right." Arms unfolded, and finger stretched out again; "The end of that man is peace! peace!" Leaning over the pulpit, he added, " Children, nothing to cry about here: the king is gone to be crowned. He was a king here, but was not crowned. When I was a green boy, he took me under his wing, in the Old Rock.'" And on he marched, in a strain of weeping joy, following his ascended friend. Thus he gradually worked out of his earlier secular callings into the sacred one that was to absorb his life. Converted in 1811, we find him in 1815 pursuing various avocations, - peddling, farming, and essaying shoemaking; preaching meantime on Sundays and in protracted meetings, over a circuit of his own organization; witty and pungent, studious and prayerful; seemingly unaware of the greatness of the talent that was given to him. He was a youthful rustic Whitefield, thrilling like rustic audiences with his winged words and fiery inspiration. More than Patrick Henry was he aforest-born Demosthenes; " for he had no such family rank or culture as belonged to that historic name. He confined himself to his little sphere, and only rejoiced when souls under his appeals were converted to God. He had grown in these few years, steadily and strongly in character, confidence, and success. Step by step, from the Dartmoor Prison to the Rock Schoolhouse, he had modestly but continually advanced, till, at last, the eye of the people was fastened on him, and the hearts of the people clung to him. Born in Bromfield Street, the chief church of the conference, receiving his license to preach from that dignified body, he goes down among the farmers, shoemakers, and fishermen to make proof of his apostleship. As Wesley took Oxford to the miners of Newcastle and Cornwall; so Taylor, with a touch of aristocracy he never lost, carried his superior spiritual birthplace into the rural settlements. He also chose his associates as well. No men are wiser in both worldly and unwordly wisdom than shoemakers of the old school. They combine the shrewdness of the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove. They are sympathetic and solid, warm-hearted and critical. They are best of workers as well as listeners: nothing escapes their criticism, nothing comes before their love. It was well for him they should have charge of his earliest training. They corrected his antics; they applauded his talents. "The rag-tag and bob-tail," that troubled the Bromfield-street nobility, were picked out of his sermons by these loving critics, who commended more than they censured. He grew in graciousness as in grace, during his year or two of labor here, and laid the foundation of a solid and growing fame among this appreciative and affectionate people. To this day his name is held in reverence in all this vicinage; and the new church near this old Rock, as seen from the Eastern-railroad cars, attests at once to his youthful humility and efficiency, and bears down to the myriads of to-day and tomorrow the name of the peddler, shoemaker, and preacher that helped in obscurity to lay its enduring foundations. Thus Lucy Larcom, in her ride from Beverly to Boston, describes this church close by the "Rock," on which he founded his fame: "You can ride in an hour or two, if you will, With the sea beside you all the way, Through the pleasant places that skirt the bay; IV. TO THE CIRCUIT. - Three Years' Delay. - The Obstacle to his Itinerancy in Himself, in the Work.He pursues his other Callings. - A Word dropped in Lynn. He is up in Vermont, and preaches with great Power. - Is at Rev. George Pickering'a Door.-Is assisted by Amos Binney.-Goes to Newmarket Seminary.. Taylor and Ruter.- Stays Six Weeks, and takes the Valedictory. Goes to Marblehead. - Begins his Life-work, and falls in Love. HOUGH the sailor-boy had evidently received THO his commission from the people as well as from the Church, it was still several years before he entered the regular itinerant work. The reasons that compelled this delay can be easily apprehended. Two barriers stood in his way, one in himself, the other in the profession to which he was called. He had great impediments in himself. His burning light was in no fit candlestick. He could not readily read, if he could powerfully expound, the Word of God. The hymn-book, that treasure-house of Christian worship, was largely to him a sealed book. He had no preparation for the work his soul was impelled to by all its mighty forces. Added to these difficulties in himself, which he was constantly toiling to subdue, were obstacles in the work itself. The itinerancy in those days was no pleasure-ground. Rich appointments were not yet born. Handsome churches, choice parsonages, wealthy parishioners, none of these temptations were set before the youthful aspirant for the Methodist pulpit. The circuits were large in extent, small in membership, and poor in financial ability. His circuit, four years after this, had not a church in all its score of miles square. The schoolhouses, barns, kitchens, and woods were all they could call their own; and the schoolhouses they could not always claim. They were as poor as they were few. With his own hands must their preacher, like Paul, labor for his own support. The prospects of the poor sailor, peddler, and farmer were not financially improved by entering the travelling ministry. He could get a better livelihood by staying where he was, preaching evenings and Sabbaths as he had opportunity, and stirring up the gift that was in him in this limited way. This gift may have had greater limitations than might appear from its local popularity and subsequent fame; for it does not appear that it was widely called into exercise. Though the large town of Lynn was only a mile or two away, and though Methodism had already here a flourishing position, young Taylor has no marked connection with its history. He may have been too rough a diamond for their discerning eye to detect. He worked in an opposite and less-developed direction, and made his rural fame, unspoiled both by the city, not far away, that was to be the crown of his labors, and the flourishing town close at hand, that |