseen and eternal, and on which the book of God is silent. But you will not know, unless you place yourself in similar surroundings, how strange the feeling is to speak to your old congregation with scarcely any of them to hear.

A few linger on the stage. They are about my age: some a few years older; others younger; but they are all so changed that I would know very few were I to meet them elsewhere. We are taught that the body undergoes a total change of its atoms once in seven years; and if that be so, all these survivors have had their bodies renewed seven times since I first saw them. It is not to be wondered at that they are quite different now. And when one steps up to me and mentions his name as one very familiar in former times, my first thought is to exclaim, "Is it possible!" But this would not be the thing to say, and I make it, "Well, we are growing old." No one can deny that proposition. Though the hair be not as snow and the feeble hands and knees do not shake with the infirmities of years, though the eyes be not darkened nor the ears deaf to the voice of friends, yet the signs of advancing years are not to be mistaken. It is safe to say, "We are growing old." And the question of Pharaoh, "How old art thou?" is the one that we would first ask. Jacob was one hundred and thirty years old when the king put it to him, and he thought his days were few when he had reached that great age. Many of us have lived little more than half that time and will hardly admit that the days of our years have been few. We shall none of us make a pilgrim.age as long as Jacob's, and probably none of us wish to.

THE PASTORS.

If the congregation which I served in my young life had nearly all died before I returned to hallow the fiftieth year, the pastors who have fed this flock ever since are all living. As there have been ten pastors duly installed, it is certainly remarkable that not one of them has yet been removed by

death. The present able and worthy pastor, the Rev. A. R. Olney, had taken great care to gather the facts in the history of the church which he furnished to me for my use on the occasion. He had obtained letters from all but one of the former pastors, which were read in the midst of the sermon. My immediate successor was the Rev. A. T. Chester, D.D., of Buffalo, who was with me in the pulpit now, and preached with great ability in the evening to an overflowing assembly. His natural force is not abated. The Rev. Daniel Stewart, now of Albany, Rev. George S. Todd, and Rev. Richard S. Steele, D.D., now of Ann Arbor, Michigan, followed in this order. The letter of Dr. Steele was rich in reminiscences of his life and labors among this people, to whom he was warmly attached. After him came the Rev. N. B. Klink, now in California; then the Rev. David Tully, now pastor in Oswego, N. Y. After him was Rev. Stephen Mattoon, lately the President of Biddle University in North Carolina; then the Rev. Samuel A. Hayt, now pastor in Watertown, N. Y., and the Rev. David Murdock, now of Peekskill, N. Y., preceded the present pastor. The Rev. Nathaniel S. Prime, D.D., was the stated supply of the church in 1847-49, about two years and a half, and he is the only one of its ministers yet permitted to rest from his labors. Several of these men have become distinguished servants of God, and have won a good report by faithfulness in their several fields. If these lines should meet their eyes, let them know that their names were heard with lively interest, and that they are held in grateful remembrance by those of the people who yet survive.

Fifty years! And these last fifty years: in the midst of the nineteenth century: more crowded with incident than any preceding period of the same length in modern annals. The arts and sciences have marked epochs as wonderful as the discovery of a new continent, or the invention of printing. The angel with the gospel has been flying through the world, and the nations have heard the voice. With all the boasting of unbelief there is less infidelity and more faith on the earth than there was when this century began its course.