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modify. And I want no guarantee in regard to coming exigences; for the hand of God holds the issue, and He is our friend. The future is God's, as the past has been. His providence, His promises, His grace, are its inheritance in all time to come. I trust I am ready-I believe you are ready to meet the allotments of Providence cheerfully and thankfully, and they are to be in our case, no doubt, various, disciplinary, dark, painful; for such is the common lot—such the genius of our religion. Making all allowance for vicissitudes, and invoking religion as the only and sufficient antidote for these seeming evils, we may yet anticipate much happiness in the career on which we have entered. Mutual love, and respect, and confidence are so many living sources of enjoyment-a peaceful, pure home, where we shall see enough of the world, and yet can afford to do without it. What better arena for the culture or the manifestation of cherished virtues? And then our daily pursuits will be useful, improving, sanctifying. We may do good not merely as we have opportunity. Our vocation-our course of life, if we order it aright, must constitute one constant opportunity for promoting great interests."

Again he writes:

"You seem to have your hands quite full of visiting. The good people mean to make you feel at home. I hope you will have years of enjoyment in that fine community; especially, I trust that our relations with our colleagues may be ever kindly. Much of our happiness, and, what is more, much of our usefulness, depends upon this. I have always thought that what we chiefly lack in our intercourse is the infusion of more religion. We must pray more together, must sympathize more perfectly in good aspirations and works. We must not lose sight of our plan for social, religious meetings. I cherish this as a blessing in reserve. You must not fear them. After some use, I am sure you will both enjoy these meetings

and find them useful. I trust that you habituate yourself to think of your new relation to society as a minister's wifethat you are more called on than others, or ever, to do good by example and by direct effort. You may find this an inconvenient responsibility, but I trust it will also be a useful one. If rightly improved, I think this relation to society enables a lady to be useful, perhaps above any other. I have the best hopes of you in this and all other respects. The new cares which will fall to your lot will come in the guise of duties, and duties you know are the means and handmaids of happiness. For myself, I delight to think of the future. I see with no blinded eye. It is clad in cares, and responsibil ities, and toil; yet it opens a field for action, for usefulness, for holiness, for happiness. Doubtless, God will smile on us if we continue to trust him. I think we shall serve God together better than we could asunder. Idwell not chiefly on earthly pleasures. I think of our morning and evening prayers at the domestic altar-of a loving, confiding watchfulness over each other-of being mutual intercessors in the closet of sympathies and counsels in plans and efforts to do good. Indeed, I think I shall begin from this time to lead a more holy life. I feel that I am living for you as well as for myself, and you are on my heart when I go to the throne of grace."

Dr. Olin's anxious labors in New York bore with no light pressure on his returning strength. Four or five sermons every week, followed by addresses, stating the wants and claims of the university-and these appeals, made in the evening, and insuring late hours and wakeful nights-heavily taxed the powers of a nervous man, who had scarcely been able to preach or attend an evening meeting for fifteen years. It was a remark of Bishop Janes, "that Dr. Olin's pulpit efforts helped to destroy him-that he could not content himself with

beginning his sermon in a didactic form, and reserving the strength of argument and exhortation to the close, but that from the beginning to the end there was an expenditure of thought and feeling that no constitution could long endure."

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He returned to Middletown the beginning of March, prepared to enjoy a few weeks of rest and home. "On the 8th of March," writes the wife of one of the professors to Mrs. Olin, "I have a little entry in my journal of a call upon you. The paper announced, while I was there, the appointment of Calhoun as Secretary of State. The doctor rejoiced in it, particularly because he thought the appointment would have a tendency to quell the disturbance on the Oregon question. feared some whiffler would have been chosen, who, having nothing to lose, would not mind hazarding a war.' Then he laughed at you about your little ornaments on the table, &c., and feared they would injure the feelings of some plain brother. On the 17th of March I heard him preach in the college chapel, on a very rainy Sunday, a sermon upon grieving the Spirit, which I certainly thought was among his very finest sermons. I am sorry to see such scanty memoranda of it. There was a forcible illustration about Balaam's urging God to let him have his own way until God allowed it, which is not in the printed notes. The notes of his sermon upon Prayer, too, 'I will, therefore, that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting,' give a very inadequate idea of its great richness and power."

On the 21st of March he went to Boston, to invite the co-operation of the Churches there in his enterprise.

F

He made a noble beginning in Bromfield-street Church, where more than two thousand five hundred dollars were subscribed at that time, a sum subsequently increased by a member of that church to twelve thousand dollars. "On the whole," he writes, "I see nothing to discourage, though much to wear one out in this arduous enterprise of endowing the university. I am fairly committed to the work, providentially and actually. I must not faint if strength is given to me from above. If my health lasts, I believe the work will be dóne. My trust is in God, who has spared me, perhaps, for this special service. I am ready to toil at this most distasteful vocation if His will be so. I do not know how to be away from the institution. I offer many prayers for it. I am glad to find that I can leave home, with its manifold strong attractions, because it is my duty."

On the 28th of March, he writes: "I attended last night a levee or tea-party, given by the Rev. E. Taylor, of the Mariners' Church, at the Tremont Temple. We were three hours in a terribly hot room, and I was not disappointed in getting only an hour's sleep. I was pretty much compelled to make some off-hand remarks, about ten o'clock, in my usual over-heated style. I am afraid they had the appearance of being claptrap, though not so intended. I have concluded that I must give myself to these improvisations when there is a call for it. It savors too much of selfishness to refuse for want of preparation. By going off extempore, I may sometimes make a hit and sometimes a flat, but I shall do my duty, trying to do it in all simplicity."

During his stay in Boston he found a most agreeable

home in the kind family of his friend, Colonel Brodhead, the son of the Rev. John Brodhead, a name fragrant in the annals of New England Methodism. The evening after the levee in the Tremont Temple, he preached in the Methodist church in Russell Street. The evening was rainy, and he increased a cold which he had previously taken. The east winds of Boston were peculiarly trying to him; and, after waiting a few days, with the hope of throwing off this attack of influenza, and regaining strength to prosecute his mission, he was obliged to return home with his work but half done. There, for a month of illness, he suffer

ed from the effects of a month of overdoing.

Letters written in 1843 and 1844.

LXXXIII. TO THE REV. WILLIAM M. WIGHTMAN.

Middletown, March 8th, 1843.

But for the fact that you address me a very interesting epistle weekly, I might preface this with reminding you that you forgot to answer the letter which I wrote you some months since. Your Advocate is to me instead of epistles from many Southern friends; still, I would have more special communications from you for many good reasons, and among them, because you tell of precisely such things as I do not get by the paper, and yet feel much interested to hear. This, besides some reasons growing out of my old recollections, long and still warm personal attachments, will perhaps make me a little out of humor if you quite dishonor the custom you used to follow of writing to me especially once or twice in the year at least.

I greatly rejoice in your religious prosperity, both in Carolina and Georgia. It is wonderful to contemplate the manifestations of God's goodness, especially within the bounds of

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