Rev. MERRITT SANFORD, born in Readsboro, Vt., and religiously educated in the Methodist church, became by attentive reading and much anxious thinking a believer in that divine goodness which will bring all souls at last in conformity to its will. With but ordinary means of education in country schools, he grew, by close mental application to study, to be a scholar of very considerable acquirements, and entered the ministry at the age of twenty-three. He was minister in New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. He was a quiet but forcible preacher, because of the soundness, strength, and aptness of his discourses. He was continually growing mentally and spiritually, was deeply conscientious and devout, and left a fragrant memory wherever he sought to do his work. He closed his earthly life after a short illness, in Warren, Mass., in May 1849, aged 37. Rev. ALEXANDER R. ABBOTT, who was somewhat advanced in life when he gave himself to the ministry, was a native of East Livermore, Me. His early life was that of a hard toiler, his advantages for obtaining an education were limited, but his thirst for knowledge overcame his early deficiencies. With little if any aid from others, he became proficient in French and Latin and the mathematics, and for many years was successfully employed in teaching. His first sermon was preached while residing in Lowell, Mass., in 1844, and his ordination took place in the following year. His first settlement was in Bath, N. H. For a time he was employed as a missionary, to preach in destitute places within the limits of the Boston Association. Afterwards he was settled successively in Newburyport, Mass., Pawtucket, R. I., Gardiner, Me., South Dedham, Mass., Hudson, N. Y., and Rockland, Me. He was an indefatigable student, and a clear, strong preacher. No useless verbiage encumbered his discourses. He grappled with the hardest questions in theology, and brought light out of them. His last sermon before the Maine Convention is remembered as a clear and masterly treatment of one of the problems which has greatly occupied the religious thought of the day. He stirred the consciences of his hearers. He was outspoken as an anti-slavery man, when to be so was to incur the hostility of men of both political parties, and endanger his success in the places of his settlement. The temperance cause always found in him a firm, consistent, and able advocate. And while he was thus efficient in performing the more rugged duties of his calling, he was equally well-fitted, by the tenderness of his heart, for the more sympathetic offices of the ministry. The death of Mr. Abbott, at Rockland, Me., in 1869, was occasioned by disease of the heart, aggravated by the fracture of a limb. He was conscious and composed to the last.