Chamberlain's hand, exclaimed; 'I thank you for that, and the whole assembly's applause revealed its heartfelt sympathy." I had declined more than once, for good reasons, the kind offer of my generous flock to increase my salary, but, when on that evening that crowned my thirty years of labor, my dear neighbor and church elder, Mr. John N. Beach (on behalf of the congregation), put into my hands a cheque for thirty thousand dollars, "not as a charity but as a token of our warm hearted grateful love," I could only say with the Apostle Paul: "I rejoice in the Lord that your care has _blossomed out afresh_" (for this is the literal reading of the great apostle's gratitude). The proceedings of that memorable evening were closed by a benediction by the Rev. Dr. Charles L. Thompson, then Moderator of our General Assembly and now the super-royal Secretary of our Board of Home Missions. The proceedings were afterwards compiled in a beautiful volume entitled "A Thirty Years' Pastorate," by the good taste and literary skill of my beloved friend, the late Jacob L. Gossler. In justice to myself, let me say that I have given this narrative of the closing scenes of my pastoral labors, not, I trust, as a matter of personal vain glory; but that good Christian people in our own land and in other lands may learn from the example of the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church how to treat a pastor, whose simple aim has been, with God's help, to do his duty. CHAPTER XIX. LIFE AT HOME--AND FRIENDS ABROAD.