"_My dear Sir_,--On my return I comply at once with your request to write out the remarks I made at your father's funeral. In writing to me, Mr. Eggleston simply said he should like to have me take some part in the services, but he did not say what, and under the circumstances I did not think it best to attempt anything but a few remarks bearing on my personal relation to him. I give them below as well as I can. "'On coming here I was not aware what the order of exercises was to be, or what part I was expected to take in them; but as I am drawn here by a deep personal regard to the departed, the few words that I shall say will have reference to him chiefly in that relation through which this regard was awakened. "'It was under the ministry of Dr. Field that I first united with the Christian Church. By him I was baptized in this place. "'For a long period my mind was in a state of solicitude and careful inquiry on the subject of religion, and during much of that time I sat under his ministry. Well do I remember his sermons and his prayers; we worshipped in the old church then, and the whole town came together. His sermons were lucid, logical, effective, and his prayers remarkably appropriate and comprehensive. One of his texts I remember particularly. It was this: "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that Thou art that Christ, the son of the living God." From these words he preached several discourses of great power showing that Jesus was the Christ, and that there was no one else to whom we could go. I regarded them then, and still do, as among the ablest discourses I ever heard. They had a powerful effect upon my mind. "'In respect to feeling he was not demonstrative, and some thought him cold. No mistake could have been greater. On sitting near him I remember to have been struck by noticing the big tears rolling down his cheeks when he came to the more touching parts of his discourse, while there was scarcely a sign of emotion in his voice or in the lines of his face. Perhaps intellect predominated. Probably it did; but he was a man of deep feeling, and under the impulse of it, as well as of principle, he was a faithful, earnest, laborious pastor. It was in that relation that I feel that his character and life and preaching and prayers were an important formative influence with me for good, and I have never ceased to regard him with affectionate veneration, and never shall.