He had watched with intense interest every step of that reaction in Massachusetts from the strict theocracy of the Puritans, called the “Unitarian Controversy.” He thoroughly understood and heartily condemned the process, employed by the wealthy and literary classes, of taking away from the church, composed presumably of regenerate persons, the power to govern their own affairs and of giving it to the congregation, which was often composed of men hostile to a spiritual religion. He had seen the dominant majority enter into the possession of church edifices and church property, employ ministers opposed to the old faith, and drive the orthodox ministry out into school-houses and town-halls; and old foundations established by the fathers to perpetuate the faith had been seized and made to support opposite and antagonistic views. All this had kindled in him a burning indignation against the wrong that had been perpetrated, and a deep sympathy for the brethren who had suffered. “It was as a fire in my bones,” he said. “My mind was all the time heating, heating, heating.” “His family prayers,” we are told by Mrs. Stowe, “at this period, departing from the customary forms of unexcited hours, became often upheavings of passionate emotion such as I shall never forget. ‘Come, Lord Jesus,’ he would say, ‘here where the bones of the fathers rest, here where the crown has been torn from thy brow—come and recall thy wandering children. Behold thy flock scattered on the mountains; these sheep, what have they done? Gather them, gather them, O Good Shepherd, for their feet stumble upon the dark mountains.” Mr. Beecher in after-years spoke of the work here as something deeper than a mere dispute between rival denominations or antagonistic creeds. “The outward form of the great excitement was that of controversy between the Unitarian and Calvinistic faiths. But, as compared with the great inward reality, this was but superficial. It was broader than any doctrinal controversy, deeper than any sectarian conflict. It was a resurrection of vital religion, in all churches of every name, and in the Unitarian churches as well as the Evangelical.” It will be seen that the same atmosphere of deep feeling and triumphant faith, if possible more tropical and more thoroughly charged with electricity, continued in the new as in the old home; but outside the family very different influences were brought to bear upon the lad, and he was led out into a much wider range of experiences. We give as many of these as space will allow. The first thing that greatly impressed him seems to have been the bells: