We arrived in New York on July 11th, 1873, after an absence of fifteen years. Under any circumstances fifteen years would work great changes. But that particular fifteen had included the Civil War. The changes in the South were heart-rending. Though North Carolina was drawn late into the Confederacy, it is said that she furnished a larger number per capita of soldiers and had a larger number of casualties than any other state in the South. The havoc among my old schoolmates and pupils, and among my flock, was distressing. In many places, too, the sectional feeling was still bitter. The wisest of the people, however, were becoming fully reconciled to the results of the war. The largest slaveholder in my own section assured me that the freeing of his slaves had been a boon to him, and that he was clearing more from his old farm under free labour than he had done before with slaves. Unfortunately in the churches the feeling was more bitter. My old associate, Dr. Mattoon, had accepted the presidency of Biddle Institute at Charlotte—now Biddle University (colored). For a time he was very coldly received except by such broad-minded men as his old Princeton classmate, and my friend, Dr. Charles Phillips. By virtue, however, of his noble Christian character and his conservative bearing, Dr. Mattoon overcame these prejudices, and lived to be welcomed in the largest churches in the state. I spent most of my furlough in North Carolina; and personally I received a welcome almost as warm as if I were a missionary of the Southern Board. Returned missionaries were not numerous then. It was not an uncommon thing for me to lecture in churches which had never before seen the face of a foreign missionary. Soon after our arrival in the United States news came of the resignation of Dr. Vrooman; and my first duty was to find a successor. For myself, and even for my family, I could endure to return without one. But I could not face the distressing appeals from the sick whose ailments I was powerless to relieve. In my visits among friends in North Carolina I met a young medical graduate, Dr. M. A. Cheek, who received from warm friends of the mission flattering recommendations for the place. He himself was pleased with the opening, and would willingly accept it, if he could first take a graduate course in surgery. This was easily arranged, and he was ready to return with us the following summer. The hardest thing to face was the parting with our children. But the bitterness of this pang was softened by the kindness of friends which opened the best of Christian homes and schools to receive them. We can never sufficiently express our gratitude for the kindness shown us in this matter by the late Mrs. E. N. Grant and Miss Mitchell of the Statesville Female College, and to Mrs. McNeill, the widow of my old pastor.