We parted, we classmates, many of us in this world never to meet again. Some went to the Sandwich Islands, one to Ceylon, one to the Choctaw Indians; most remained at home, some to hold high positions in our churches and colleges, Wheeler, President of the Vermont University, a liberal-minded and accomplished man; Torrey, Professor in the same, a man of rare scholarship and culture; Wayland, President of Brown University, in Rhode Island, well and widely [46] known; and Haddock, Professor in Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, and recently our charge d'affaires in Portugal. Haddock, I thought, had the clearest head among us. Our relations were very friendly, though I was a little afraid of him, and with him I first visited his uncle, Daniel Webster, in Boston. I was struck with what Mr. Webster said of him, many years after, considering that the great statesman was speaking of a comparatively retired and studious man: "Haddock I should like to have always with me; he is full of knowledge, of the knowledge that I want, pure-minded, agreeable, pious," I use his very words, "and if I could afford it, and he would consent, I would take him to myself, to be my constant companion." I left Andover, then, in the summer of 1819, and in a state of mind that did not permit me to be a candidate for settlement in any of the churches. I therefore accepted an invitation from the American Education Society to preach in behalf of its objects, in the churches generally, through the State, and was thus occupied for about eight months. Some time in the spring, I think, of 1820, I went down to Gloucester to preach in the old Congregational Church, and was invited to become its pastor. I replied that I was too unsettled in my opinions to be settled anywhere. The congregation then proposed to me to come and preach [47] a year to them, postponing the decision, both on their part and mine, to the end of it. I was very glad to accept this proposition, for a year of retired and quiet study was precisely what I wanted. I spent that year in examining the questions that had arisen in my mind, especially with regard to the Trinity. I read Emlyn's "Humble Inquiry," Yates and Wardlaw, Channing and Worcester, besides other books; but especially I made the most thorough examination I was able, of all the texts in both Testaments that appeared to bear upon the subject. The result was an undoubting rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity. The grounds for this, and other modifications of theological opinion, I need not give here; they are sufficiently stated in what I have written and published.