may con

days. I can easily hope that, with the comfort of your society and the guardianship of your presence, brother tinue to enjoy life for years to come. May our merciful Father make them happy, peaceful years-happy, if not in the enjoyment of ease and sound health, yet in a higher relish for Divine things as he approaches nearer to their full fruition.

CLXXXIV. TO THE REV. DR. FLOY.

Middletown, February 6th, 1849. It is long since I have heard directly from you. The fault is mine, and yet I seem to myself not to have been guilty— certainly not in the intention, where both demerit and its opposite are held to reside. Had you been a hundred or a thousand miles away, I can not doubt that all my feelings would have demanded frequent epistolary intimations that you were well, and well employed. Now you seem to be almost within speaking distance; and one somehow feels a sort of qualm, as at doing something a little affected and professing, in writing long letters to friends only just beyond the reach of his vision. I can not account for this feeling, but it, or something else that operates on a theory more occult, has withholden me from writing to brother Landon as well, though I formerly interchanged letters frequently with him, and I certainly can detect no abatement in my affection for him, or for a dear friend of his and mine, resident just now in New Haven. Let it be said, then, that the impulse to letter-writing operates not inversely, like gravitation, but directly, as the distance between friends. Whatever you

may think of this hypothesis, you will admit that wiser men than I am have extricated themselves from greater difficulties by methods not more plausible than this. I will add, that I passed through New Haven on my way to New York and on my return, but had a large family with me, that is to say, my wife, child, and nurse, so that we should have made rather an unwieldy party to visit a friend. I hope to see

you under circumstances more favorable to agility and comfort in a few weeks; that is to say, I expect to come and preach in your new church when it is ready, if you still desire it.

CLXXXV. TO THE REV. DR. OLIN.

Bolivar, Tennessee, March 2d, 1849. Many years have passed away, and various have been the scenes and circumstances through which we have passed, since we were last permitted to see each other and take sweet counsel together. My mind often looks back to bygone days with mingled feelings of pleasure and of pain. Permit me to say, that I shall always remember, with heartfelt gratitude, my obligations to you. I love to think of old Tabernacle Academy, and of the valuable instructions I received there, laying a sure foundation on which I have since been trying to erect a noble building-of the sermon preached by you when God broke my flinty heart, and brought me humbly to the foot of the cross-of the day when I gave you my hand and attached myself to the Church of Christ and of the tender and affectionate advice which so often came from your lips in those happy days when I was warm in my "first love," and my worthy preceptor and spiritual father seemed to feel so deep a solicitude for the present and future happiness of " Ben." When I do not remember these things, "my right hand will forget its cunning."

God has blessed me with a large and healthy family. The three eldest profess religion and are members of the Church, and the rest we are bringing up in the fear of the Lord. I have dedicated them all to God, and I believe He will in due time make them all His children through faith in the Redeemer. Olin says he wishes to finish his education at the Wesleyan University.

My brother William has spent two weeks at my house, and Bishop Andrew one; and, with this exception, I have seen

none of my old Carolina friends since I moved to Tennessee. The Methodist Church in this country is advancing rapidly in wealth, influence, and numbers, but not so fast, I fear, in spirituality and practical piety. I see no such times now as we often witnessed in Abbeville District, South Carolina. The official organs of the Church bring us no such joyful news of "times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord." And why not? Our fathers, where are they? The simplicity and power of the Gospel, as once so clearly exemplified in Methodism, are they departing from us? God forbid !

Shall we ever meet again in time? Should you ever visit Tennessee, you will find a cordial welcome at the house of one of your first pupils and sons in the Gospel. Could I see you once more, and hear you preach as you once preached, when the words, coming warm from your lips, brought tears to my eyes and joy to my heart, I would forget the painful occurrences which have drawn a line between the North and the South, and I would enjoy all the first days of my happy conversion over again. You will pardon me for referring to this unpleasant subject when I tell you it is done with a full heart. I do not like the idea that you and I belong to different organizations of the Church. But still the two are branches of the great Methodist family, with the same doctrines and usages, and with the same glorious object in view. Should we never see each other again, I will still think of you, and love you to the end of my earthly pilgrimage, hoping to meet you at last, on the shores of immortality and eternal life.

Yours, very affectionately,

B. H. CAPERS.

CLXXXVI. TO THE REV. DR. M'CLINTOCK.

Middletown, March 14th, 1849.

I have been applied to from several quarters

to publish my sermon on the Early Training of Children, and I promised to supply any quantity of it, when published in

pamphlet form, on the first of April. These applications have induced me to think the thing might find a respectable circulation if put forth in the right time. The subject itself seems to interest every body. There is something hopeful in this general solicitude, and even this very rough tract might be instrumental of good if it should take the tide. One individual has asked for two hundred copies, and him, as well as others, I promised to supply on the first of April.

I have been decidedly unwell since I saw you. My cold clung to me on my way to Boston, where I at once called a physician, who laid out all his skill to get my mouth open for the dedication.* He, of course, shut me in, and nearly prohibited conversation, so that I came away from Boston little wiser than I went in all the matters of special interest thereabout. Through God's mercy, I was able to preach after a sort, of which I have ever since been paying the penalty. I feel some little relief yesterday and to-day. My spirits are not a little affected by these ailments, while my solicitude connected with Professor Holdich's probable departure aggravates the evil not a little. My comfort, and with it my health, is not a little concerned in getting a proper man—an able, working, godly, gentlemanly man. Oh! for more good men! Pray ye the Lord of the harvest! I feel that it is a burning shame for such a man as I am to be president of a college. I would not be such a day, could I see my way clear. This keeps me rectus in curia. I must wait my time; but I have a consciousness in the matter that will allow me to be little better than unhappy. My trust and hope are in God, whom I seek to obey with a sincere heart, and I daily look forward to the world, where there can be neither doubt nor error in my allotment and vocation. I ought to have a faith in the arrangements of Providence equally assuring and satisfactory, but I sometimes think our

*This is the sermon alluded to in the Recollections of the Rev. Abel Stevens, in one of the last chapters in this volume.

Arminianism may be a little unfriendly to high attainments in this special Christian virtue. Still, my whole trust is in God for time and for eternity. I should be wretched but for this light and support. Yet do I long for something more perfect-far in advance of my actual position.

I beg to be remembered to Mrs. M'Clintock, whom I congratulate upon dwelling in her own house, in the place where her early life was passed. I think there must be something very delightful in this. It is a feeling for which I sometimes sigh, though I am, on the whole, content never to know it.

CLXXXVII. TO THE REV. DR. FLOY.

Wesleyan University, March 20th, 1849. I write at this special time at the suggestion of Mrs. Olin, and to invite you to stay with us at the ensuing Conference. I trust that nobody has been in advance of us, and that we may secure the pleasure and profit of your company. It will hardly fail of being refreshing to us to join again, with an old pastor and brother, in prayer at our family altar, as we were wont in pleasant days that are gone to return no more. I place our joint supplication first, not, however, because I forget or undervalue the agrecable, unreserved converse in which I was wont to indulge with you on all topics and interests of the Church and the world. These quiet, kindly enjoyments I often recall with satisfaction, not without some painful convictions that I ought to have contributed far more to give them a religious, edifying character. May we have grace hereafter to do all things to the glory of God.

You have no doubt noticed the public announcement of Dr. Holdich's election to a secretaryship in the Bible Society. He will, I doubt not, accept it, and so leave a vacant chair in the university, difficult to fill on more accounts than are likely to strike the uninitiated spectator.

It is

now comparatively easy to fill the chair of ancient languages, or even of mathematics, out of the considerable number of