fort and gladness in the Holy Ghost. They loved one another as He, their divine Head, had given commandment. Their ministers were clothed with salvation, and the saints shouted aloud for joy.

Into this happy family, on that autumn evening in 1811, did this long-lost son find himself admitted. He broke out in his own language. Love opened the long-dumb lips, and he prayed and spoke that night. What he said is not remembered; but it is never before reported by any hearer that he spoke at all. Undoubtedly he spoke after his subsequent fashion, in quaintness and freshness, though with a much greater mixture of bad grammar, wild words, and other defects, than he afterwards exhibited. Yet the sweet spirit, the humorous touch, the burning entreaty, the felicitous expression, were all there. The first taste of a new fountain is precisely like its following streams. His own description of this conversion is characteristic of the man, and deserves mention, as that utterance of his, connected with this new birth, which, if not his first recorded word, was undoubtedly very like what he said on that memorable night in his history, and is at least his testimony to the fact that then he began first to be. He said, "I was dragged through the lubber-hole " (the window), "brought down by a broadside from the seventy-four, Elijah Hedding, and fell into the arms of Thomas W. Tucker."

He never failed to dwell on this event with gladHe rarely saw the companion into whose arms he fell, that he did not mention his instrumentality in

ness.

his salvation, and kiss him affectionately in token of his gratitude. He always referred to the bishop in terms of profoundest love and pride, and undoubtedly sought him out first among the heavenly hosts as that one under God who had been the means of redeeming him unto God through the blood of the Lamb, and of making him a king and priest forever.

At the memorial service on his death, held by the New-England Conference of the Methodist-Episcopal Church, at its session in Chicopee, Mass., April 19, 1852, Father Taylor referred to these events, and to his relations to his honored friend. A correspondent of "The Springfield Republican," of that date, thus describes his address:

"Last evening, a meeting was held in the Methodist Church, with funeral services, in commemoration of the late venerable Bishop Elijah Hedding; prayer by Rev. A. D. Merrill. Bishop Morris, though excessively exhausted by the labors of the conference, opened with a brief but touching eulogy in behalf of the departed patriarch. The first time he saw him was at Baltimore, at the general conference in 1824, where Mr. Hedding was first made bishop. He had been familiar with him for many years, in social and professional relations, and ever found him the same calm, noble, unswerving friend and servant of Christ. When Mr. Hedding first began the travelling connection, he felt himself deficient in the elementary branches of the English language, and purchased a small grammar for study. But the prejudice against education was so strong among the Methodists at

that time, that he dared not be seen studying the grammar; and so, while travelling, he would study by stealth, when any person approached being compelled to hide his book. He at last attained to high scholarship, and versatility in various branches of literature. Bishop Morris gave a most lucid, yet simple, view of the man, and closed by describing his triumphant exit. The last words Bishop Hedding was heard to utter, while pushing off from mortal shores, were, "Glory to God, glory, glory, glory!" We observed some of the most intelligent and closely-cultivated clergymen deeply and unusually moved by Bishop Morris's calm, dignified, yet truly eloquent allusions to Hedding.

"He was followed by Rev. Mr. Kilburn, who gave a very concise and comprehensive notice of the deceased. The service was concluded by Father Taylor. He opened his remarks in a manner entirely different from what was expected. The peroration was a masterpiece of the grand, the original, the touching, and sublime. In Bishop Hedding, he had lost a father, the only father he ever knew, since at an early day he was left an orphan, and now was unable to find the grave of either father or mother. He came into Boston a little sailor-boy, about forty years ago, and sought a place of worship. He wandered into Dr. Griffin's church, and heard him a while; then, while passing down the street, he heard the sound of a voice, coming from a church crowded with enchained auditors. He entered the porch, and stood hearing. The preacher went on; and, at last, the sailor-boy became so interested, that he walked clear

up the aisle, so that he could see the preacher nearer. He stood till he found himself all riddled through and through by the man of God, and then he fell to the floor, weeping. That preacher was Hedding, and from that hour he had been his father.

"But now his father had gone. Mr. Taylor here grew unusually pathetic, in dwelling upon the glorious exit of Hedding, and on the spirit-home to which he had gone. It was good enough for a bishop to die, shouting "Glory, glory!" and in the smoke ascend to heaven. He invoked the presence of the departed patriarch, and prayed that the ministry of his spirit might be near. He believed that all the retinue of heaven would not prevent that sainted spirit from often coming down to mingle with those beloved brethren whom he had left laboring below. It was a thought full of rapture and joy. Here the whole audience seemed deeply moved in sympathy, as though actually realizing the animating presence of celestial spirits, hovering around on missions of divine good. It was a scene of surpassing delight; and, none entertaining faith in a rational Christian philosophy, would have failed being elevated with the gladsome theme of immortality. Each soul seemed to leap with joy at the presentation of immortal life; and the spiritual, affectional elements of the heart expanded with the solemn and serene hope of soon joining the innumerable throng of heavenly witnesses, hovering over this stormy pathway of the world, whispering of a world where the ransomed of the Lord shall clasp hands with palms of victory, and lift the everlasting song."

III.

TO THE PULPIT.

engages in a

He becomes

His Spiritual Honeymoon.-His First-remembered Jest.- He Privateer; is Captured.- A Boston Friend a Friend indeed. Chaplain to his Fellow-Prisoners. - His First Sermon and its Sharp Point. His Visitant and her Reward. - His Trial-Sermon and its Text. - Becomes a Peddler. - Turns Farmer also in Saugus, and begins to preach,first at a Widow's House, then at the "Rock School-house."- His Sayings and Doings at Saugus and the Region round about.

THE young sailor was not allowed to long enjoy

the society of his new-found brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. He had to leave his "seventyfour," the cannonader of a preacher, and his beloved comrades. The stress of Nature is on us all. Unaware of the value of the gift that was in him, only aware that he was happy in the Lord, and that a new song had been put into his mouth, he turns again to his vocation. But he had a honeymoon on shore, it appears, from some minutes of memories. A good lady tells the story of his attending class-meeting at her house. Probably it was in coming thither on a stormy night, a good ways from his boarding-house, that his first-remembered jest was uttered: when she asked him how he got there on such a night, he answered, "On my mother's colt."