The same faith made what was strong and what was weak in Dr. Ripley and his associates. He was a perfectly sincere man, punctual, severe, but just and charitable, and if he made his forms a strait-jacket to others, he wore the same himself all his years. Trained in this church, and very well qualified by his natural talent to work in it, it was never out of his mind. He looked at every person and thing from the parochial point of view. I remember, when a boy, driving about Concord with him, and in passing each house he told the story of the family that lived in it, and especially he gave me anecdotes of the nine church members who had made a division in the church in the time of his predecessor, and showed me how every one of the nine had come to bad fortune or to a bad end. His prayers for rain and against the lightning, “that it may not lick up our spirits;” and for good weather; and against sickness and insanity; “that we have not been tossed to and fro until the dawning of the day, that we have not been a terror to ourselves and others;” are well remembered, and his own entire faith that these petitions were not to be overlooked, and were entitled to a favorable answer. Some of those around me will remember one occasion of severe drought in this vicinity, when the late Rev. Mr. Goodwin offered to relieve the Doctor of the duty of leading in prayer; but the Doctor suddenly remembering the season, rejected his offer with some humor, as with an air that said to all the congregation, “This is no time for you young Cambridge men; the affair, sir, is getting serious. I will pray myself.” One August afternoon, when I was in his hayfield helping him with his man to rake up his hay, I well remember his pleading, almost reproachful looks at the sky, when the thunder gust was coming up to spoil his hay. He raked very fast, then looked at the cloud, and said, “We are in the Lord’s hand; mind your rake, George! We are in the Lord’s hand;” and seemed to say, “You know me; this field is mine,--Dr. Ripley’s,--thine own servant!”