“I stood and looked at the homely old building, and saw a procession of forms going in and out that the outward eye will never see again—Judge Morris, Samuel Merril, Oliver H. Smith, D. V. Cully, John L. Ketcham, Coburn, Fletcher, Bates, Bullard, Munsel, Ackley, O’Neil, and many, many more! There have been hours when there was not a hand-breadth between us and the saintly host in the invisible church! In the heat and pressure of later years the memories of those early days have been laid aside, but not effaced. They rise as I stand, and move in a gentle procession before me. No outward history is comparable to the soul’s inward life; of the soul’s inward life no part is so sublime as its eminent religious developments. And the pastor, who walks with men, delivering them from thrall, aspersing their sorrow with tears, kindling his own heart as a torch to light the way for those who would see the invisible, has, of all men, the most transcendent heart-histories. I have seen much of life since I trod that threshold for the last time; but nothing has dimmed my love, nor has any later or riper experience taken away the bloom and sanctity of my early love. And I can truly say of hundreds: ‘_For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel._’ “But other incidents arise—the days of sickness, chills and fever, the gardening days, my first editorial experience, my luck in horses and pigs, my house-building; and not a few scrapes—being stalled in mud, half-drowned in crossing rivers, long, lonely forest rides, camp-meetings, preachings in cabins, sleepings in the open air. “I was reminded of one comical experience as I was seeking on Market Street to find the old swale or shallow ravine which ran between my cottage and Mr. Bates’s dwelling. It had formerly been a kind of bayou in spring when the stream above town overflowed, but dried off in summer. To redeem it from unhealth a dike had been built to restrain the river and turn the superfluous freshets another way. But one year the levee gave way in the night; and when the morning rose, behold a flood between me and my neighbor! There was sport on hand! It was too deep for wading, but I could extemporize a boat. I brought down to the edge my wife’s large washing-tub, and intended with a bit of board to paddle about. No sooner was I in than I was out. The tub refused to stand on its own bottom. Well, well, said I, two tubs are better than one. So I got its mate, and, nailing two strips across to hold them fast together, I was sure that they were too long now to upset. So they were, in the long line; but sideways they went over, carrying me with them with incredible celerity. Tubs were one thing, boats another—that I saw plainly.