“... I know not as you would have had a reply at all if it were not for something said on the first page. Now, I supposed that my good friends would find out all at once that my engagement had undermined all my habits of study and was ruining me, nor did it surprise me to have you write it. It is all false, as false as it can be. No term since I have been in college have I studied so much as the last term; no year accomplished so much as the last. I am not anxious, however, to vindicate myself; I am ready to have you all think so, if needful, for I expected it from the first. “Soon after I began the school some of the boys began to be fractious—all of them larger and stronger than myself. Their parents set them on, and they determined to carry me out of the room. A large fellow disobeyed me before the whole school, and persisted in it. They hoped I would thrash him, and then they would rise. But I turned him out of the school forthwith. He came the next day. I had previously told the committee and asked them to take the business out of my hands. They approved, but said that they wished I would do it. The next day I saw that they had got another great fellow in to help them. I called two of the committee in, and then ordered this disobedient boy out. He refused, and I took a rule and beat him, and finally broke it over his head. He struck at me a number of times and I parried them. The large ones then rose. I seized a club of wood and struck the boy three times—tore the skin each blow. The committee had to take the other fellows to keep them off. I then dismissed the school; told the committee that I should not keep the school where I could have them stand by and see such a scene without doing something; that if they would see those fellows removed I would go on, if not I would not. They said that they would do it if they thought they had power. I settled it all very soon by saying that _I would not keep the school_, and set my face as though I would return to Amherst. But the next day, Saturday, it rained. The committee liked my school, and gave me a good dismission in writing. The scholars were pleased for the most part, and through them their parents. They wished me much to open a private school. I waited till I found they were in earnest, and then opened one, and now am comfortably teaching about thirty scholars. Besides this my time is loaded. Sunday noon, Sabbath-school; Sunday afternoon, five o’clock, I have a Bible-class of ladies; Wednesday and Saturday evenings, meetings in the centre of town; two other evenings in the districts, and, after this, Sunday evening in the vestry.... May God bless and prosper you. “Your affectionate brother, “H. W. B.” Of his preaching at this time he says: