ually felt in their behalf by instructors, their own generous feelings would go far to restrain them from such acts and omissions as call for censure. I need not assure you that the purity of your moral, and the consistency of your Christian character, are regarded by me as of paramount importance and value.

With many kind wishes, and many prayers for God's blessing upon you, I am very affectionately yours,

S. OLIN.

CXI. TO THE REV. DR. BOND.

Newport, July 8th, 1844. The Providence Conference, as you are aware, is now holding its annual session in this town. I have never attended a Conference where a better feeling was manifested. The utmost harmony prevails. Every thing is said and done in a kind, conciliating, and pious spirit. The old preachers express their sentiments affectionately and modestly, arrogating nothing to themselves on the score of age, or services, or position, while the youngest men of the body are listened to patiently and respectfully. Not a word falls from any one that can possibly wound the most delicate sensibilities—no personalities, no unkind insinuations are heard. A high tone of

religious feeling evidently prevails among the preachers; and I have nowhere had intercourse with a company of men who seemed to me more likely to be eminently successful in their holy calling.

Bishop Hedding and Bishop Janes preside. The venerable and excellent man first named was never, I presume, more highly appreciated and generally beloved in New England. than at the present time. Truly, if any minister of the Gospel may properly be called a "right reverend father in God," Bishop Hedding may. May he long be spared by the great Head of the Church to go out and in before his people, to adorn the ministry by the mild lustre of his example, and guide the flock by his meek wisdom.

I heard Bishop Janes preach yesterday such a sermon as one would wish a bishop to preach― simple, earnest, edifying, doctrinal, powerful. His manner of discharging his official duties is such as to excite the best hopes. I doubt not he is destined to be a blessing to the Church. We want able, humble, holy, laborious men in that office.

This morning's session was devoted to the interests of education, especially to those of the Wesleyan University. I was highly and unexpectedly gratified at the action on that subject. After listening to some earnest and effective remarks from several brethren on the pressing wants of the institution, a subscription was opened, and the sum of $4700 was subscribed on the spot. In addition to this noble liberality, which raises the subscription within the bounds of the Conference to about $8000, an agent was appointed, who will find little difficulty in carrying out the original plan of the Conference in raising, in conjunction with the New England Conference, the sum of $20,000. Should the spirit which reigned here prevail in the other Conferences interested in the university, the embarrassments of that institution will speedily cease, and its officers be allowed to return to their proper sphere of duties from this anxious mission in quest of pecuniary means. Unquestionably there is an urgent call for the exercise of such a spirit. The time has come for the Church and the friends of the university to take decided ground in regard to this matter. A little further postponement of the indispensable effort will prove, to say the least, very embarrassing to the trustees. The Church has ample means. Our natural friends and patrons are spread over all New England and New York, and they may easily supply all our pecuniary wants and fill our halls with students.

CXII. TO DR. PALMER.

July 17th, 1844.

I reached home last night from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, having been absent two weeks. I left the university the 4th of July, the date of your letter. This will account for the delay which has occurred in answering it.

I very sincerely wish it were in my power to comply with your request. I should have a double motive for doing so— a strong wish to do what you express a strong desire to have done, and some faint hope that I might give a little aid to a

good cause. I assure you I could hardly hope to reproduce

any thing which you would be likely to recognize as the sermon preached at the funeral of Mr. Cox. I have only a meagre skeleton of it, of which I think I made little use on that occasion. I might, however, attempt to recall some of my thoughts, or raise up others in their stead, but for the untowardness of my circumstances. I have not one hour that I could possibly devote to that object. I have to be so much away from the university, to promote its outdoor interests, that I am nearly useless in my proper field of labor. It is my bounden duty, as well as my wish, to give myself up, as far as possible, to the professional and literary part of my duties. I have as yet done almost nothing in this way. I do not know when I shall be able to gratify my inclination in this respect, yet I can but feel admonished that it puts in the claim of a paramount duty. You will not doubt my inclination to comply with your request; I only regret my inability to do so.

I saw a little of Bishop Hamline at Portsmouth, which only made me the more desirous of seeing more of him. I love his spirit, and should, I think, be greatly profited by communing with it. I tried in vain to induce him to come to Middletown. I beg to be remembered to him. I suppose you have at this time the pleasure of his company. The

New Hampshire Conference were highly delighted with his official bearing. I am sure he will be a great blessing to the Church, if his health will allow him to labor extensively. I could wish that he, or such as he, would preach the high doctrines of our creed. I sometimes regret the efforts made by inferior skill and low experience to proclaim these mysteries. Harm, I am sure, is often done in this way, though I am deeply sensible of the great excellence and importance of this great work. Bishop Janes, you will be glad to know, dwelt upon it with great effect and ability at the Providence Conference.

I am very grateful for the interest you continue to take in my happiness and usefulness. I am very thankful for your prayers, and I beg that I may have the benefit of them in time to come. God, I am sure, means to make his best gifts an answer to the prayers of his children.

CXIII. TO THE REV. WILLIAM M. WIGHTMAN.

Niagara, September 1st, 1844.

I was asked at dinner to-day, by a gentleman from Alabama, what effect the contemplated division of our Church is likely to produce on the fraternal feelings of the great body of the ministry and people? I was led to a review of some facts that have recently fallen under my observation in visiting several of the Northern Conferences, and it has occurred to me that, so far as you may consider me a calm observer and a trustworthy witness of passing events, you would, perhaps, be gratified to hear my testimony in regard to these facts. The position into which I have been thrown in relation to my Southern friends, and, still more, some intimations of Southern feeling toward me, would admonish me not to presume on the respect and confidence of any against whom I have offended in the conscientious discharge of a public duty; yet there is much in my own feelings-much in my cherished recollection of former days, to prevent or disturb

such a conclusion. At any rate, it must not be through my fault-through a distrust to which I have no natural tendency, if the confiding and affectionate intercourse so long subsisting between me and my old friends is wholly to cease. I have not heard directly from one of them since the General Conference. I must confess that I have not deserved to hear by having written to any one of them.

I have attended, in their order, the New York, Providence, New Hampshire, New England, Maine, and Oneida Conferences. You have heard of their action on the General Conference Resolution.* I left the Maine Conference before its vote was cast, and I had some fear that the resolution would not pass that body. I also left the Oneida Conference under an impression that a pretty large minority would oppose it there. There were minorities in the other Conferences, as you have no doubt observed. This opposition rested on grounds exceedingly various. In the New York Conference the plan was stigmatized as wholly unconstitutional-as exposing the funds of the Book Concern to be used for all purposes which the General Conference might approve hereafter- -as offering a bribe to secession, &c., &c. The grounds of opposition in the Providence Conference were set forth in their protest; and so strong were they, in the estimation of the preachers, that I thought all lost there at one time, and gladly hailed the protest as the condition on which alone the measure could pass. The same objections were urged in the New England and Maine Conferences, and with less pertinacity in the New Hampshire and Oneida. The objection which, I suppose, most embarrassed many conscientious men was the provision excluding the preachers of either division from crossing the line once established to preach, organize churches, &c. This, it was held, is incompatible with the great commission, "Go ye into all the world," &c. Both parties, orthodox at the * Alluding to the Plan of Separation and division of the Church property, a subject to be submitted to the Annual Conferences.