S ina bUSY LIFE 
 
 N AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
1 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
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 Shelf ..B.S £.A3 
 
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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
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INCIDENTS 
 
 IN 
 
 A BUSY LIKE. 
 
 AN 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 BY 
 
 ASA BULLARD, 
 
 /out*— J 
 
 BOSTON AND CHICAGO: 
 Congregational Sunoao-Srijoal ano publtsijmtj Soctetg. 
 

 Copyrighted, 1888, 
 By Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society. 
 
 TBI LIBRARY 
 
 |Or C ONG RESS 
 
 ' WASHINGTON 
 
 Electrotyped and Printed by 
 Stanley 6f l r sAer, iji Devonshire Street, Boston, Afus m 
 
TO ALL, 
 
 OF EVERY AGE, WHO HAVE IN ANY WAY 
 BEEN INTERESTED IN MY LIFE-WORK FOR THE YOUNG, 
 
 THIS VOLUME 
 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. My Parentage = . . n 
 
 II. My Early Years 15 
 
 III. Our Neighborhood and Homestead 38 
 
 IV. How we Children were Trained 42 
 
 V. My Religious Experiences 60 
 
 VI. My Last Winter in the Public School .... 72 
 
 VII. My First Experience in Keeping School ... 83 
 
 VIII. Preparatory and College Course 88 
 
 IX. A Year in Augusta, Maine 99 
 
 X. Two Years at Andover Theological Seminary . 106 
 XI. Three Years in Sabbath-school Work, in Maine iio 
 XII. Connection with the Congregational Sunday- 
 school and Publishing Society 128 
 
 XIII. Three Tours Through the West 151 
 
 XIV. Some Excursions 161 
 
 XV. My Visit Abroad 168 
 
 XVI. The Chestnut Story 180 
 
 XVII. Incidents in Home Life . 189 
 
 XVIII. In Memoriam 213 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Mr. Bullard has kindly asked me to write a few words which may 
 accompany the book which he now sends into the world. An introduc- 
 tion seems superfluous. Very few men are better known in the churches 
 and homes of New England than the revered author of these personal 
 sketches. Far beyond the bounds of the states in which his life has, for 
 the most part, been spent, and beyond the shores of our country, his 
 name and face and work are familiar. He has had the great advantage 
 of coming to us in our childhood when the mind readily gains 
 impressions which do not pass away. Into my own boyhood, as I 
 recall it, comes the recollection of the tall man with his white hair and 
 sunny face, his genial voice and winning manner, with the wise lessons 
 which he taught and illustrated in a way which was all his own. He 
 had the faculty of saying things so that they stayed where he placed 
 them, and not only preserved the memory of the man, but made his 
 words a living force in the young life. Now, in the fullness of years, 
 he still walks among the churches, and children are listening to a man 
 whom their grandfathers and grandmothers knew and admired. 
 
 Mr. Bullard has already written a valuable book upon Sabbath-schools, 
 their history and methods ; a book rich in information and suggestion. 
 It seems fitting that he should add to that another work which should 
 give more of the man himself. Many will be glad to know of his 
 childhood, of the things which happened to him when he was a boy, 
 of the varied incidents which have had their place in a life which has 
 been long and industrious and successful. All this can be found in the 
 modest pages of this book. The man thinks aloud, and changes his 
 recollections into words. The story is told in his own manner. Every 
 one who knows the tones of his voice will hear them as he reads. 
 Mr. Bullard always knew how to tell a story, and he has well used his 
 gift in his own biography. All this will be manifest to those who turn 
 these leaves. 
 
 As I have this humble part in sending the book on its errand of love, 
 I am sure that I express the feeling of a great company of men and 
 women in thanking the author for all he has done for generations of 
 boys and girls and in asking for him many years of the same service. 
 
 ALEXANDER McKENZIE. 
 
 Cambridge, June, 1887. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The fact that the special work of my life has been in behalf of the 
 young, and has been continued through a kind providence an excep- 
 tional length of time, rather than any thing of marked interest in my 
 personal history, it is thought may justify the publication of this narra- 
 tive. The incidents here given, it is also believed, will illustrate a 
 somewhat busy life. 
 
 When my work commenced there were few persons who were laboring 
 especially for the young. There were certainly but few who were hon- 
 ored with the title of " the Children's Minister." Then there were but 
 few children's periodicals like The Sabbath-School Visitor and The Well- 
 Spring. The latter was published every week, and came, as some chil- 
 dren used to say, "Just as often as father's paper does." For years 
 The Well-Spring had a circulation of over sixty thousand copies a 
 week. From two to three hundred copies were taken in several of the 
 larger cities of California and other western states. 
 
 Of course all this interest in behalf of the young, then so new, made 
 a great impression on the minds of the children and youth of those 
 times. Those children and youth are the men and women of the pres- 
 ent day ; and the impressions of their early life are now constantly seen, 
 and oftentimes in a manner to me very touching. I am frequently met 
 at public meetings, and in my visits to the churches on the Sabbath, by 
 many a one, even of gray hairs, who, with a beaming countenance and 
 
 in animated tones, says : " When I was quite little I heard you at " : 
 
 or, " I always took The Well-Spri7igy So that my presence, and even 
 my name, is associated with the early life of many, and recalls scenes 
 of their childhood. 
 
 The following extract from an article published in a Providence 
 paper will illustrate this : — 
 
 In looking over the Sunday notices, I read that Rev. Asa Bullard would address 
 one of the Sunday-schools in our city on the following day, and I resolved at once 
 to see and hear him. For the moment I gave myself up to the recollections which 
 
IO PREFACE. 
 
 for long years have clustered in my mind around his name. Sweet, tender memo- 
 ries, with hallowed influences, brought smiles and tears alternately. More than 
 forty years ago, Mr. Bullard went to a little country town in Massachusetts to spend 
 the Sabbath, and was entertained at my father's house. The little girl of the family, 
 who had just passed her third birthday, sat upon his knee and listened with the 
 others to his magnetic words. ... I have never seen him since, but so clear and dis- 
 tinct was memory's picture, that I half-fancied I should know him on the morrow ; 
 and unlike most of my childhood's heroes, and despite the forty years, I recognized 
 him instantly. 
 
 Now may not the following simple narrative of my own early days, 
 and especially of the work of my life for the young, also recall, to all 
 who may read it, memories of their childhood and youth ? 
 
 In 1876 I published "Fifty Years with the Sabbath-schools," a vol- 
 ume of 336 pages. This was not intended, as is stated in the preface 
 of that book, to be an autobiography, only so far as related to my con- 
 nection with Sabbath-schools. "All that it attempts," it was there 
 said, "is to give some brief sketches of the earlier schools ; the modes 
 of conducting them ; some of the changes that have taken place, and to 
 present such incidents and illustrations as have fallen under my observa- 
 tion in regard to the various departments and agencies of the Sabbath- 
 school work, as will be likely to aid and quicken all who are in any way 
 interested in the right training of the young, or in promoting the more 
 earnest study of the Word of God." That volume and this, therefore, 
 do not, to any great extent, cover the same ground. 
 
 My most earnest hope is that some of the little incidents, even of 
 my earlier days, here given may afford, especially to the young of the 
 present time, lessons of both interest and profit. These incidents will 
 show them that I was once a boy, just like other boys, only, perhaps, 
 in some things a little more so. And then, when I have passed away, 
 may it not through this little volume be said of the author as it is of 
 Abel, " Being dead he yet speaketh "? 
 
 Under these circumstances may I not hope that my numerous 
 Sabbath-school friends, and also a considerate public, will judge kindly 
 as to the propriety of publishing this humble volume? 
 
 ASA BULLARD. 
 
 " SUNNYBANK," CAMBRIDGE. 
 
INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MY PARENTAGE. 
 
 THE following account of my parents is gathered 
 mostly from a genealogical sketch of the Bullard 
 family, written some years ago for the " History of the 
 Town of Sutton," by my nephew, William Sumner Barton, 
 Esq., of Worcester. 
 
 My father, Dr. Artemas Bullard, was born in Holliston, 
 Mass., December 8, 1768. He was the only one of his 
 father's children who received a professional education. 
 In August, 1794, with a small stock of medicines costing 
 twelve pounds, and under a debt of like amount, he 
 commenced the practice of his profession in Northbridge, 
 Worcester County, Mass. 
 
 While he was studying his profession at Oxford he 
 became acquainted with his first wife, Maria Waters, 
 daughter of Ebenezer Waters, Esq., of Sutton. They 
 were married in Sutton, February 17, 1796. His wife 
 died without issue about two years after their marriage. 
 
 December 6, 1798, he married for his second wife Lucy 
 White, daughter of Deacon Jesse White, of Northbridge, 
 by whom he had ten children, three daughters and seven 
 sons. 
 
 Although during his residence of several years in 
 
I 2 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 Northbridge he had established an extensive practice, he 
 was induced by the father of his first wife, Ebenezer 
 Waters, Esq., to purchase his large and beautiful farm in 
 West Sutton. In 1805, accordingly, he removed to 
 Sutton, and thereafter his attention was divided between 
 his profession and his farm. He was about this time 
 appointed, by Governor Strong, surgeon of the then local 
 infantry regiment ; and in 18 14 he was elected a fellow of 
 the council of the Massachusetts Medical Society. He 
 might have gained an eminent position in his profession 
 had he given exclusive attention to it. 
 
 As to person, my father has been described as " some- 
 what above the ordinary stature ; of light, florid com- 
 plexion, light-blue eyes, nose strictly aquiline, and, in 
 short, as his contemporaries have said, a fine-looking man. 
 He possessed ardent feelings and great energy of char- 
 acter united with a sound judgment. His integrity was 
 proverbial, always doing exact justice to others, and 
 expecting the same from them." 
 
 My father's death was occasioned by an accidental fall 
 in his barn, and was probably instantaneous. It occurred 
 May 6, 1842, at the age of 73. 
 
 My mother was born in Northbridge, May 5, 1778. 
 She was a direct descendant, on her mother's side, of the 
 sixth generation from her noted ancestor, " Sampson 
 Mason, the Baptist and dragoon of Oliver Cromwell's 
 army." Her great-grandfather, Hezekiah Mason, died in. 
 Thompson, Conn., at the advanced age of 103 years. 
 
 My mother died at the house of her eldest daughter, 
 Mrs. Judge Barton, in Worcester, December 15, 1869, 
 aged ninety-one years, seven months and ten days. Her 
 son-in-law, the late Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, at her 
 funeral thus spoke of her : — 
 
MY PARENTAGE 
 
 13 
 
 To this joyful coronation our beloved mother has come. All the 
 days of her appointed years — years full of labor and duty — are accom- 
 plished ; all her doubts are dispelled, all her anticipations realized ; all 
 she hoped for in her long and noble life, and far more than human hope 
 can ever aspire to, is now her portion. We come to shed no bitter 
 tears ; we celebrate a triumph, not a defeat; a life perfected. 
 
 Her children are gathered here with her more immediate friends and 
 neighbors, to pay the last honors to her lifeless form. How sturdily, 
 how nobly she lived ! Feeble, tender, but how enduring ! Never 
 strong, no one would have marked her for a long life. Well do I 
 remember her as first I saw her. I was then a lad in college. Even 
 then I was struck by the energy of her character. I remember my 
 impression then that she was weak in body, and liable to meet an early 
 death. Who would have thought that she would survive that stalwart 
 man, Dr. Bullard, of Sutton, so full of the capital for a long and sturdy 
 life? In body, as in mind, she was evenly organized. Hers was the 
 strength of tenderness and gentleness, but underlaid by a quiet persist- 
 ence of wonderful force. She was firm and steadfast for the right, 
 wherever principle was involved ; mild and loving, but with fixed 
 habits of belief and thought, which kept her firm and true, even to 
 sternness when occasion required. God taught her ! With her vigor 
 of character it would have been easy for her to make shipwreck of 
 happiness, linked as she was with that strong nature, her husband. It 
 would have been easy for her to purchase peace by self-abnegation, by 
 sinking herself, but she did neither. She made herself a power in her 
 home, but she ruled by submission and love. She made her home a 
 happy one ; and a greater compliment can be paid to no woman. She 
 elevated the name of wife and mother, by showing in herself what it 
 was possible for woman to be. 
 
 Early was I struck with her devoutness, by the depth, the richness, 
 and the reality of her religious emotions. The church was always her 
 care. She remembered the pastor and his household, the school and 
 the Sabbath-school. To the latter she was deeply attached, and often 
 in the still hours of the night, when all the household were asleep, 
 upon her knees frequently, and always reverently, did she study the 
 portion of God's Word which was to be the lesson on the morrow. 
 
 Well do I remember, in a great revival in Sutton, when the last of 
 her class of thirteen rose to ask for prayers. All had been prayed into 
 the kingdom, and by her. We had a gospel in our home. Her 
 presence was a long benediction. If each one of her children, those 
 
14 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 gone before and those now living, could gather with us to-day and 
 speak of her life, each would bear me witness that however much we 
 may owe to the school, to the church, to the seminary, to ordaining 
 elders, to the counselors of our riper years, yet the secret, the root, 
 the fullness of each life was in the teaching, the counsel, the example 
 of this mother. 
 
 As age withdrew her from active duties of life, her piety became 
 brighter and her conversation more heavenly. God calls some away in 
 the midst of their usefulness ; some he calls in what men say is "just 
 the right time ; " and sometimes he keeps people here just as we keep 
 pictures in our dwellings, to look at and admire, for whole neighbor- 
 hoods to look at and see what it is possible for life to become. 
 
 That is the best man who carries his boyhood farthest into life with 
 him. And that is the best woman who can take her girlhood farthest 
 into middle life and old age. This our mother did. Herself a vener- 
 able matron, she stood as a child among her grandchildren ; she stood 
 as a loving child in her Father's home ^ all whom she saw, or felt, or 
 received, were God's gifts. She lived in the liberty of love — a child, 
 in the great house of her Father. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 MY EARLY YEARS. 
 
 I WAS born in Northbridge, Worcester County, Massa- 
 chusetts, March 26, 1804. I was the third of my 
 parents' ten children. When I was one year old, the 
 family — my parents with their three children — moved 
 to Sutton, the town adjoining Northbridge on the west. 
 This was afterwards our home till, one after another, we 
 left the paternal roof. 
 
 My parents, when they first established the family, 
 erected the family altar, which was faithfully sustained to 
 the end. The influence of that daily reading of the 
 Scripture and prayer, generally both morning and 
 evening, and the asking of a blessing and the returning 
 of thanks at every meal, was most indelible. All these 
 services of prayer and grace at the table were performed 
 with all the family standing. To be sure, when we were 
 very young they were sometimes, especially in the evening, 
 rather wearisome to us little ones, and I well remember 
 how I used to wonder to whom my father was talking, as 
 he stood up there before the tall clock in the corner, with 
 his hands on the back of the chair and his face turned 
 away from all of us. 
 
 Then, in the morning, my father would read, some- 
 times, a whole chapter in Scott's Family Bible, with the 
 Notes and Practical Observations. This, while we were 
 quite young, was not a little tiresome. Scott's Commen- 
 tary was then issued in large folio numbers. I can well 
 
 15 
 
1 6 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY II FE. 
 
 remember how each of those large magazines looked, as 
 one number after another, once a month or once a quarter, 
 came to our home, and with what eagerness we all used 
 to look over each new number. I now have them all 
 bound in six large volumes of from six hundred and fifty 
 to nine hundred pages. And I reverence them highly as 
 associated with my early home, my now sainted parents, 
 and the sacred family altar. 
 
 We were all trained, from very early life, to attend 
 church. As we resided over three miles from the center 
 of the town where was our place of public worship, father 
 obtained a famous two-horse coach or carriage " for going 
 to meeting." It had two wide seats and was open in 
 front. And every Sabbath, rain or shine, summer and 
 winter, this carriage, with father and two children on the 
 front seat and mother and two on the back seat, and one 
 or two packed away somewhere inside, would be seen on 
 the way " to meeting." 
 
 And how well I can recall many of the scenes in the 
 church, which would be very strange to young and old of 
 the present day. The square pews with the plain board 
 seats on hinges, which were raised when we " stood up " 
 in time of prayer, and at the close were let down with 
 such a startling crash and rattle all over the house. 
 Then the ice-cold house in the winter, with no fire except 
 the foot-stoves of the women. There were always two 
 services, with an intermission of about an hour. 
 
 One of the older children, by turns, boys and girls, 
 remained at home to take care of the little ones and have 
 dinner ready when the rest returned. And we all learned 
 to get a repast that the hungry ones were sure to relish. 
 
 Among the things connected with "going to meeting" 
 in those early days that made a great impression on my 
 
MY EARLY YEARS. I J 
 
 young mind were those of the old stone horse-block, 
 standing near the meeting-house. There was such an 
 appendage to most of the country meeting-houses at that 
 time. Many of the people came to meeting on horse- 
 back, the husband and his wife, or a brother and sister 
 mounted on the same horse. And the horse-block was 
 for the special convenience of the women in mounting 
 and dismounting. 
 
 The old stone horse-block to which I am now referring 
 consisted of a flat stone, six or eight feet long and per- 
 haps three wide, elevated several feet by smaller stones,, 
 and ascended by three or four stone steps. 
 
 On and around this horse-block most of the men and 
 boys, professors and non-professors, and even the deacons, 
 in the warm season and on pleasant Sabbaths, passed 
 their morning between the services. The time was spent 
 in free and lively conversation. All the men took part 
 in the talk without distinction of rank or learning, and 
 none seemed to feel the slightest embarrassment. Men 
 who never could speak in the prayer-meeting found no 
 difficulty here. Till I was twelve or thirteen years old, 
 as there was no Sabbath-school, I attended, what I have 
 since called, this " horse-block class for conversation," and 
 the scenes there witnessed are more vivid in my memory 
 than are any of those I have since witnessed in the 
 Sabbath-school. I do not remember that the sermon or 
 the subject of religion in any manner was ever made the 
 topic of conversation. The news of the day, the cattle 
 and farms, the state and prospects of the crops, the 
 weather, the prices of various articles of produce, the 
 character of neighbors, politics, the approaching election, 
 etc. ; — these were the themes upon which the older 
 members of the " class," church members and the uncon- 
 
1 8 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 verted, usually conversed. Never can I forget the 
 surprise and wonder those scenes produced on my youth- 
 ful mind. Such conversation on the Sabbath day ! How 
 could any good impressions follow the services of the 
 house of God ? 
 
 Towards night, or in the early evening of the Sabbath, 
 we children all recited the catechism and passages of 
 Scripture or hymns. 
 
 Now, wearisome as sometimes these Sabbath services 
 were, I would not for the life of me lose the associations 
 of " going to meeting " on that holy day. 
 
 Among the many little incidents of my early life which 
 may be of more or less interest, especially to any young 
 friends who may read these pages, may be mentioned the 
 following : — 
 
 The Blacksmith Shop. 
 
 My father had a blacksmith shop ; and sometimes when 
 not called away on professional duties, he would do little 
 jobs in this shop in the evening. One evening, when I 
 was a very little boy, I asked him to let me go with him 
 and see him make nails. 
 
 He said I would get sleepy and cry to come back. I 
 thought I should n't ; and so was permitted to go with 
 him. He fixed me a nice seat on the forge, where I could 
 see him blow the bellows, heat the nail-rod red hot, and 
 then hammer out the nails. It was real fun to watch him 
 for some time. 
 
 By-and-by I began to grow tired and sleepy ; and then I 
 wished I was back at the house and in bed ; but I did not 
 dare to say any thing about it. At length father looked 
 up, and seeing that I was very sleepy and ready to cry, 
 he asked : — 
 
MY EARLY YEARS. 
 
 19 
 
 " What is the matter, Asa ? " 
 I said : — 
 
 " I wish I was never made ! " 
 
 Father drew the hot nail-rod out of the fire and raised 
 it as though he was going to strike me, when I exclaimed : 
 " I don't want to be killed, now I am made ! " 
 Then, with a hearty laugh, he took me home to mother. 
 
 The Big Cupboard. 
 
 Between the kitchen and the dining, or sitting, room, 
 there was a short passage-way. On the right hand, five 
 or six feet high, there were two cupboards, a small and a 
 large one, with doors. The small one was about a foot 
 wide, with two or three shelves,, where small tools and all 
 sorts of things were kept. The large one extended quite 
 a distance back of the chimney. The door was about two 
 feet square, with a small, heart-shaped hole near the top. 
 Into this great space were thrown all sorts of larger 
 things, boot-jacks, hammers, boxes, etc. It was a catch- 
 all for every thing that any one wished to put out of the 
 way. 
 
 One day the roguish little Asa had done some mischief, 
 when his father took him up and put him into the big 
 cupboard and shut the door. 
 
 A loud outcry was expected, but there was not a lisp. 
 The parents and the other children waited and waited for 
 some evidence that the little prisoner would understand 
 that he was in solitary confinement as a punishment. But 
 there was no complaint heard. 
 
 By-and-by the father opened the prison-door, and there 
 the little rogue was, having the nicest time with all the 
 " playthings " he found around him ! But when the light 
 was cut off from the hole at the top of the door, the little 
 prisoner began to beg to be pardoned out. 
 
20 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 The Catcher Caught. 
 
 The warm sun of early spring had begun to disrobe the 
 earth of her winter mantle. Here and there around our 
 home, in the yard and the fields, the snow had disappeared, 
 and the fresh grass was just starting to view. The time 
 of the singing of birds, too, had come, and many a red- 
 breast, on every sunny spot, was seeking his food and fill- 
 ing the air with his merry chirpings and sweet spring 
 carolings. 
 
 These welcome harbingers of coming verdure and 
 flowers attracted my attention. I watched them ; but 
 instead of making myself happy with their lovely exhibi- 
 tion of happiness, I began to devise plans for catching 
 them. With my little bow and arrow, and my sling and 
 stones, I pursued them from spot to spot, and from field 
 to field ; and many a poor, timid red-breast did I terribly 
 frighten. By-and-by my roguish ingenuity hit upon a 
 plan by which I was sure I could catch them. My plan 
 was, to set a small fish-hook, expecting that the unwary 
 bird would pick up the bait, and in a moment be safe in 
 my hands. 
 
 This cruel device no sooner entered my mind, than I 
 hastened to try it. I obtained a small fish-hook, and 
 began to fasten to it a little string. In order to secure it 
 tightly I used my teeth. In this dangerous operation the 
 string slipped, and in an instant the sharp, barbed hook, 
 which I was preparing for the mouth of poor robin, was 
 fast caught in my own. It entered into the soft and ten- 
 der flesh inside of my under lip. The catcher was now 
 caught, sure enough — caught, too, in his own snare, 
 which he was setting for another ! What was I to do ? I 
 could not remove the cruel hook. The barb, intended on 
 
MY EARLY YEARS. 21 
 
 purpose to fasten it tightly in the mouth of the innocent 
 fish or bird that should swallow it, was firmly fastened in 
 my lip. 
 
 With great pain and fear, both increased by the con- 
 sciousness that I was receiving only a just desert for my 
 intended cruelty, I hastened to my mother. She tried to 
 remove it, but in vain. I then went to my father, with 
 whose sharp surgical instruments I was painfully familiar. 
 Those frightful instruments — the very sight of which 
 made me turn pale and tremble anew with fear — father 
 now took out and laid upon the table. After much suffer- 
 ing, the hook was at length removed, leaving in my lip a 
 deep wound ; but a deeper impression was left upon my 
 mind. 
 
 Years have passed away since that wound was healed ; 
 but the impression on my mind remains like the deep lines 
 of the sculptor's chisel upon the marble. I then regarded 
 this occurrence, and I still regard it, as a deserved punish- 
 ment for my intended cruelty. I learned, by my own sad 
 experience, that what was to be sport to me would have 
 been, had I succeeded in my cruel purpose, pain and 
 suffering to those innocent and beautiful songsters of 
 spring. 
 
 I trust this story of my early days may be a warning 
 to all my young friends against indulgence in cruelty 
 towards any of God's creatures. 
 
 My Spreading-stick. % 
 
 About the time of the above event, when four or five 
 years old, in hay-time, I begged my father to make me a 
 spreading-stick. After frequent importunities my request 
 was granted. The spreading-stick was made of a small 
 sapling, three or four feet long, which had two branches 
 
2 2 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 at the top. These were cut off five or six inches from 
 the stick, making two tines, like those of a fork. 
 
 With my coveted spreading-stick I went proudly into 
 the fields, and followed the men who were cutting down 
 the tall grass into swathes, and spread the new-mown hay 
 in every direction, as I had seen others do. And didn't 
 I feel smart as I made the hay fly ! I was doing a man's 
 work. 
 
 Well, many a boy knows that what is at first a play 
 may become work. It was not long before I began to 
 find it so with my spreading-stick. When it was found 
 that I could spread hay, and be made useful, and save 
 some of the time the men had to give in doing this work, 
 I had to spread the hay. It was no longer play ; it was 
 work. And many a time, when my little arms and legs 
 became tired in this labor, I wished I had never asked for 
 the spreading-stick. And yet, this early learning to work 
 and be useful has been a great benefit to me in my after 
 life. 
 
 There was one very curious event in connection with 
 my spreading-stick. My Grandfather Waters, of Boston, 
 used occasionally to visit his old home in Sutton. In 
 hay-time, almost every year, he would come; and he 
 seemed to find pleasure in assisting in the hay-field. 
 
 One day when father was absent, grandfather went into 
 the field with the men to rake up the hay. This was 
 soon after I had my spreading-stick, and I was on hand 
 spreading the swaths, By-and-by I went to the windrow 
 grandpa was raking up, and began to spread the hay out 
 again. Grandpa saw me and said I must not do it. But 
 my memory was very short, and soon I was spreading out 
 the hay after grandpa. He then told me if I did it again 
 he should have to shake me. It was not long before — 
 
MY EARLY YEARS. 
 
 23 
 
 boy fashion — I was repeating the mischief. Grandpa 
 saw me and started towards me, when the wicked little 
 rogue threw his spreading-stick at him and then ran. But 
 grandpa soon overtook me and gave me a shaking — not a 
 hard one, but enough to cause me to go crying to the 
 house. 
 
 The good old man was troubled lest I should go with a 
 complaint to my mother, and she might think he had 
 assumed improper authority over her child. But that 
 child, young as he was, knew better than to go to his 
 mother with any such complaint. He kept his grief to 
 himself. 
 
 At dinner grandfather told mother about the affair, 
 which I had not ventured to mention. Then to show her 
 that he was not severe, he arose from the table and took 
 me from my chair and shook me again ! That second 
 shaking I did not soon forget. It hurt my feelings more 
 than it did my body. 
 
 Some months after this, grandfather died in Boston, and 
 his body was brought to Sutton and laid in his family 
 tomb, about a mile from our home. One Sabbath, after 
 the family returned from meeting, and had dined, father 
 and mother and one or two of us children went to the 
 tomb. They opened the lid of the coffin to see the face 
 of the departed. Father lifted me up and said that was 
 my " Grandpa Waters." I asked if it was the grandpa 
 that shook me. And when told that it was, I said : — 
 
 " Well, I guess he won't shake me again." 
 
 That shows how badly I felt, though I so richly 
 deserved the shaking. 
 
 Sad Influence of a Profane Man. 
 
 In my early boyhood I was a bundle of nerves, — all life 
 and spirits, — scarcely still an instant, except when asleep. 
 
2 4 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY II FE. 
 
 I was always doing something ; and of course frequently 
 things I ought not to do ; so from my earliest days my 
 life has been a very busy one. My grandfather would 
 lose his patience when he found every thing he wanted out 
 of place, or rather when it was not to be found at all. He 
 used to say : — 
 
 " Asa will make something or nothing ; " meaning that 
 I would not be one of your halfway characters. Should 
 I live long enough, that saying may prove true. 
 
 Although I was always so full of mischief, yet some- 
 how I always had friends. My little pranks and constant 
 glee seemed to attract the notice and win the affection of 
 most of those in my father's employ from time to time. 
 
 About the time of which I am speaking my father 
 erected a new building, and among the men engaged 
 in the work, was a man from a neighboring town whom 
 I will call Mr. Pierson. Very soon I attracted his atten- 
 tion and gained his love ; and, in return, I thought there 
 was nobody like my new friend. Every moment of rest 
 and leisure Mr. Pierson was frolicking with me. Such 
 was the mutual attachment between us, that his influence 
 over me was almost unbounded. And it was a dreadful 
 influence. Mr. Pierson was a man of no religious princi- 
 ples. Without exception he was the most profane man 
 I ever knew. He would hardly utter a word without an 
 oath. His habit of profanity had become so inveterate 
 that it seemed almost as involuntary as his breathing. 
 The wife of a clergyman, for whom he was working at one 
 time, reproved him, when he pleasantly replied : — 
 
 " Why, madam, I don't mean any thing when I swear, 
 any more than you do when you pray." 
 
 My attachment to Mr. Pierson and my confidence in 
 him were so great that the influence of all the instruc- 
 
MY EARLY YEARS. 25 
 
 tions of my pious parents was neutralized, so that I felt 
 that whatever my friend did or said must be right and 
 proper. It was Mr. Pierson's greatest pleasure to witness 
 my cunning tricks, and he was constantly encouraging me 
 on to deeds of mischief; and this was not the worst of his 
 influence. He would prompt me to some wrong act, and 
 then teach me to deny it, always presenting himself as a 
 witness — a false witness — in my favor, so as to shield me 
 from correction. Many a time did I, through this wicked 
 influence, and supported by the false testimony of this 
 wicked man, cast my faults upon my elder brother, who 
 had to suffer the reproof which I alone deserved. This 
 cruel, wicked conduct I should never have been guilty of, 
 had I not been led on by one in whom I had reposed entire 
 confidence — centered my warmest affection. Through 
 the influence of that false friend I " was made to sin," as 
 " Jeroboam made Israel to sin." 
 
 There was only one occasion in which I ever used pro- 
 fane language. The time and the spot are indelibly en- 
 graven on my mind. I was returning from school with 
 my elder brother and sister, and was near home. All at 
 once I began to utter a string of the most dreadful, wicked 
 words, such as I had heard Mr. Pierson use. They were 
 put together in all sorts of ways. My brother and sister 
 were filled with astonishment and terror, and cried out : — 
 
 " Why, Asa ! you will certainly go to the place of the 
 wicked if you use such awful words ! " 
 
 But I only replied : " I don't care ! Mr. Pierson will go 
 there too ; and I want to go where he does." 
 
 On reaching home mother was told what I had been 
 doing. And never shall I forget the sad and painful ex- 
 pression of that dear mother's face. She did not scold 
 me — she never did that — but oh ! how tenderly and 
 
2 6 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 solemnly she spoke of the sinfulness of what I had done. 
 And she warned me and entreated me never again to use 
 such wicked words. 
 
 How fearful the effect upon me of that profane and 
 wicked man ! The mischief of his influence for those 
 few weeks it took months and months of instruction and 
 reproof and prayer to counteract. Oh, the guilt of making 
 others to sin ! 
 
 The habit of falsehood, formed under the influence of 
 Mr. Pierson, continued til] I was about seven years of age. 
 I also grew fretful and would cry at every trifle. I thus 
 became a trial and grief to my father and mother. When 
 about seven years old, I came into the house one day and 
 said to my mother : — 
 
 " There ! I am going to stop crying and lying." And 
 my mother, years after, told me that she never detected 
 me in a falsehood afterwards. That shows that even chil- 
 dren know when they do wrong ; and that they can, if 
 they will, " cease to do evil and learn to do well." 
 
 Fifteen or twenty years passed away, and Mr. Pierson 
 became a reformed man — a vessel of the grace of God. 
 Yes, this blasphemer was brought in penitence to the 
 foot of the cross. His breath, so long spent in oaths, was 
 now spent in prayer and praise. The remembrance of his 
 influence over me — that he had made me to sin — was to 
 him a source of the most bitter sorrow and remorse. He 
 often expressed a desire, as I was told, once more to see 
 me ; but we have never met, nor shall we meet again, till 
 we meet at the judgment bar. Many years ago he finished 
 his earthly course. 
 
 The Famous Wind-mill. 
 
 My father had a large head of cattle, oxen, cows, horses, 
 sheep, etc. It was no small affair to pump all the water 
 
MY EARL Y YEARS. 
 
 27 
 
 these thirsty creatures needed. One of us boys always 
 had to go home from school at noon in the winter three 
 quarters of a mile to pump that huge trough full of water. 
 It used to take about half an hour of the most laborious 
 pumping to fill it. And this had to be done at least three 
 times every day. 
 
 The subject of some easier way of doing this was often 
 discussed. The plan finally adopted was to place on the 
 barn, directly over the pump, a wind-mill. It was a most 
 thoroughly made piece of machinery, with six large arms. 
 Most of the time, when set to work, it performed its task 
 admirably, just like a thing of life. With an ordinary 
 .wind it would fill the trough in a few minutes. Then the 
 handle of the pump, to which the distaff was attached, 
 was chained down, and the mill was quietly at rest. 
 
 But when there was a brisk wind, it would often throw 
 the water from the top of the pump to the top of the 
 barn, and pump the well dry in a few moments. And 
 sometimes it was not an easy thing to chain the giant. 
 Father would have to go up a ladder on the barn, get 
 upon the trundle-head, and by means of the weather- 
 board turn the mill round against the wind and chain one 
 of the arms. This was a somewhat daring and dangerous 
 business. We were often not a little frightened at the 
 furious antics of this monster ; but no measures were 
 taken to abate the cause of our alarm till after the great 
 gale on the seventeenth of September, 181 5. 
 
 In that gale the mill broke loose, broke off the distaff 
 connected with the pump-handle, and then, for hours, 
 whirled with the most frightful velocity, throwing off one 
 board after another from the arms. The people in the 
 village, half a mile distant, could see the barn swaying 
 back and forth, and expected every moment that mill and 
 
2 8 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY IIFE. 
 
 barn and all would go to ruin. Father went into the 
 stable right under the wind-mill, to get out a horse, when 
 a board from one of the arms of the mill dashed through 
 the barn directly over his head. The next summer, in 
 mowing one of the fields an eighth of a mile distant, 
 boards were found driven into the ground, thrown off from 
 the windmill. Had it not been for the heavy rain that 
 accompanied the gale, the velocity of the mill, it was 
 thought, would have set the barn on fire. 
 
 This was the death-struggle of the famous wind-mill. 
 It was taken down ; and we boys were quite willing to go 
 back to the old hand-pumping, rather than risk any more 
 such occasions of terror. 
 
 Stricken Down by Lightning. 
 
 In my early boyhood, one sultry summer day, there was 
 a fearful thunder-shower. The lightning struck several 
 times near our house. By-and-by there was a terrific bolt 
 that ran down a conductor, tearing up the flag-stones at 
 the back side of the house. My mother and myself were 
 prostrated by the shock. The effect of that scene was 
 such that, till I left my home for college and got away 
 from the associations of that event, I trembled with fear 
 on the approach of a thunder-shower, and, during its 
 continuance, would hide away in some corner and cover 
 my head and quake with terror. And even through life 
 I have felt much as the little girl did, who was told that 
 the " thunder was God's voice ; " she put her hands to 
 her ears and, looking up imploringly, said : " Dear Father, 
 please do not speak quite so loud." 
 
 I can sympathize with the little boy who said, after the 
 earthquake in Charleston, that he was " afraid of the sky- 
 quakes ! " 
 
MY EARL Y YEARS. 
 
 2 9 
 
 And then, the great gale on the seventeenth of Septem- 
 ber, 181 5, when I was about eleven years old (referred to 
 in the preceding incident), so frightened me that I have 
 always rejoiced that my lot was not cast in those places 
 so often visited with cyclones and blizzards and earth- 
 quakes. I often say: "The thunder-showers I like best 
 are those that rain on us — and thunder somewhere else." 
 
 An Alarm. 
 
 In my boyhood I was, as it is called, very "unfortunate." 
 Many were my disasters and " hairbreadth 'scapes." My 
 accidents and injuries were so frequent that I seemed to 
 become accustomed to wounds and bruises. And my 
 mother used to say : " It does n't seem to hurt Asa to be 
 hurt, as much as it does other boys." 
 
 When I was perhaps twelve years of age, my elder 
 brother and I had just returned from school at night, and 
 were attending to our usual duties at the barn. I was 
 running along the stone walk by the side of the barn, to 
 open a stable door, when a lazy old ox, for once quicken- 
 ing his pace to escape the sharp horns that pursued him, 
 ran upon the walk, crushing me between himself and the 
 barn. 
 
 As soon as I was free I turned and ran a few steps 
 across the yard towards the house, and fell prostrate upon 
 my face. My brother, not suspecting I was injured, 
 called to me : " Come, Asa, get up, and not try to frighten 
 me by 'making believe' that you are hurt." 
 
 But I did not stir nor speak. My brother then took 
 hold of me to lift me up ; and who can tell his alarm 
 when he saw the blood running from my mouth, and 
 found my muscles all relaxed, and that I had ceased to 
 breathe ? He hastened to the window of the room where 
 
3<D INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 mother was sitting with her infant child, and cried with 
 a voice of agony : — 
 
 " Mother, Asa 's dead ! Do come quick ! " 
 
 What an alarm to that mother ! She sprang from her 
 chair and, in her fright, almost threw her babe upon the 
 floor instead of the bed, and in a moment they weijp at 
 the yard. I had risen, and stood with my eyes closed, 
 reeling as if half-asleep. I was led into the house, and 
 after a little care and nursing was restored, though for 
 some time it was feared the blood came from an internal 
 injury. It was found, however, that it came from my 
 mouth, which was wounded by the fall. 
 
 From the moment I was crushed till I was taken into 
 the house, I was unconscious, my breath having been 
 pressed out of my body. I felt, in recovering myself, 
 bewildered, as one sometimes does when awaking out of 
 sleep in a strange place. While unconscious, I was in a 
 sort of dream and thought I was engaged in some amuse- 
 ment with my school-mates. 
 
 This event was the subject of much conversation in the 
 family, and it produced, for awhile, a thoughtful state of 
 mind with both myself and my brother. We felt that it 
 was a very narrow escape. A little severer pressure, and I 
 should never have recovered my breath. It was a solemn 
 thought to us, that death had been so near us ; and to me 
 it was doubly solemn, from a consciousness that I was 
 all unprepared to meet the "king of terrors." Such a 
 warning ought to have led me to make immediate prepa- 
 rations for the disasters of life and the solemn hour of 
 death. But several years after this admonition of God's 
 providence passed away before I was brought to cry : 
 "My Father, thou art the guide of my youth." 
 
MY EARL Y YEARS. 
 
 31 
 
 Trifling with Danger. 
 
 The autumn with its rich harvest had returned. The 
 barns of the husbandman were well filled with the golden 
 sheaves. In every direction were heard the quick sound 
 of the flails that were beating out the precious grain, and 
 of the winnowing mill that was separating it from the 
 chaff and preparing it for the garner. 
 
 One day we were winnowing a large pile of oats. The 
 machine was one of the earliest patterns — large, with 
 wooden cogs, and requiring considerable strength to work 
 it. My oldest brother and I turned the mill and father 
 fed it. Long hours were spent in this fatiguing and 
 monotonous labor. 
 
 To give a little variety, and to divert our minds from 
 our weariness, I began, as I turned with my left hand, 
 with my right to pull down the swift -flying cogs — a most 
 dangerous business. But as I was sprightly and quick- 
 motioned, for a long time I managed to catch them and 
 escape the danger. By-and-by, as I pursued this foolish 
 amusement, I became a little careless and inattentive, and 
 in a moment one of my fingers was caught and crushed 
 in the machinery. Although both of us were turning the 
 mill rapidly, yet it was stopped the instant the finger was 
 caught, as though it had been a solid stick or a bar of 
 iron. A sudden change came over the feelings of that 
 merry-making boy ! The accident was so sudden that the 
 finger was benumbed, and for a long time there was no 
 pain ; but what a sight to behold ! — all crushed and man- 
 gled, with little pieces of bones projecting through the 
 broken skin and flesh ! 
 
 My father took me by the wrist and, holding up my 
 hand, led me to the house. As we walked along in sad- 
 
3 2 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 ness, the broken finger was hanging down upon the back 
 of the hand, and the dark blood collecting into the palm. 
 
 As we entered the house, my poor mother had another 
 fright, and to the fright was added the painful reflection 
 — and one that I had already felt — that this sad disaster 
 was the result of carelessness and a very foolish trifling 
 with danger. My parents used to say that I was always 
 putting my fingers where I should not, and if there was 
 any danger, that I would be sure to run into it, so as to 
 see how it would hurt any one. In a few moments father's 
 surgical instruments appeared, filling my mind with the 
 most appalling apprehensions, and arrangements were made 
 to amputate the wounded finger. 
 
 "O father!" I said, "don't cut it off; can't you save 
 it ? O father, I don't want to lose it ! How badly it will 
 make my hand look, and then I can not write. Do save it, 
 father, won't you ? " 
 
 These importunities of his almost broken-hearted boy 
 led father to take a more careful examination, to ascer- 
 tain if it could in any way be saved. The numbness 
 had now passed away, and it had come to its feeling ; and 
 as father pressed the bruised, crushed bones and flesh to- 
 gether, to get the finger into shape, it called forth bitter 
 tears and cries from the sufferer, and large drops of sweat 
 rolled down my cheeks. Young persons may not be aware 
 of the fact that a wound on a finger — on account of the 
 great number and delicacy of the nerves in that little 
 member, which aid us so much in feeling — is much more 
 painful than one on the larger and more muscular mem- 
 bers of the body. 
 
 A long and minute examination led father to attempt to 
 save the finger. There was a large piece of bone on one 
 side that must be removed, but it was too firmly connected 
 
MY EARLY YEARS. 
 
 33 
 
 with the finger to be removed at once. The finger was 
 dressed, and after sufferings such as I had never experi- 
 enced before, I was laid on the bed, with my poor hand 
 resting upon a pillow. There I reflected upon the scene 
 through which I had passed, and bewailed my folly, and, 
 like thousands of others, made resolutions of improve- 
 ment, only to be broken again when I should recover. 
 
 Every morning the wound was dressed, and new efforts 
 made to remove the splinter of bone. These were seasons 
 of great pain. Several days had passed, and the bone still 
 remained. Unless it could be removed, the whole finger 
 must be lost. I was so anxious to have it saved that I 
 said : — 
 
 ' " Father, if I am crying ever so hard from pain when 
 you are trying to get out that bone, and you should get it 
 out, I should laugh right out for joy." 
 
 The day arrived when arrangements were to be made for 
 amputating the finger. Father worked a long time in the 
 morning to remove the bone, but did not succeed. By- 
 and-by I asked him to try once more. He consented, and 
 after repeated efforts, the long splinter gave way and was 
 taken out, and, while the tears were rolling down my 
 cheeks and I was suffering the most acute pain, as soon as 
 I saw the bone in my father's instruments I burst into a 
 hearty laugh of joy: "O father ! I am so glad ! I am so 
 glad. Now my finger will be saved ! " 
 
 After many weeks and much suffering, my broken fin- 
 ger was entirely healed. The middle joint is now almost 
 stiff, and is much larger than it ought to be, and the 
 finger, though it was the longest on the hand, is now 
 only about the length of the forefinger, and it has a large 
 callous inside. Although somewhat injured in its appear- 
 ance, and less serviceable than it would have been if 
 
3 4 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY IIFE. 
 
 uninjured, yet I have not a finger that I cherish so much 
 as this one. It is on the same principle that the lost 
 sheep, when found, is rejoiced over more than the ninety- 
 and-nine that went not astray, and that one sinner that 
 repenteth causeth more joy among the angels of God, 
 than ninety-and-nine just persons that need no repent- 
 ance. 
 
 In this incident we have an admonition against trifling 
 with danger ; and we have, too, an exhibition of the endur- 
 ing effects of a single foolish action. That broken finger 
 I shall carry with me to my grave, a constant, ever-present 
 remembrancer of the folly of my youth. 
 
 A Beautiful Vest. 
 
 It was very common, in my early days, for girls to braid 
 straw for ladies' bonnets, and now and then boys would 
 engage in the same work. My parents offered me all I 
 could earn if I would spend some of my leisure hours, 
 when out of school, and when my part of the "chores" 
 were done, in braiding. I soon learned to braid, and it 
 was not long before I could make my clumsy boy-fingers 
 fly nearly as fast as the little, delicate, limber girl-fingers 
 of my sisters. 
 
 After I had learned to braid well I could obtain three 
 cents a yard for my work, and on one holiday, besides all 
 my duties about the barn, etc., I machined my straw and 
 braided eleven yards — thus earning thirty-three cents ! 
 While I was earning this handsome little sum, many of my 
 associates, who were keeping holiday at the town meeting, 
 doubtless spent nearly or quite as much for cake and 
 candy, and at night were not half so happy as I was. Their 
 money had perished in the using ; mine, with its increase, 
 was still in my pocket. 
 
MY EARLY YEARS. 
 
 35 
 
 Among the many things that I purchased with my 
 braid-money from time to time was what I regarded as a 
 very beautiful vest. I thought there never was a vest that 
 was quite as handsome as mine. And it was, in my eye, 
 ever so much handsomer for having been earned by myself 
 
 — bought with my own money. Why, I can even now 
 remember just how that cherished, almost idolized vest 
 looked ; those pearly buttons and those beautiful little 
 spots of white and yellow silk all over it. I suspect, if 
 the truth were only known, that vest sometimes caused 
 my heart to swell with feelings of pride. If so, I hope 
 long ere this I have repented of it, and that I now see the 
 folly of being proud of dress, when even the poor butterfly 
 
 — the creature of a day — can boast of a gayer dress 
 than we ; and the lily of the field is more beauteously 
 arrayed than even Solomon in all his glory. 
 
 In my early days there was very little done to train the 
 children to give their earnings and savings for the benefit 
 of others. There were no Sabbath-schools or societies to 
 collect penny contributions to send good books and papers 
 to the destitute. 
 
 If braiding straw were as common now as in my early 
 days, how easy it would be for all children — boys and 
 girls — to earn the money for their contributions! But 
 there are other ways of earning money now, so that all 
 who try can bear a part in the work of benevolence. 
 "Where there 's a will, there 's always a way." 
 
 My First Visit to Boston. 
 
 How enchanting are country scenes to city children ! 
 Little do those brought up among them know with what 
 delight those from the city look upon every tree and shrub 
 and flower, upon every stream and hillside and meadow, in 
 their visits to the country. 
 
36 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY II FE. 
 
 Then with what wonder do the children from the farms 
 gaze upon the many beautiful and attractive things in the 
 city ! What a marvel are the splendid mansions, broad 
 and pleasant streets, all smoothly paved, all kinds of stores 
 and warehouses, with every variety of things for sale, all 
 exposed so temptingly in the huge windows with their 
 immense panes of glass, from the little candy-shop, with 
 every thing pleasant to the eye and sweet to the taste of 
 children, to the grand marble or granite warehouse, filled 
 with the most costly goods ! All these things are no 
 doubt attractive to city children, but they are perfect 
 marvels of interest to the children from the country. 
 
 Can I ever forget my first visit to the city of Boston, 
 when eleven years of age ? Oh, no ! When I first came 
 in sight of it, and saw in the distance such a pile of brick 
 buildings, with the dome of the State House towering 
 above them, and such a forest of church steeples and 
 masts of ships, how the cold chills ran over me, almost as if 
 I were approaching an army all ready for battle ! When I 
 entered the city, what a source of wonder were the signs ! 
 I could never cease gazing at those of the apothecary 
 shops. Here was hung up a great golden mortar and 
 pestle, or the gilded bust of a venerable man, perhaps of 
 the apothecary himself. Then those large glass globes and 
 tall glass jars filled with red and blue and green liquids, 
 that I supposed were medicines that were exhibited for 
 sale. Then here was a large hat, big enough for Goliath 
 of Gath, hung over a store. Then there was a shoe or 
 boot hung up, that would make a very nice dwelling for 
 the " woman who lived in a shoe, and had so many chil- 
 dren she did n't know what to do." Then there was a per- 
 fect model of a sheep, with a fleece of the whitest wool, 
 standing all sedate and solemn on the top of a high pillar. 
 
MY EARL Y YEARS. 
 
 37 
 
 At another store were hanging out whole suits of clothes, 
 coats, pants, and vests, with the cunningest little jackets 
 and trowsers for boys. 
 
 "Father," I at length inquired, with the utmost curi- 
 osity, " father, why do they have all these things hanging 
 up in the front of these stores ?" 
 
 "These are signs, my son, of the things they have in- 
 side to sell. That great book, so richly bound in gilt, 
 hanging over that door across the street, shows that that 
 is a store where they have books to sell ; and that large 
 hat, big enough for a giant, is the sign of a hat store ; and 
 those coats and pants yonder show that they have men's 
 and boys' clothes, all ready made, for sale." 
 
 "Well, father," I asked, "why don't they hang out a 
 man to show where the lawyers are ? " 
 
 Father said they might, perhaps, hang out a writ. 
 
 In this visit to the city how bewildering was the inces- 
 sant and confused noise of the heavy trucks of those days, 
 — on which they carried hogsheads of molasses, great 
 bales of cotton and wool, and all kinds of goods, — and of 
 all kinds of wagons and carriages as they were continually 
 passing over the pavements ! How the rumble sounded 
 in my ears, for days after leaving the city ! And what 
 crowds of people on the sidewalks, keeping one on the 
 dodge all the while, lest he should be knocked down and 
 tumbled into the street. What a wonder this visit to Bos- 
 ton was to me ! And what marvelous stories, of what I 
 had seen, I had to tell my brothers and sisters on my re- 
 turn ! How their big eyes did stare with wonder at the 
 recital ! 
 
 The surprise and wonder with which I gazed, for the 
 first time, upon the marvelous scenes of Boston, were, 
 doubtless, only what many a child and youth has felt on 
 his first visit to a city. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 OUR NEIGHBORHOOD AND HOMESTEAD. 
 
 OUR home in West Sutton is a part of one of the most 
 beautiful landscapes, of a mile and a half or two 
 miles in extent, in the central part of Massachusetts. 
 A former governor of the state once said that " the pan- 
 oramic view from this farm was the most charming he 
 knew of in the commonwealth." There is nothing mag- 
 nificent or especially picturesque in it, but it is all lovely 
 and beautiful. 
 
 From near the center, where there is a pretty village, 
 it rises with a gentle ascent in almost every direction. 
 The land is rich, and a large portion of it in a state of 
 cultivation. The numerous farms are laid out in square 
 or oblong fields, like patch-work, enclosed with neat stone 
 fences ; and when the various kinds of grains and grasses 
 are ripening, it presents — with its border of woods, with 
 Mount Wachusett in the distance, and its several small 
 sheets of water, with the comfortable white farm-houses 
 and their little clusters of out-buildings, scattered more 
 or less nearly together over the whole landscape — a 
 lovely view. 
 
 Our homestead, of one hundred acres, with its large, 
 square, white dwelling-house, two barns, shops, and other 
 out-buildings, is on the southern ascent of this landscape, 
 a half-mile from the village, or, as it was called, the street. 
 
 Our mansion-house, which is a very substantial and 
 still well-preserved structure, was erected in 1767. A 
 magnificent elm, whose branches cover an area of more 
 
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD AND HOMESTEAD. 39 
 
 than three hundred feet in circumference, is still standing 
 a few rods west of the house, and is one of the most 
 conspicuous landmarks in the neighborhood, if not in the 
 town, of Sutton. This elm, it is said, Rev. Henry Ward 
 Beecher had in mind when he described the big tree in 
 " Norwood." 
 
 It is gratifying to all the connections of the family now 
 living to know that a considerable portion of the old 
 farm is still retained in the family name. 
 
 But sin seems to mar and deface even the beauties of 
 
 nature, so that we are obliged to exclaim with the poet, in 
 
 regard to this neighborhood : — 
 
 " Every prospect pleases, 
 And only man is vile." 
 
 A knowledge of the moral aspect of the place at that 
 time caused the Christian to view it with feelings some- 
 what like those with which he would have contemplated 
 Eden, after innocence had drawn over her lovely face the 
 veil of sorrow. Few portions of the state were more 
 perfectly given up to intemperance and every species of 
 immorality. Very few of the inhabitants for many years 
 were professing Christians, and some of those few were 
 no great honor to their profession. Few were the altars 
 on which was offered the sacrifice of prayer ; and for 
 scores of years a conversion was hardly known except in 
 one or two families. " Like parents, like children." 
 
 Drear and desolate indeed is that neighborhood, how- 
 ever many its natural beauties and artificial adornments, 
 where God is not acknowledged, and where intemperance 
 and its kindred vices, like demons of night, rule over the 
 people. 
 
 Many years ago, while on a visit to my early home, in 
 conversation with my mother, the moral and religious con- 
 
40 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY IIFE. 
 
 dition of this neighborhood was considered. In this con- 
 versation we canvassed the state of the ninety-eight 
 families that were located in an area of one mile and a 
 half or two miles. And this was the result of the can- 
 vass : In twenty-seven of these families the parents were 
 professedly Christians. In these families there were one 
 hundred and twenty-five children over fifteen years of age. 
 Of these, eighty-four, or about two thirds, were hopefully 
 pious. Four were ministers of the gospel ; five were dea- 
 cons ; and one was dissipated. In nineteen of these 
 families, one parent in each family was pious, and all but 
 one were mothers. There were ninety-five children over 
 fifteen years of age. Of these thirty-one, or about one 
 third, were hopefully pious ; four were ministers ; seven 
 were dissipated, and the fathers of five of these seven 
 were also dissipated. In fifty-two of these families — 
 most of them residing in what is called "the street"- — 
 neither parent was professedly a Christian. Of their one 
 hundred and thirty-nine children over fifteen years of age, 
 only thirteen were interested in religion ; and not one of 
 those became interested till they had left the neighbor- 
 hood and gone out from under parental influence and 
 instruction ! Twenty-five of these children were dissi- 
 pated, and the fathers of thirteen of them were also dis- 
 sipated ; and all were in the daily use of intoxicating 
 liquor ! 
 
 I am happy to be able to say that, of late 'years, there 
 have been great changes for the better in this neighbor- 
 hood. 
 
 My nephew, Henry B. Bullard, who has a store in ''the 
 street," and cares for the "Bullard Hill" farm, in answer 
 to my inquiries in regard to the present moral condition 
 of that neighborhood, thus writes : — 
 
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD AND HOMESTEAD. 4 1 
 
 At present our little church of seventy members is in a prosperous 
 condition. Twenty were added by baptism about one year ago, and 
 we expect four or five to unite with us next month. We have one of 
 the best of ministers. The congregation averages nearly one hundred ; 
 and the Sabbath-school, of which I have been the superintendent for 
 some time, about seventy ; and it is in a flourishing condition. We 
 have a Sabbath-school concert every month. 
 
 The old hotel has undergone a great change. The proprietors, who 
 are very good people, have expended about $2,000 in thoroughly reno- 
 vating it. It is in the best condition I ever knew it to be. If ardent 
 spirits are sold, it is done very quietly. We scarcely ever see an 
 intoxicated person here. The houses in the village have nearly all been 
 painted within two years. I can not remember when the village looked 
 so neat and clean as at the present time. No rough characters live 
 here. 
 
 The buildings at the old homestead are running down. The house 
 is in good repair, and only needs painting. Two winters ago, the ice 
 injured the old elm very much. Several large limbs, two of them over 
 a foot through and about thirty feet long, were broken off. We took 
 off nearly a cord of wood. The farm is in good condition ; the walls 
 are all kept up. We have about a thousand apple-trees, which I prune 
 every third year. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HOW WE CHILDREN WERE TRAINED. 
 
 SEVEN sons and three daughters, all to be educated, 
 was surely no small matter. How to do it properly, 
 situated as his family was, often cost my father and 
 mother much anxious thought and prayer. 
 
 The village, referred to in a previous chapter, half a mile 
 from our home, though beautiful and lovely in its natural 
 features, as has been noted, was then morally one of the 
 darkest spots in New England. Its tavern was the resort 
 of the lowest class of persons in all that section of the 
 county. The youth in the vicinity, instead of employing 
 their leisure time in mental and moral improvement, were 
 taught to waste their long winter evenings in the dancing- 
 school and the ball-room, or in company with the vile at 
 the tavern. 
 
 One would naturally suppose that such a neighborhood 
 was a sad place in which to train a family of ten children. 
 But my parents' puritanic notions of family government 
 and their unfailing trust in God's promises to faith- 
 ful Christian parents, and their wise plans for all neces- 
 sary amusement and recreation for their children, were 
 such that the influence of that village was rather helpful 
 both to the parents and the children. It led the parents 
 to see the great need of wisdom and watchfulness in their 
 mode of family training, and there was before them all 
 most affecting illustrations of the loathsomeness of intem- 
 perance and all its kindred vices. There were very few 
 men and boys in that neighborhood who did not carry the 
 
 42 
 
HOW WE CHILDREN WERE TRAINED. 43 
 
 marks of that low vice, and it was a warning to the chil- 
 dren of the Bullard Hill Farm not to go in the way of the 
 wicked, but to avoid it — to turn from it and pass away. 
 They learned to look with pity upon those who were grow- 
 ing up in ignorance of their danger and wickedness. 
 
 Our parents regarded a wise Christian family govern- 
 ment as the basis of all true Christian nurture. They 
 believed that God had invested parents with authority to 
 be used in promoting the good of their children ; that 
 they were to use this authority " in the Lord," just as 
 truly as that children were to " obey their parents in the 
 Lord " ; that disobedience to parents and to all proper 
 authority was also disobedience to God ; that it was much 
 more common and much easier for an obedient child to 
 give his heart to God than for one who is disobedient, 
 ungoverned. So that parents should, in a proper spirit, 
 use all the authority God had given them to prevent disobe- 
 dience ; and if they did not do it, they would be accessory 
 to all the sins that grow out of disobedience. And they 
 considered disobedience to proper authority as the great, 
 crying sin of the universe. It expelled the fallen angels 
 out of heaven ; it drove our first parents out of Eden ; and 
 it brought sin and all our woes into the world. Hence, in 
 their estimation, no parent, to avoid an unpleasant duty, 
 was at liberty to leave a child to grow up unrestrained and 
 ungoverned. 
 
 With these views our parents sought to bring us up in 
 the good old Abrahamic, Solomonic, puritanic way of obe- 
 dience. Very likely many in our neighborhood thought we 
 were brought up very strictly. But all we children knew 
 about it was that there were certain amusements that 
 the children and young people around us were accus- 
 tomed to indulge in, that our parents did not think proper 
 
44 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 for us ; and so they would always provide for us some 
 other and safer enjoyments. 
 
 There were few families in which there was a more 
 delightful social intercourse between parents and children 
 than in this family, that others thought so strict. Punish- 
 ment was very seldom found necessary to secure obedi- 
 ence. The reason was that we children early learned 
 that the only way to avoid it was by prompt and 
 cheerful obedience. This stopping to ask Why ? when 
 father or mother gave direction we never dreamed of 
 doing. We learned that our parents' commands were 
 not arbitrary, but always designed for our good ; they 
 were always right and just. The angels in heaven are 
 never heard murmuring and complaining of the commands 
 of their great Maker ! Oh, no ; they are ever watching 
 to know his will, and ready to spread their joyful wings 
 on errands of obedience and mercy. 
 
 With such a neighborhood as has been described our 
 parents saw the need of great wisdom in devising 
 plans by which their children might be kept from the 
 scenes of dissipation and rioting there indulged in on all 
 holidays. It would not do for them to forbid our min- 
 gling in those scenes, unless they provided some other 
 amusements for us more rational and more interesting. 
 Should they do this they well knew it would be natural for 
 us to become impatient of such restraint and to seek to 
 break away from their control. 
 
 To avoid this danger, and to gratify their own desires to 
 do every thing they could for our pleasure and happiness, 
 the sons of our minister and of several members of our 
 church and congregation, in town, were invited to spend 
 "election day," then the popular holiday in our state, 
 with us at our home. And what a day that was ! No 
 
HOW WE CHILDREN WERE TRAINED. 
 
 45 
 
 pains or expense were spared to provide for us twenty- 
 boys entertainment and amusement. Father spent the 
 day with us, keeping tally in our games, and now and 
 then, as the game began to lose its power to please, sug- 
 gesting some other, perhaps some game of his own 
 boyish days. Was there ever a happier set of boys than 
 were that day gathered at Bullard Hill ? Our good 
 mother entered into the occasion with the greatest inter- 
 est. She prepared a rich and inviting dinner, with even 
 more care than she would have done for the parents of 
 the invited guests. 
 
 As each public holiday returned these boys gathered at 
 some one of the different homes, till we were old enough 
 to seek our amusements in social visits with our sisters. 
 
 Then, whenever the young people of the neighborhood 
 arranged for a sleigh-ride with a ball, or any other amuse- 
 ments in which we were not likely to engage, our parents 
 were ever ready to arrange for us a pleasant ride and a 
 good social time in our happy home on our return. We 
 all knew it was not the expense of an entertainment at 
 some public house that our parents wished to avoid, but it 
 was to shield us from the temptations and unhappy influ- 
 ences to which such scenes would expose us. 
 
 Now the result of this mode of family government and 
 training was that all the ten children of this family 
 united with the church, and all but one or two before they 
 were of age. 
 
 Then we lived, as has been said, over three miles from 
 our place of worship, and there was scarcely a family 
 within a mile that had any sympathy with us in regard to 
 the proper observance of the Sabbath. All this led us to 
 rely upon ourselves for associates and recreation. It very 
 early became our custom, thus isolated, for parents and 
 
46 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY IIFE. 
 
 children to spend our leisure winter evenings together, 
 while some one read aloud an interesting and valuable 
 book, in regard to which any one was at liberty to ask 
 questions or make remarks. In this way, many of the 
 most important works of history were read, and we 
 became acquainted with the government, religion, man- 
 ners, and customs, etc., of all nations. 
 
 This manner of spending the winter evenings had an 
 important influence on our intellectual and religious char- 
 acter. A taste for reading and a desire to gain useful 
 knowledge were awakened. 
 
 Our father had set his heart upon training his boys for 
 the farm. He was hoping soon to be relieved to a great 
 extent from its care by entrusting its management 
 mainly to his eldest son. But his plans for the education 
 of his children had produced a deeper impression than he 
 had anticipated. Such a love of study and such a thirst 
 for literary pursuits had been awakened, that my eldest 
 brother, who, with my sister older, had just entered upon 
 the Christian life, now expressed his wish to commence a 
 course of study for the gospel ministry. 
 
 At first this was a great disappointment to father. 
 And yet the conversion and usefulness of the children 
 was the burden of his daily prayers. Father soon yielded 
 his wishes to the indications of Divine Providence, and 
 the whole family now became interested in this important 
 object before them. Every one was ready to help by 
 economy and in every other way practicable to meet the 
 expense of carrying this son and brother through college 
 and into the sacred office. 
 
 This brother used to say that it was our manner of 
 spending winter evenings that led him to seek a public 
 education. He often acknowledged with lively emotion 
 
HOW WE CHILDREN WERE TRAINED. 47 
 
 his gratitude to his parents for the habit of reading and 
 study which they taught him to form in early life ; and 
 for the still more valuable habit of relating, in his own 
 words, the narratives and thoughts of the various authors 
 that were read together in the family. Whenever he 
 returned home during vacations he helped to increase 
 the interest among his brothers and sisters in reading 
 and study, so that all showed an unusual attachment to 
 books and a thirst for general knowledge. After a hard 
 day's work on the farm, we boys would spend hours in 
 reading and study, either alone or in company with each 
 other and our sisters. 
 
 The result of our parents' mode of educating their 
 children (if I may here anticipate a few years in my 
 narrative) was that five of the sons commenced a course 
 of education with a view to the ministry, and another 
 would have been glad, had the opportunity offered, to 
 enter upon the same course ; four completed their col- 
 legiate education, three entered the sacred offices, and 
 three, other professions. The three daughters received 
 the best education the academies of those days afforded, 
 and all became wives of professional men — two of them 
 clergymen. 
 
 The education of so large a family of course caused a 
 hard and long-continued struggle and great expense on 
 the part of our parents. But they felt that there was no 
 investment they could make for their children that would 
 be so valuable and safe as a good education ; and that 
 there was no way in which they could receive so rich and 
 satisfactory a return for all their labor and care as to see 
 their children, through the qualification of a thorough 
 intellectual and religious training, occupying places of 
 honor and usefulness. 
 
48 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 I can but hope that this narrative may be helpful to 
 many parents who are inquiring anxiously, " How shall 
 we order our children ? How shall we do unto them ? " 
 
 Children must have something to employ and interest 
 them. Nature teaches that the young must have amuse- 
 ment, recreation ; and no wise parent will leave his chil- 
 dren to seek their associates and amusements without 
 their aid and watchful care. Expense of time and money 
 can not be more wisely incurred than by rendering such 
 aid and care. 
 
 That the literary and religious tastes and character and 
 subsequent lives of so large a family of children, so iso- 
 lated from literary, moral, and religious associations and 
 influences, should have been so much formed through the 
 right employment of winter evenings, is an instructive 
 lesson to all parents who would see their children grow- 
 ing up to be respected and useful in their day and 
 generation. 
 
 Learning to Do Things. 
 
 As I have already intimated, I was brought up on a 
 farm, and my father taught his boys to work. And not 
 one of us, even those in professional life, has ever 
 regretted this early training. 
 
 I had, perhaps, an unusual amount of natural elasticity. 
 I was quick in all my movements, and on this account 
 was called on more frequently than my brothers to do any 
 thing that was to be done quickly — turn the grind-stone, 
 go on errands, etc. It was : — 
 
 " Asa, run and get such a thing ; " and though it was 
 not exactly meant that I should rwi y yet my swift walk 
 was very nearly that. A quick step, to the present day, 
 has been my natural gait. In walking the street I seldom 
 
HOW WE CHILDREN WERE TRAINED. 
 
 49 
 
 go behind any one, if I can get ahead. This is not 
 planned or designed beforehand, but is intuitive. A slow- 
 step or a slow act of any kind is to me unnatural, and 
 therefore more fatiguing than a quick one. 
 
 My father, when about twelve years of age, went to live 
 some years with an uncle who was a blacksmith. His 
 special duty for some time was to blow the bellows for 
 his uncle. But he was a boy who always kept his eyes 
 and ears open to learn all he could about every thing 
 around him. In this way he really learned the trade of 
 the blacksmith. He learned to do so much in this line 
 that after he purchased his farm in Sutton he had a small 
 blacksmith shop and also a carpenter's shop built, for his 
 own use and that of his boys. He always used to shoe 
 his own horses and oxen, making the shoes and nails, 
 sharpened his plowshares, mended his chains, and, in short, 
 did any thing in that line that needed to be done on a 
 farm. He could also make a sled and shoe it, repair carts 
 and all other farm implements. All this he would do 
 evenings, or on rainy days when he could not work out or 
 was not called away on professional duties. Knowing how 
 to do these things not only saved him much time, but also 
 much expense. 
 
 This habit of my father may have begotten in me my 
 interest in the same direction. From my boyhood I had 
 a great desire to do every thing I saw any one else do. 
 I liked to spend my play-hours with the tools in my 
 father's shop, making bows and arrows, sleds, boxes, etc., 
 which I learned to make quite neatly. 
 
 In those days each family had their boots and shoes 
 made at home. A shoemaker, or a " cobbler," as he was 
 then called, came with his bench and tools on his shoulder, 
 and spent days, and even weeks, making all the boots and 
 
5 O INCIDENTS IN A BUSY II FE. 
 
 shoes for the whole family for a year. Those occasions 
 were full of interest to me. I begged the privilege of 
 going into the chamber with the shoemaker and learning 
 his trade. I very soon learned to peg and sew and make 
 myself quite useful in the work. To be sure, there were 
 times in after years, during my college vacations, when 
 my knowledge and skill in mending old boots and shoes 
 were of more use to the family than of recreation to me. 
 Still I have never regretted that I came so near being a 
 shoemaker. 
 
 I had a great taste for the garden. Raising all kinds of 
 vegetables, flowers, shrubbery, etc., was my delight. While 
 my brothers and the hired men were resting at noon-time 
 in the summer, I would seek my rest among my thriving 
 beds of beets and carrots, noting the growth of my 
 melons and cucumbers, and enjoying the varied beauties 
 and sweet fragrance of my roses and pinks, etc. And this 
 interest in horticulture has grown ever since, as every one 
 can see who visits my vine-clad home, in the midst of 
 choice shrubbery and ever-blooming flowers. 
 
 This knowing how to do things, which I so early learned, 
 has been an unfailing source of pleasure, as well as a prac- 
 tical benefit, to me all my life. For the forty years I have 
 had a home of my own, there has been scarcely a week, or 
 even a day, when my knowing how to do things has not 
 been of service to me. There is hardly any little repair 
 or improvement needed about the house but I can make 
 it. And while it is usually a pleasant recreation to lay 
 aside my studies for a short time, it is also an important 
 matter of economy. 
 
 I am told that a pane of glass or the cord of a window 
 has been broken ; there is a hole in the bottom of a tin 
 dish or the handle has unsoldered ; the pump, the clock, or 
 
NOW WE CHILDREN WERE TRAINED. 
 
 51 
 
 the lock on a door or trunk is out of order ; or a few things 
 need painting : all these things I can usually repair and 
 put in order, and do it in less time than it would take to 
 get the glazier, tinker, pump-maker, or painter to come and 
 do it, and at the same time save the dollar or fifty cents 
 charged for every little job. A new shelf or bookcase is 
 wanted, or a trellis for my clematis, honeysuckle, or grape- 
 vines ; I have a work-bench and tools in the barn-chamber, 
 and some hour when I need relaxation and exercise the 
 work is done. My house needs shingling, or a new room 
 is needed ; and, if I can spare a little time from my pro- 
 fessional duties, I can turn my skill to account in aiding 
 the carpenter ; and thus hundreds and hundreds of dollars 
 have been saved to me by having learned to be my own 
 mechanic. 
 
 Now, I would like to say to all boys : " Is it not worth 
 your while to be learning to do things?" All may not 
 have an equal tact or natural genius for turning their 
 hand to almost every thing. But every one ought to know 
 enough, no matter what his employment in life is to be, if 
 called to harness a horse in an emergency, not to harness 
 him with his head towards the carriage, or to put on a 
 saddle wrong end foremost, or to think he has done a 
 smart thing by making a round button for a door, or by put- 
 ting in a screw at each end of one that is properly made, 
 as some men, with an honorary title at one or both ends 
 of their names, have done. 
 
 While I would commend this subject of learning to do 
 things to the attention of all boys, I presume the girls 
 too may find it greatly to their advantage to be learning 
 to do things in their sphere of life. 
 
5 2 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 Three Hours in a Corn-field. 
 
 My father purchased his large farm with special refer- 
 ence to the training of his boys. He believed the old 
 adage, 
 
 "Satan finds some mischief still, 
 For idle hands to do." 
 
 While ever ready to make ample provision for all need- 
 ful amusements and recreation . for his boys, as I have 
 already shown, he believed that our good required that we 
 should be trained to habits of industry. And we began 
 to form these habits at an early age. When only six or 
 eight years old, we were trusted with the responsibility of 
 going to mill and on various other errands with the horse 
 and wagon. We were known through the county, per- 
 haps I may venture to say, as very smart, industrious 
 boys. If a father wished to rebuke the idleness of his 
 sons, or give them an example of industry, he would refer 
 to the boys at Bul]ard Hill. 
 
 Some thought that our father worked his boys too hard ; 
 that he begun our training on the farm when we were too 
 young. But a healthier, more robust, or happier set of 
 youngsters was not to be found in the country. We all 
 felt a personal interest in every department of work on 
 the farm. We all felt that we had an ownership in it. 
 We were ambitious to have the work of each season — 
 planting, hoeing, haying, and harvesting — done as early as 
 any other farmer in town. Whether father was with us 
 or not, we were industrious ; no eye-serving among us. 
 We were in full sympathy with our father in every plan 
 for improvement ; and he always consulted with us, and 
 carefully considered the suggestions any one of us might 
 make. 
 
HOW WE CHILDREN WERE TRAINED. 
 
 53 
 
 The following incident will illustrate our ambition. 
 Father was a practical farmer, and when professional 
 duties would permit, he engaged in personal labor with his 
 boys, as already stated. 
 
 One lowery afternoon in hay-time there was a good 
 half-day's work for three men to be done in hoeing a 
 field of corn. Father took three of us boys, the eldest 
 about seventeen years of age, to do this work. He told 
 us he would plow this field and then go to another, 
 leaving us to spend the afternoon in hoeing it. This was 
 before the introduction of the cultivator. Two furrows 
 were plowed between the rows, one turning the earth 
 towards one row, and the other towards the other row. 
 
 As father began the first furrow, one of us, without any 
 preconcerted arrangement, began to hoe ; a second boy 
 went a third way through the field and began to hoe ; 
 and the other boy began at the other end as father com- 
 menced the second furrow. By the time the two furrows 
 were plowed, the row was hoed. Then we commenced 
 on the next in the same way, and with the same result. 
 At this, father began to quicken the speed of the horse, 
 and we, becoming a little excited, quickened our speed 
 also. 
 
 Father's motto was, " that what was worth doing was 
 worth well-doing ; " no halfway work on his farm. So 
 he several times said : " Boys, you are not slighting your 
 work, are you ?" 
 
 And several times he stopped to see; and finding the 
 work satisfactory, hastened back and urged on his horse, 
 to keep out of the way of these now thoroughly aroused 
 and ambitious young farmers. 
 
 The result of this trial on the " race-course " of hoeing 
 was that the work of half a day for three men was com- 
 
5 4 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 pleted in three hours by three boys, and we left the field 
 in triumph with our father ! 
 
 This feat became known and was the subject of fre- 
 quent conversation among the farmers all through the 
 neighborhood. And father felt that the stock he held in 
 his boys had suddenly gone up several per cent. ! He 
 often described that exciting time in the corn-field with 
 great pride and satisfaction. 
 
 Not one of us boys, though six of us entered profes- 
 sional life, ever regretted his early agricultural training. 
 We were protected from the evil influences of idleness, 
 and we all obtained a knowledge of " doing things," which 
 has ever been of great service to us. And not one of us 
 but has often recalled, with no small interest, the feat of 
 those three hours in the corn-field. 
 
 Bullard Hill Farm. 
 
 Some little description of the farm at Bullard Hill, 
 the mode of carrying it on, and a few other incidents 
 connected with it may be of interest. 
 
 As this farm was purchased, as already stated, with 
 special reference to the training of his boys, father 
 arranged and directed every thing connected with it to 
 this end. Every field, for tillage or pasture, had its par- 
 ticular name ; and no resident in a city could be more 
 familiar with the names of the streets in his neighborhood 
 than each member of this family was with the location 
 and name of every lot and pasture, orchard and garden, on 
 the farm. There was the Long lot, the Sap-tree lot, the 
 Cider-mill lot, the Blacksnake Den lot, the Spring pasture, 
 the Oak-tree pasture, the Pennyroyal pasture, the Oven 
 orchard, etc. Every rod of this farm showed the effect of 
 wise and skillful husbandry. 
 
HOW WE CHILDREN WERE TRAINED. 55 
 
 We young farmers were taught that there must be no 
 marks of slothfulness. Weeds and bushes were not 
 permitted to get the upper hand. There were no 
 unsightly nooks and corners. A proper care of the 
 buildings and tools was taught. No leaving plows and 
 carts and other farming utensils lying about the yard or 
 field, to rust in the storm and burn in the sun. A taste 
 for neatness and order was cultivated. Every thing must 
 have its place, and when not in use, must be in its place. If 
 a sprig of white-weed, or oxeye, as it was called, — which 
 was the most dreaded pest of the farm, — was found, it 
 was carefully taken up, the roots placed on the wall with 
 a stone upon them, and the heads cast into the fire. 
 
 Father had various plans to collect and prepare large 
 quantities of good dressing for his fields. He gathered 
 muck from the meadow and the rich washings that accu- 
 mulated by the road-side. He replaced old walls with 
 bank walls, so as to get the loam under them for his barn- 
 yard and compost heap, and at the same time improve the 
 appearance of the farm. We boys all entered into the 
 plan of saving every thing that would help to enrich the 
 fields and make them more productive. 
 
 We were encouraged by obtaining the best farming- 
 tools that were to be had, and raising the best stock ; 
 and father would have been glad to have only the best 
 help when obliged to have any. But many of the families 
 in which he practiced were poor, and he had to take his 
 pay in work, poor though that might be, or receive no 
 compensation at all. He used to say there were three 
 classes of the poor for whom he doctored — " the Lord's 
 poor, the devil's poor, and poor devils." He was will- 
 ing to help the Lord's poor, even though there was no 
 prospect of pay. But when he came to the other two 
 
5 6 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 classes, and especially the poor devils, who would be sure 
 to send for him on the most stormy nights and then never 
 pay if they could avoid it, he thought that was a pretty 
 hard case. 
 
 It is a great privilege to be brought up on such a farm, 
 and by such a practical farmer. No matter what the pro- 
 fession of one is to be in after life, the influence of an 
 early agricultural training can not but be beneficial. 
 
 With this large family of ten children to feed and 
 clothe and educate — four or five of them to receive a 
 public education — ■ it cost a long and very earnest 
 struggle to remove the heavy debt with which this fine 
 farm was encumbered. Every child was interested in 
 securing that end. But that debt was really a powerful 
 and most beneficent educator in that family. It taught 
 invaluable lessons of frugality, economy, and industry, 
 which have never been forgotten. It inspired every one 
 to personal and vigorous effort to have our home free from 
 all encumbrance. And that was a memorable and most 
 joyous day when that long-sought-for object was accom- 
 plished. The very thought of a home unincumbered 
 with debt one would suppose would lead every farmer 
 and every member of his family to the most earnest and 
 persevering effort to secure such a boon. 
 
 A Present to our Minister. 
 
 A generation or two ago it was common in most 
 parishes for the people from time to time to make little 
 presents to their minister. Not only on thanksgiving 
 occasions, but almost every week some one would carry 
 something that would be useful in housekeeping to the 
 parsonage. It was not because the salary was small, — 
 though it was in most cases small compared with salaries 
 
HOW WE CHILDREN WERE TRAINED. 57 
 
 generally at the present day, — but it was an expression 
 of interest in the minister and his work. 
 
 This practice, which was most happy in its influence 
 alike upon the giver and the receiver, and which often- 
 times greatly cheered the heart of the pastor as a token 
 of confidence and affection, is not so common at the 
 present day. The railroads bring every one so near the 
 market that every thing he can raise is just as good to 
 him as so much money ; and it is a different thing to 
 give the minister a present now and then in money from 
 what it used to be to give a bushel of apples or potatoes, 
 a loin of veal, a few dozen of eggs, or a few pounds of 
 butter or cheese. And so these love-tokens to the pastor 
 are comparatively few in our times. 
 
 Once a year, at least, a special present went from our 
 farm to the parsonage. My father was famous for getting 
 up a splendid load of wood, whether intended for a present 
 or for market. Instead of arranging the crooked sticks 
 so as to make the largest bulk possible out of the smallest 
 quantity of wood, he either rejected the crooked sticks or 
 made "the crooked straight" by cutting, and then pack- 
 ing so closely that a squirrel could scarcely make its way 
 through it. 
 
 At the proper season he put long stakes into the sled 
 and made up a load of a cord and a half or two cords of 
 well-seasoned hard wood that was fit to be photographed. 
 On top of this load was placed a bag of apples from our fine 
 large orchard, a cheese, and a few pounds of butter from 
 mother's well-filled dairy-room, and perhaps a loin of veal 
 or a spare-rib of pork. Then two of us boys, when not 
 more than twelve or fifteen years of age, with a team of 
 two or three yoke of oxen and a horse, would take this 
 present, upon which our whole family had bestowed our 
 
58 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 blessings, to the minister. And did ever two boys feel 
 quite so smart as did these young teamsters on such an 
 errand ? 
 
 As that splendid load of wood went on its way through 
 the town every body knew where it was going, and we 
 too knew they did. 
 
 On arriving at the parsonage the venerable and vene- 
 rated minister, the late Rev. Edmund Mills, uncle of 
 Samuel J. Mills, the early missionary (and ah, how plainly 
 I can now see his tall, majestic, and gentlemanly form !), 
 and his family came out, with their hearty thanks and 
 "God bless you." The minister helped unload the wood, 
 and we shrewdly managed to give him, when we could, 
 the big ends of the sticks, that we might see the minister 
 lift. 
 
 Was n't it a scene never to be forgotten by us ? And 
 did n't we and all the family who were at church hear our 
 minister preach the next Sabbath ? Did he ever preach 
 half so well, and did we ever listen with half so much 
 interest before ? That load of wood as a present did the 
 givers ever so much more good than it did the recipients. 
 We all found that it was, indeed, "more blessed to give 
 than to receive." 
 
 Every one is always interested where he invests prop- 
 erty. This is a well-known principle in life. Hence the 
 little boy ran with so much eagerness to the missionary 
 meeting because, as he said : " I have an interest in that 
 concern, for I have given a shilling to it." 
 
 Why do not parents more generally think of the inter- 
 est these little attentions to the minister will awaken in 
 their children and in themselves toward him and his 
 instructions ? Let the children have a part in these little 
 offerings. Such presents from the people — though to- 
 
HOW WE CHILDREN WERE TRAINED. 59 
 
 gather they are important helps to the minister in his 
 family — are chiefly valuable as tokens of confidence and 
 interest in him and his work among them. And it would 
 be well could this old custom be revived. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 MY RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES. 
 
 I ENJOYED the instruction of pious parents and, 
 from the age of twelve, of the Sabbath-school. Like 
 most children religiously educated, I often had serious 
 thoughts of God and the judgment, of heaven and 
 hell. 
 
 When I was about sixteen my eldest sister was hope- 
 fully converted. For several weeks after this my mind 
 was tender and my thoughts serious. In a few months 
 my elder brother, then absent, became interested in 
 religion. News of this revived and greatly deepened all 
 my anxious thoughts. I now began to see the evil of sin. 
 I often repaired to the barn and, throwing myself on 
 the hay, poured out my bitter tears and cries unto God. 
 The Holy Spirit was evidently whispering to my heart. 
 Oh, that I had cherished that whisper as I would have 
 cherished the last whisper of a dying friend ! 
 
 I saw an awful division in the family. The parents and 
 the elder brother and sister were on the side of God and 
 bound to heaven ; the younger members, of whom I was 
 the eldest were on the side of Satan and bound to the 
 world of woe. One day I took my five younger brothers 
 and sisters to my chamber. I shut the door, and there, 
 amid sobs and tears that almost choked mv utterance, 
 unburdened my heart and told them that I was leading 
 them down to the world of woe. This was a melting 
 scene. The power of sympthy was so great that we all 
 wept together. 
 
 60 
 
M Y RELIGIO US EXPERIENCES. 6 I 
 
 Soon after this our indulgent father gave his sons a 
 holiday. I resolved to spend that day in my chamber 
 alone, seeking after God. Oh, how little, on that bright 
 morning, did I think what a midnight of darkness I would 
 soon bring over my own soul ! I finished my few morning 
 duties at the barn "and was on my way to my chamber. 
 The scalding tears were flowing from my eyes. As I 
 passed near the shop I heard the merry voices of my 
 brothers engaged in their sports. I hesitated. Con- 
 science told me to go straight to my chamber. The 
 tempter said : " Just see what the boys are doing and 
 then go to your chamber." 
 
 I yielded to the tempter's suggestion and went to the 
 shop. My brothers were making bows and arrows. I 
 stood a moment and was just turning to leave when 
 my eye caught a fine stick for a bow. I said to myself : " I 
 will just shave out a bow, and then I will go to my 
 chamber." 
 
 Oh, how conscience plunged her sting deep into my heart 
 as I seated myself with the stick and the shave ! For a 
 moment I was ready to cry out with pain. Yet amid all 
 this anguish of spirit I went on and finished a beautiful 
 bow. Now I would go to my chamber. I hesitated. I 
 wanted to see how it would look when strung. I knew it 
 would be trifling with the voice of conscience and the 
 Spirit to tarry another moment, but again I yielded to the 
 tempter and strung my bow. After writhing under another 
 sting from conscience, and trembling as it thundered in my 
 ear, I seated myself to make an arrow, which should cer- 
 tainly be the last act of resistance to the Spirit and to 
 conscience. Oh, how little did I yet know the power of 
 temptation or of my own weakness ! 
 
 My bow and arrow were now completed. I had thrice 
 
6 2 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 yielded to the voice of the tempter, stifled conscience, and 
 hushed the strivings of the Spirit. With even less resist- 
 ance than before I yielded again and accompanied my 
 brothers to the field in search of game. I would only 
 shoot once, and then return. But the tempter con- 
 tinued to urge once more, and once more, till a whole 
 hour had passed away ! Conscience again raised her 
 voice to a note of thunder, and cried : " Ruined youth ! 
 what are you doing ? " 
 
 It roused me to see my guilt and folly, and I hastened 
 to the house. I took my Bible and hymn-book and 
 entered my chamber. Alas ! the insulted Spirit had 
 departed. I tried to weep, but no tears came to my relief. 
 I tried to recall my morning feelings, but there was no 
 tenderness in my heart. No one can describe the anguish 
 of soul I then felt, as I exclaimed : — 
 
 " It is too late ; the Spirit is grieved away, and I 
 am lost ! Oh, that I had avoided that shop and not 
 passed by it, but had turned from it and passed away ! " 
 
 The amusements in which we were engaged were 
 not sinful in themselves, but they became sinful to me on 
 account of my peculiar circumstances. I had resolved to 
 spend the day in retirement, seeking after God. The 
 Holy Spirit no doubt prompted me to make this resolu- 
 tion, and for me to turn aside to engage in amusements, 
 however innocent they may have been in themselves, was 
 now, under these circumstances, trifling with my heav- 
 enly Friend, and trifling with the voice of conscience. 
 And my guilt consisted in my trifling with the Spirit, and 
 not in the mere fact that I was engaged in recreation. 
 
 The Spirit Departed. 
 
 Every day increased the evidence that I had grieved 
 away the Spirit of God. The Spirit had indeed departed. 
 
MY RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES. 63 
 
 My anxious thoughts by no means ceased at once. For 
 a long time I was a very unhappy youth. Thoughts of 
 what I might have been had I not squandered my time in 
 amusement and trifled with the voice of conscience and 
 the Spirit when they urged me to my chamber, often filled 
 my soul with great bitterness. Yet there was none of 
 that softening and melting of heart that I felt previous to 
 the Spirit's departure. By degrees, however, all these 
 anxious feelings and thoughts wore away and left me 
 almost entirely careless. 
 
 Immediately after the conversion of my elder brother 
 and sister, they began to spend a season together, after 
 family worship, on Sabbath evenings, in religious conver- 
 sation and united prayer. As soon as I began to mani- 
 fest seriousness, I was invited to accompany them on 
 these seasons to the little chamber. Shall I ever forget 
 those seasons ? Shall I ever forget the pleadings of that 
 brother and sister with me, and their intercessions and 
 strong cryings on my behalf? Especially shall I ever 
 forget the earnestness and almost agony with which, after 
 they saw evidence that I was grieving away the Spirit, 
 they urged their entreaties and offered their prayers ? 
 
 By degrees these seasons became irksome to me ; the 
 warnings and expostulations of my brother and sister 
 became unwelcome ; and I began to dread the approach of 
 Sabbath evening. 
 
 At length, one evening, I contrived to retire to bed so 
 as to prevent an invitation to the little chamber. Oh, 
 how that wounded the hearts of that anxious brother and 
 sister ! With what impassioned eloquence and bitter 
 tears did they meet me the next day, and plead with me 
 not to forsake their little meetings. But it was all in vain ; 
 I was unmoved. I met with them no more. 
 
64 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 I loved my sister. Nothing gave me greater pleasure 
 than to accompany her on a ride or walk. This she 
 understood ; and after I had abandoned the little meet- 
 ings, and seemed fast relapsing into stupidity, many and 
 many were the ways she devised to make an occasion for 
 a ride or a walk, that she might give vent to the irrepres- 
 sible yearnings of her heart for my salvation. No one 
 who has not, under similar circumstances, witnessed the 
 gushings forth of strong feelings from a pious sister's 
 heart can appreciate a description of those seasons. 
 Although the anxious entreaties of that sister, one would 
 think, were enough to break and melt a heart of ice, yet 
 my heart had become so hard and so cold that it could 
 resist them all. 
 
 Those personal appeals and entreaties became so unwel- 
 come and repulsive that I began to dread and even avoid 
 meeting my sister alone. The strong fraternal love that 
 so recently glowed in my bosom began to grow cold ; yea, 
 more, strange as it may appear, unkindness and even 
 hatred began to take its place ! I seemed to repel every 
 effort for my good with the angry words, " Let me alone ! " 
 
 In such a state was I when the Spirit was departed I 
 I would say to every awakened child or man : " Beware 
 how you trifle with the strivings of the Spirit of God. 
 That Spirit may be grieved away, and all joy and peace, 
 and even natural affection, may depart from your bosom, 
 and you may be left a restless, discontented, and wretched 
 being — a prey to all the vile passions of the soul. 
 Listen, oh, listen now, for your life, to the inviting* 
 melting whispers of that heavenly Spirit." 
 
 "Say, sinner, hath a voice within 
 Oft whispered to thy secret soul, 
 Urged thee to leave the ways of sin, 
 And yield thy heart to God's control? 
 
MY RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES. 65 
 
 God's Spirit will not always strive 
 With hardened, self-destroying man; 
 
 Ye who persist his love to grieve, 
 May never hear his voice again. 
 
 Sinner, perhaps this very day, 
 
 Thy last accepted time may be ; 
 Oh, shouldst thou grieve him now away, 
 
 Then hope may never smile on thee." 
 
 The Spirit Returned. 
 
 During a part of the winter following I attended a 
 public school in Whitinsville, which is in the town of 
 Northbridge, my birthplace. The school that winter was 
 taught by my elder brother. That neighborhood, the 
 autumn preceding, had been the scene of an extensive re- 
 vival of religion, and great numbers had been hopefully 
 converted. Many youth, between the ages of nine and 
 fifteen, had shared in this work of grace, and had publicly 
 professed their love for the Saviour. Four of these were 
 brothers and sisters from one family. 
 
 Never was there a more delightful scene than the 
 school presented that winter. Religion had diffused its 
 softening, hallowed influence among many of its members. 
 The most entire order and harmony prevailed. When the 
 Scriptures were read, it was as if we heard the voice of 
 the Almighty. Oh, what a solemnity reigned in that little 
 sanctuary, for it seemed like "none other than the house 
 of God and the gate of heaven," when the teacher offered 
 the morning and evening prayer ! And what a spectacle 
 did that place often present during the intermission sea- 
 sons ! It was not the scene of loud and boisterous mirth 
 usually witnessed in such places. Oh, no ! There was 
 seen a lovely band ; and there, in sweetest harmony, were 
 
66 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 heard their youthful songs of praise and the voice of 
 prayer. 
 
 Such were the scenes into which I was introduced. 
 Could I be happy there ? How uncongenial to my state 
 of mind was every thing around me — the countenances 
 and conversation of many of my school-mates, yea, and 
 almost the very atmosphere by which I was surrounded. 
 Every thing constantly reminded me of the little chamber 
 and of those little meetings where I often listened to a 
 brother's and a sister's earnest intercessions for my salva- 
 tion. And for a few weeks I was wretched. I was angry 
 with myself and with every body and every thing around 
 me. 
 
 After a few weeks I began, almost unconsciously, to 
 contrast myself — a restless, unhappy, and wretched youth 
 — with my pious school-mates. The calmness, peace of 
 mind, and ineffable happiness, and that tender love for 
 each other which they seemed to possess, I knew were the 
 fruits of their religion. I knew — for I have before said 
 that I enjoyed the instructions of Christian parents — 
 that only by repentance towards God and faith in the 
 Saviour could I be made to feel and enjoy what they felt 
 and enjoyed. I knew, too, that without the influences of 
 the Holy Spirit I could never exercise repentance and 
 faith. 
 
 I then recalled those days when the Spirit, in a voice so 
 tender and persuasive, urged me to repent and believe on 
 the Saviour. I remembered how I trifled with that kind 
 voice, and in an evil hour, when, perhaps, my foot was 
 almost on the threshold of salvation, I yielded to the en- 
 ticing voice of the tempter ; and oh, how did the sin of 
 grieving the blessed Spirit, now like a mountain weight, 
 press down my soul into the very dust ! The struggle was 
 
M Y RELIGIO US EXPERIENCES. 6 7 
 
 long and dreadful. At times despair seemed my only 
 portion. 
 
 The sympathy and prayers of all the pious youth of the 
 school and of Christians in the neighborhood were enlisted 
 in my behalf. With what earnestness did these young dis- 
 ciples, as they took me by the arm, repeat to me the precious 
 promises of the Bible, and entreat me to cast myself upon 
 the Saviour of the chief of sinners. How often, during 
 the hours of school, did they exhibit the deep anxiety they 
 felt for my salvation, by their kind notes, literally wet with 
 their tears. But all this was in vain. The thought that I 
 had grieved the Spirit seemed to shut out from my mind 
 every ray of hope. I exclaimed : " There can be no salva- 
 tion for me. I have grieved the Spirit, and he will never, 
 never return ! " 
 
 But the Spirit had already returned and was doing his 
 heavenly work. The promise, " Him that cometh to me 
 I will in no wise cast out," broke in upon the cloud of 
 midnight darkness that hung over my mind. I saw that 
 the blood of Christ could wash out the deepest stains of 
 sin. 
 
 At length, to the great joy of my pious associates, I was 
 led to hope in the pardoning mercy of God. 
 
 Boys Missionary Society. 
 
 Among some of my early religious experiences was a 
 feeling of sympathy for the darkened heathen, who had 
 never heard the good news of salvation — had never 
 heard the dear name of Jesus. At that time the work of 
 sending missionaries with the gospel to the heathen world 
 was comparatively new. The American Board of Mis- 
 sions had been formed only a few years, and a missionary 
 society among the young was hardly known. The more I 
 
68 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 thought about the heathen, the more anxious I felt to do 
 something to aid in this missionary work. 
 
 The church where I attended meeting was more than 
 three miles from my home. My young associates were 
 mostly in the neighborhood of the church. Several of 
 them had become interested in religion, and, like myself, 
 had publicly professed their love to the Saviour. 
 
 Among my plans to aid in sending the gospel to the 
 heathen, was to form a "Boys' Missionary Society." I 
 talked with my young friends about it. I drew up a sort 
 of constitution, in which it was stated that any boy could 
 become a member by the annual payment of fifty cents. 
 
 After getting my plan well-nigh perfected, and getting 
 the approval of a number of boys, I told my father what I 
 wanted to do. The fervent petitions of my father every 
 day at the family altar that the gospel might be sent to 
 the poor heathen had been a great means of awakening 
 and constantly increasing my interest in this subject. 
 Somehow, and most unexpectedly to me, my father did not 
 seem to approve of my plan. He doubted about my giv- 
 ing fifty cents in this way. That was quite a sum for me 
 to promise every year. 
 
 I was greatly disappointed. I also felt mortified that I 
 must be the first to fail in carrying out the plan I had 
 myself proposed. 
 
 May election — the great holiday, at that time, in Mas- 
 sachusetts — was near at hand. My father was to be 
 absent for several days, but he had told me I might hire a 
 neighbor's horse and spend election with some cousins 
 who lived ten miles distant. 
 
 After my father had left home, my mother, who had 
 learned of my disappointment, had one of those ever-to- 
 be-remembered Christian, motherly talks with me. She 
 
MY RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES. 69 
 
 told me if I was willing to forego my visit to my cousins', 
 I might have the money it would cost to join the Boys' 
 Missionary Society. She knew my father would not 
 object. 
 
 This was most joyful news, and I was ready cheerfully 
 to make the sacrifice. My mother also told me I might, 
 if I wished, go into town and spend election with my 
 young friends. 
 
 Had not the unexpected arrival, election morning, of 
 several other cousins pleasantly detained me at home, I 
 would have been with a company of fifteen of my young 
 friends in town, who spent a part of the day together. 
 Among other amusements in which this company engaged, 
 they had a row in two boats upon a large pond in the 
 neighborhood. They went upon a beautiful island and 
 had a pleasant picnic. On their return, all joyful and 
 happy in their songs, the boat, containing eight young 
 men and maidens, was suddenly upset, and four interest- 
 ing misses, two of them sisters, found a watery grave ! 
 What a pall of gloom and grief this sad event cast over 
 the whole town ! Thousands were present when all four 
 of those lovely forms were laid in the same grave ! 
 
 With what solemnity and gratitude did I think of the 
 mysterious providence that prevented me that day from 
 being, as I expected to be, with that party, and perhaps 
 being a victim of that melancholy disaster. It led me to 
 a new consecration of myself to the Saviour, and inspired 
 me with new zeal in my missionary interest. 
 
 The Boys' Missionary Society was soon after formed 
 with a goodly membership. This society — one of the 
 earlier juvenile missionary associations of the day — con- 
 tinued its good work for several years, till I left my home 
 to fit myself for what has been my life-work in the gospel 
 
JO INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE, 
 
 ministry. My interest in missions increased till, for 
 several years while pursuing my studies, my heart was 
 set on Africa as the field of my future labors. But God 
 in his wisdom assigned me a different but most delightful 
 field for a life-work among the young in our own land. 
 And in no phase of this work have I ever felt a deeper 
 interest — next to that of the conversion of the young — 
 than in enlisting them early in the cause of Christian 
 benevolence, in earning and saving the means of helping 
 to send the good news of salvation throughout the world. 
 
 The Dark Closet. 
 
 After I became interested in religion, in seeking a 
 place for retirement for my secret devotions, I thought of 
 a large closet out of the spare chamber. That closet 
 was the place where my mother kept her blankets, com- 
 forters, and various kinds of bed-clothes. It was large, 
 and without a window. When the door was shut it was 
 total darkness ; no eye but that of Him who " seeth in 
 secret " could behold any one who there sought retire- 
 ment from the world. 
 
 In that closet I erected my altar for secret prayer. It 
 was my Bethel ; and none but God can ever know the 
 Bethel seasons I there enjoyed in communing with the 
 Saviour in that time of my first love, and until I left 
 my home to prepare for the work of the gospel ministry. 
 
 In one of my visits to my dear old home years after 
 I had left it, as I was "company," I occupied at night the 
 spare chamber. In the morning I had a desire to visit 
 the dark closet and see how it would seem to shut the 
 door and pray to my Father which is in secret as I was 
 wont to do in my young days. I opened the door, and 
 what a scene greeted my eyes ! There in the center of 
 
MY RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES. J\ 
 
 the closet stood a chair, and before that chair there was 
 a cushion in which there were deep prints, where some 
 one, evidently, was accustomed to kneel in secret worship. 
 And who could it be ? Who but my own blessed mother, 
 who had prayed all her ten children into the kingdom ? 
 What a hallowed spot did it seem to me ! A thrill of 
 sacred awe came over me, and a voice almost seemed to 
 say, as it did to Moses at the burning bush : " Put off thy 
 shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou 
 standest is holy ground." 
 
 We gaze with interest upon the desk at which a distin- 
 guished author composed his works of world-wide fame, 
 at the studio of a great artist, at the chair where sat a 
 renowned statesman or hero ; but what are all these to 
 the prints in that cushion, where knelt that dear "mother 
 in Israel " in her communings with the Saviour, and 
 where she "had power with God," as she wrestled with 
 the angel in prayer for her children and for the upbuild- 
 ing of the Redeemer's kingdom ! 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MY LAST WINTER IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL. 
 
 A FEW rods north-east from the village referred to in 
 Chapter III, and near a burial ground, or, as an 
 Irishman put it, " convanient to the grave-yard," with its 
 white grave-stones and long rows of tombs, stood our red 
 district school-house. During the winter months, from 
 seventy-five to one hundred scholars, from the village and 
 the farm-houses for a mile around, thither resorted for in- 
 struction. Although the Bible was daily read in school, 
 yet no master ever accompanied it with the voice of 
 prayer, or ever taught his pupils that " the fear of the 
 Lord is the beginning of wisdom." 
 
 During the intermission at noon, a large part of the 
 misses who remained, and sometimes of the lads also, were 
 occupied in practicing the lessons they received at an even- 
 ing school for the education of the feet instead of the head. 
 This kind of education was very popular with some, and 
 they made much better progress in it than they did in the 
 education of their minds. Whether they found it in 
 subsequent life more serviceable to them as farmers, 
 mechanics, housewives, etc., I am not able to say. 
 
 In the summer of my seventeenth year I became per- 
 sonally interested in the subject of religion, and made a 
 public profession of that interest by uniting with the 
 church. My older brother and sister and myself were the 
 only young persons in that part of the town who had made 
 such a profession. 
 
 72 
 
MY LAST WINTER IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL. 73 
 
 Our " joining the church" was a subject of much con- 
 versation, wonder, and even ridicule among all classes in 
 the neighborhood. Much that was very trying to our 
 feelings we were obliged to hear and witness. 
 
 The villagers, old and young, to amuse themselves and 
 to ridicule religion, invented a story that our parents had 
 "hired their children to join the church " ; and with this 
 story they would often taunt us. But instead of exciting 
 our anger, as they wished to do, the influence of such ridi- 
 cule was to drive us more frequently to our closet, where 
 we obtained grace to endure it all with a meek, uncom- 
 plaining, and forgiving spirit. And we often counted it 
 all joy that we fell into these diverse trials of our faith, 
 which, I trust, worked in us patience. 
 
 The time was now approaching for the commencement 
 of the public winter school. This was to be my last 
 season at that school. And no one who has not been 
 similarly situated can understand the deep and painful 
 solicitude with which I looked forward to my attendance. 
 
 I was probably the first professedly pious youth that 
 had ever entered that school-house ! And there I was to 
 be brought into close intercourse with nearly one hundred 
 children and youth, most of whom had been educated to 
 sneer at religion and every thing serious. What a place 
 for a Christian youth to stand up alone ! I must become 
 a spectacle to the whole school — a mark at which every 
 one would aim the arrows of ridicule. All this I foresaw ; 
 and many were my seasons of earnest prayer for strength 
 equal to my day, and grace that should be sufficient for 
 me ; and also that I might, by my consistent conduct, my 
 meekness and patience under opposition and ridicule, 
 constrain some to glorify my heavenly Father. To my 
 excellent Christian mother, too, I often resorted, to 
 
7 4 INCIDENTS IN A .BUSY LIFE. 
 
 unbosom my anxieties and to seek her sympathy, coun- 
 sels, and prayers. 
 
 At length the day for the school to commence arrived. 
 With a mother's blessing and, as I felt, a Saviour's smile, 
 I went, cast down, yet rejoicing, to the place where I 
 expected trials awaited me. And my expectations were 
 indeed realized ; but the Lord was on my side and I was 
 not moved. At night my heart was full, of joy on account 
 of the grace that enabled me to pray for my opposers : 
 " Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they 
 do.' , 
 
 " Father," said Charles Willard, one of my class-mates, 
 one day just before the commencement of the winter 
 school — " father, Asa Bullard is going to school this 
 winter." 
 
 " Well, my son, what of it ? " 
 
 " Why, you know he has joined the church, and I 
 mean to do all I can to vex him." 
 
 " Oh, no, Charles ! I would n't go to troubling him, if 
 he lets you alone," replied Mr. Willard, who, though not 
 then a professor, was a respecter of religion. 
 
 " Well," said Charles, " I mean to watch him, and he 's 
 got to walk pretty straight, or I shall appear against him." 
 
 In all this Charles was as good as his word. Many 
 were his endeavors, by unkind words, actions, and looks, to 
 tease and, if possible, to irritate his class-mate. Nothing 
 would have delighted him more than to see me out of 
 temper. 
 
 " There ! " he would have tauntingly said, " there 's 
 your Christian, getting angry ! " 
 
 He well understood, as the ungodly generally do, just 
 how Christians ought to act. He knew that the indul- 
 gence of such a temper, even under ridicule and unpro- 
 
MY LAST WINTER IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL. 75 
 
 voked insult, is inconsistent with the meek, forgiving 
 spirit of the gospel. 
 
 At one time Charles would send me a note, in school 
 time, addressing me as "parson " or " deacon," or in some 
 way deriding me about my " religion." At another time, 
 by means of some grimace or gesture, or ludicrous draw- 
 ing, he would excite among the scholars near him a smile 
 of derision at my expense. All this, however, I seemed 
 to have grace to bear with a Christian temper. When 
 reviled, like my divine Master, I " reviled not again," but 
 bore it meekly. Now and then a tear of grief and pity 
 would appear in my eyes, but no flush of passion was seen 
 upon my cheek. 
 
 Supposing there was no hope of doing my school-mates 
 any spiritual good by direct efforts till I had in a measure 
 softened their prejudices by the influence of a silent 
 example, I carefully avoided all intercourse with them. 
 I never mingled with them at recess or intermission, so 
 that they seldom had the opportunity, except for a few 
 moments as the school closed at noon and at night, openly 
 to assail me with their ridicule. 
 
 One day, in a neighborhood about a mile from the 
 village, there was held an afternoon and evening religious 
 meeting. Among the attendants was a young cousin of 
 Charles Willard, who was brought up with him as a 
 sister. During the recess I had a conversation with her 
 on the subject of religion, and found that she was anxious 
 about her salvation. 
 
 " I wish," she said, as we were about to close our 
 interview, " I wish you would talk with Cousin Charles." 
 
 "Talk with Charles!" I said to myself. " Oh, how he 
 would scoff and deride ! It would be casting pearls before 
 swine!" And I then informed her of the manner in 
 
7 6 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY II FE. 
 
 which her cousin had been treating me. She was greatly- 
 surprised and grieved to hear this, but said : — 
 
 "Well, I think he has for a few days seemed to be 
 serious, and I wish you would converse with him." 
 
 How my heart throbbed with joy at the very thought 
 that such a thing could be true ! In reflecting a moment 
 I remembered that the conduct of Charles towards me 
 had, for several days, been changed. He had made no 
 attempts to ridicule or in any way to molest me. 
 
 " I now recollect," I said, " that several times of late 
 Charles has seemed to be trying to get near me ; but, 
 supposing it was for no good purpose, I have avoided 
 him. Charles Willard serious ! " I exclaimed with emo- 
 tion. u Oh, I hope it is so ! I will surely seek an inter- 
 view with him at the earliest opportunity." 
 
 What a subject was this for me that night to carry to 
 my closet ! Earnest were my petitions that God would 
 give me one friend in school who would sympathize and 
 rejoice with me in all I was called to suffer for Christ and 
 his cause. 
 
 The next morning I sought divine guidance, and anew 
 commended my class-mates to the mercy of God. During 
 the forenoon session Charles appeared sedate and thought- 
 ful. With deep and anxious emotions did I observe him, 
 and many were the silent prayers I offered in his behalf. 
 Several times I caught his eye and exchanged kind looks ; 
 and these looks, so unlike those of the scorn and con- 
 tempt that I had been accustomed to receive, went to my 
 very heart. Already I had forgiven all his unkindness 
 and I longed to meet him as a friend. 
 
 As the school closed at noon Charles immediately 
 began to make his way among the scholars towards the 
 one he had so often and unkindly injured. Unobserved 
 
MY LAST WINTER IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL. J J 
 
 by others, we met and took each other cordially by the 
 hand. 
 
 " Charles," I asked affectionately, " would n't you like 
 to take a walk ? " And together we left the noisy, thought- 
 less throng, and directed our way to the calm, quiet re- 
 treat of a beautiful grove near by. For a few moments 
 we walked on in silence. At length, encouraged by the 
 whole appearance of my friend, I broke the silence by 
 the inquiry : — 
 
 " Charles, I want to ask how you feel in regard to the 
 subject of religion ? " 
 
 The inquiry was answered by a burst of emotion and a 
 flood of tears ! We entered the grove and seated our- 
 selves under a large oak, and there, leaning upon each 
 other, we wept together. After our emotions became a 
 little calmed, Charles made a full and most heart-felt dis- 
 closure of his feelings. He mentioned his conversation 
 with his father before the school commenced, and con- 
 fessed all the unkind efforts he had been making to tease 
 and vex his friend ; and he earnestly sought forgiveness. 
 This was most cheerfully granted, and again our emotions 
 found relief in tears. 
 
 " For some time," said Charles, " I have been very 
 unhappy, although I have continued my opposition to you. 
 O Asa, the patience and meekness with which you have 
 received all my unkind treatment often touched my heart, 
 and sometimes almost caused me to sink. Many a time 
 have I longed to feel as you seemed to feel, and to enjoy 
 the peace of mind and happiness that you appeared to 
 enjoy. Oh, pray for me, that I may be forgiven and be 
 happy with you." 
 
 After a full and free interchange of feelings, together 
 we knelt under that majestic oak, and I poured out my 
 
7 8 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 soul in tears and strong cryings in behalf of my once 
 thoughtless and ridiculing, but now broken-hearted, class- 
 mate. 
 
 For several days Charles was borne down under very 
 deep convictions of sin, and I was as deeply burdened with 
 anxiety on his account. I knew by the most painful per- 
 sonal experience that the Holy Spirit, now so evidently 
 striving with my friend, might be easily grieved away, and 
 my friend be left to renew, with sevenfold violence, all his 
 opposition and ridicule. 
 
 We often repaired together to the grove, there to con- 
 verse on heavenly themes and seek for pardoning mercy. 
 With all the solicitude that pious parents feel for an 
 anxious child, did I labor to point out the way of eternal 
 life, and exhort and entreat my friend to believe on the 
 Lord Jesus Christ that he might be saved. Many were 
 the letters, full of exhortation and warning, all breathing 
 the most heart-felt interest and lively concern for his 
 spiritual welfare, that I daily wrote him. 
 
 At length, while seeking God in our favorite resort in 
 the grove, prayer was heard, and light and peace broke in 
 upon the mind of Charles, and joy and gladness filled my 
 heart. The new song of praise for pardoning love was put 
 into the lips of the one, and of thanksgiving for the gift 
 of a companion of his joys and sorrows, into those of the 
 other. My raptures were not unlike those of the lone 
 traveler, when, " a stranger in a strange land," surrounded 
 by those whose language he knows not and with whom he 
 feels connected by no tie of interest or sympathy, he 
 suddenly meets one from his native country, with interests, 
 sympathies, and associations common with himself. Who 
 that has not been a solitary Christian youth in such a 
 school, and seen, in connection with his own labors, a 
 
MY LAST WINTER LN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL. Jg 
 
 class-mate converted from a persecuting Saul into a meek 
 and praying Paul, can rightly estimate the happiness and 
 joy that I now experienced ? Strong and endearing, and 
 daily increasing, was the brotherly attachment that now 
 existed between us. Our friendship was like that of 
 David and Jonathan. 
 
 George Smith, another of my class-mates, had partici- 
 pated with Charles in much of his opposition to me. 
 He had marked Charles' change of conduct. He often 
 narrowly observed him when the cloud of sorrow was on 
 his countenance and the burden of sin was upon his 
 soul. He saw the change when the cloud passed away 
 and the sunshine of peace and joy appeared. He gazed 
 and admired, while in his heart he hated the change. He 
 witnessed the growing attachment between his two class- 
 mates and their apparent happiness. 
 
 Charles, only a little while before wondering how I 
 could so patiently and meekly bear all his ridicule, was 
 now bearing ridicule with the same meekness and patience 
 himself. This was indeed marvelous to George. The 
 more he thought of it, and the more he observed the 
 conduct of us two friends, the more his wonder increased. 
 All was a perfect mystery. 
 
 " There must be something," no doubt he often 
 thought within himself, " in this religion to which I am a 
 stranger." 
 
 As he pondered this subject he wished he understood more 
 about it and about the secret of our apparent enjoyment. 
 The Spirit of God, though he knew it not, was awakening in 
 his mind these thoughts and desires and leading him by 
 a way he knew not. A slight shade of thoughtfulness 
 and anxiety began to appear in his countenance. This 
 was quickly seen by me and communicated to my new 
 
80 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 friend ; and it became a matter of anxious joy, consulta- 
 tion, and prayer. Erelong these three classmates were 
 on their way to that Bethel-spot in the beautiful grove. 
 For awhile pride and shame prevented George from ac- 
 knowledging any special interest in the subject of religion ; 
 but at length the sigh and the unbidden tear revealed 
 what in words he was unwilling to admit. 
 
 For several days we continued to spend a season 
 together in the grove. Every possible effort was made to 
 lead George to the Saviour. His convictions became deep 
 and his distress almost overpowering. Never will his two 
 friends forget how his agonizing inquiry, " What shall I 
 do ? Oh, what shall I do ? " went to their hearts, and 
 with what importunity they pleaded with God in his 
 behalf. 
 
 His anxiety continued from day to day unabated. He 
 seemed to feel that he was a lost and ruined sinner ; but 
 with all the instructions we could give him, our explana- 
 tions of the way to the Saviour, of repentance and faith, 
 and all our earnest exhortations and prayers, there he 
 remained. Our efforts in his behalf and our sympathy for 
 him he tenderly felt and always met with many testimo- 
 nies of gratitude. 
 
 During the exercises of school one forenoon, George 
 was seen very deeply engrossed with a book. This was 
 soon observed by his two anxious friends. Alive as we 
 were to his dearest interest, we watched every change in 
 his appearance with the solicitude that an anxious mother 
 watches the changing symptoms of a sick child. 
 
 The perusal, of that book was evidently producing a 
 disastrous effect on the mind of George. That deep, 
 settled anxiety that had appeared in his countenance for 
 several days was giving place to a sort of uneasy reckless- 
 ness and desperation of feeling. 
 
MY LAST WINTER IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL. 8 I 
 
 What could be the character of the book that was 
 working such a change in his appearance and evidently in 
 his feeling ? We soon ascertained that it was a work on 
 that system of error that says, in the language of the old 
 serpent to our first parents, " Thou shalt not surely die." 
 The great deceiver has no mightier instrument of quieting 
 a troubled conscience, hushing the secret whisperings of 
 the Spirit, and lulling the soul into the slumbers of the 
 second death ! Our anxiety for his spiritual welfare was 
 now brought almost into agony. Had George, as we 
 were gazing upon him, been suddenly smitten down, a. 
 lifeless corpse, our alarm and distress could scarcely have 
 been greater. In every possible way — by the unutterable 
 anxiety of our countenances and by our notes, in which 
 we expostulated, warned, and entreated — we besought 
 him to desist from this deliberate act of self-ruin to his 
 soul ; but all was in vain. He persisted, thus deliberately 
 closing his ears to the entreaties of his friends and the 
 warnings of conscience. 
 
 From this sad day all seriousness disappeared, and he 
 could even jest at his former feelings and the prayers and 
 entreaties of his anxious class-mates. The Spirit was 
 grieved away, and the voice of conscience hushed into a 
 slumber so deep, so death-like, that there is reason to fear 
 nothing but the trump of the last great day will ever 
 awake it. 
 
 But on whom rested the fearful responsibility of having 
 placed that conscience-silencing, Spirit-grieving, and soul- 
 ruining volume in the hands of that once anxious but 
 now hardened youth ? Alas ! it was a professed friend 
 and class-mate, Daniel Thompson, who approached him as 
 Joab did Amasa, with a kiss on his lips but a sword in 
 his hand. It is true that friend was then, like all his 
 
82 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 class-mates, but a youth, and he was only acting out the 
 principles in which his parents had educated him. But 
 all this can be no excuse for a deliberate attempt to stop 
 a fellow-mortal in his inquiries after the way of life, and 
 turn him back into the beaten pathway to perdition. 
 
 And now a few words in regard to the subsequent his- 
 tory of these class-mates. 
 
 Charles, after having pursued a course of preparatory 
 studies for a few years, entered the ministry, and is in 
 New England, laboring with a good degree of success in 
 the vineyard of the Lord. We have not often met, but 
 have ever been warm friends, both cherishing the most 
 tender recollection of our last winter at the public school 
 and the solemn and interesting scenes connected with 
 that dear old sacred oak in the beautiful grove. 
 
 Daniel is, so far as I know, an industrious and respectable 
 citizen. But he still adheres to that system of error by 
 which he was the unhappy instrument of engulfing in 
 ruin all the immortal hopes and interests of his classmate 
 George. 
 
 But alas for poor George, the once anxious inquirer after 
 the way of life and salvation ! What must be said of 
 him ? So sad and mournful was his short life of intem- 
 perance and opposition to every thing sacred that I can 
 not dwell upon it. But let all my young readers learn 
 a lesson from it, and make use of opportunities while they 
 are theirs. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ATTENDING ACADEMY. MY FIRST SCHOOL. DECIDING TO 
 
 PREPARE FOR THE MINISTRY. 
 
 IN the spring of 1821 my oldest brother and sister and 
 myself attended, one term, the academy at Uxbridge. 
 This was my first experience of leaving my home. But 
 as my brother and sister were with me, there was no 
 especial loneliness experienced. Every Sabbath evening 
 we had a season of religious conversation and prayer at 
 my sister's room. Some pleasant new acquaintances were 
 formed among the students, and the term was, in all 
 respects, one of interest and profit. 
 
 In the autumn of 1822 I attended the academy in Mon- 
 son one term. There was nothing of marked interest 
 during that period — my first absence from home alone — 
 except that I had a severe attack of what physicians call 
 nostalgia, but in common language is called home-sick- 
 ness. This disease is so well known that it need not be 
 described. 
 
 In the winter of that year, when I was a little more 
 than eighteen years of age, I taught school in the east 
 part of Sutton, in what was called the Hatherway dis- 
 trict. One event in connection with my teaching there 
 may be worthy of notice. 
 
 For two or three winters there had been some insubor- 
 dination in the school. Soon after it commenced that 
 
 winter, word came to me that Charles , my oldest 
 
 scholar, had given out word that he intended to put the 
 young teacher out of the school-house, 
 
 83 
 
84 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 For several days it was evident that he was preparing 
 for a conflict. Just before closing school one afternoon, 
 as I passed near him, I quietly and unobserved by any 
 one requested him to stop a few moments after school. 
 
 When we were alone, I informed him in as pleasant a 
 manner as possible of what I had heard. I then assured 
 him that there would be no opportunity for any such con- 
 flict between him and his teacher. He was then informed 
 of the business for which the school committee had hired 
 me — to teach, and not to see who was the stronger, some 
 one of the scholars or the teacher. He was told what a 
 large proportion of the taxes paid by the parents in that 
 district was for school purposes ; and that the parents 
 had a right to expect that I should be as faithful in teach- 
 ing their children as any one would be in performing any 
 work for which he was hired. 
 
 " Now, Charles," said I, " I shall have no time to turn 
 away from my work of teaching to test my strength with 
 any of my older scholars, who know better than to inter- 
 rupt the peace and prosperity of the school. I shall just 
 request the committee to remove any such disturbers of 
 our work from the school. I should be very sorry to have 
 any of my older scholars — and especially my oldest and 
 best one — taken out of school. You are almost as old 
 as your teacher. With a diligent use of your time, in one 
 or two winters you yourself will be as well qualified to 
 teach as he is. And I want to do all I can this winter to 
 aid you, and also all the scholars, in making such progress 
 in the business for which the school is kept that at the 
 close it shall be said by the committee and all the parents 
 that this has been the best school they have ever had. I 
 want this should be the case, both for my own sake and 
 also for the sake of all the scholars. Our success as 
 
MY FIRST EXPERIENCE IN KEEPING SCHOOL. 85 
 
 teacher and scholars will be judged of by the orderly 
 character of the school and by the progress that is made 
 in the various branches of study by the scholars. Now, 
 Charles, all this will depend a good deal on the older 
 scholars. If they are studious and orderly, and show an 
 interest in the peace and improvement of the school, the 
 younger ones will be likely to do the same. So I want 
 you, my oldest scholar, to take the lead and be my assist- 
 ant in this matter." 
 
 I then approached him, and extending my hand, said : 
 
 " May I depend on you, Charles, to do this ? " 
 
 The tears came in his eyes as he took my hand and 
 
 pledged his help. He walked quite a distance towards 
 
 my boarding-place, away from his home, while we had a 
 
 very pleasant talk. 
 
 It hardly need be said that Charles fulfilled his promise 
 and was a most studious and well-behaved scholar all 
 through the winter, and a great help to the teacher. 
 
 Was not this a much better way than to have had a 
 conflict before the school ? 
 
 In the spring of this year I began to consider the subject 
 whether I ought not to prepare myself to preach the gos- 
 pel. As it was quite a trial for my father to give up his 
 plans to entrust more fully the management of the farm 
 to my older brother, and accede to that brother's wishes 
 to obtain an education, I resolved not to mention my 
 desires to my father. Instead of this, I arranged with 
 my oldest sister to be my mediator in the matter. After 
 stating freely to her my longing to fit myself for that 
 important profession, I left it with her to confer with both 
 mother and father on the subject. Sister entered heartily 
 into my plans. She had frequent conversations on the 
 subject with our mother, who approved of my purposes. 
 
86 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 At length the matter was laid before father. This was 
 while I was absent with my school, and while at home, at 
 one time, father informed me of what he had learned in 
 regard to my wishes, from my sister and also from mother. 
 He then said that such a step was a very important one. 
 It would be a course that would involve large expense ; 
 and the thought of preparing for that sacred office was a 
 very solemn one. He then said he wanted me carefully 
 to consider the subject and let him know what I thought 
 it best for me to do. I told him " I had thought the 
 subject over with a great deal of seriousness and prayer; 
 and I had already made up my mind to prepare for college 
 as soon as I became of age. I did not wish to do any 
 thing that would increase his care and anxiety so long as 
 he rightly claimed my help/' 
 
 A few hours after this pleasant and perfectly free con- 
 versation, he met me again and kindly said : " You had 
 better go back to your school, and at its close go with 
 your brother, who has entered Amherst College, to Am- 
 herst Academy and commence your studies." 
 
 It was pleasant to see how much easier my good father 
 found it, when he had once made the sacrifice of giving 
 up one son, to give up the second ; and I believe it 
 became easier and easier till five of his boys started 
 for college. 
 
 We children felt, with our parents, that so far as possi- 
 ble we should share alike in regard to pecuniary favors. 
 When we, one after another, became of age, a few hundred 
 dollars were given us. Those of us who left home for 
 study before we became of age were charged for our time 
 just what it would cost to secure men to take our places. 
 Then all the expenses of our education were readily met 
 by our father, and we gave our notes on interest for the 
 
MY FIRST EXPERIENCE IN KEEPING SCHOOL. 87 
 
 same, to be paid as we could obtain the means after we 
 entered upon our work. 
 
 This plan we all approved, and it made us economical in 
 our expenses, and taught us important lessons, in many 
 respects, that were of great value to us in after life. We 
 knew that the whole family at home, father and mother, 
 brothers and sisters, were economizing in many ways on 
 our account, to furnish the means we needed to pursue 
 our studies. 
 
 In my own case it was many years after I entered my 
 profession before my indebtedness for my education was 
 canceled. When in college it was often a wonder to me, 
 how the sons of parents in moderate circumstances — sons 
 of clergymen, in some cases, with small income, and 
 when they knew every member of the family at home was 
 making the greatest sacrifices in their behalf — could be 
 so thoughtless and prodigal. If every term students were 
 obliged to sign a note for the money they expend, it might 
 check their prodigality. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PREPARATORY AND COLLEGE COURSE. 
 
 IN the spring of 1822 I entered Amherst Academy, 
 where I spent about one year and seven months. My 
 class-mate, Thomas Boutelle, agreed to be my room-mate 
 when we entered college. But near the close of our pre- 
 paratory course he concluded to spend another year in 
 the academy, as it would have been wise for me also to 
 have done. 
 
 By his decision I was left without a room-mate for col- 
 lege, and I threatened a suit for breach of promise unless 
 he would provide a substitute, and one as congenial as 
 himself. He recommended his cousin, Asaph Boutelle, 
 then in the academy at New Ipswich, N. H. 
 
 I opened a correspondence with him, which resulted in 
 a mutual agreement, though we had never met, to enter 
 this interesting relation of room-mates. And we were so 
 well satisfied with the union that we continued it for 
 three years ; and we should have continued it through the 
 whole course, had not circumstances prevented. We were 
 in perfect sympathy in our tastes and in our religious sen- 
 timents and feelings, and in regard to the work of life for 
 which we were studying. No two class-mates were more 
 attached to each other than we ; and this attachment 
 continued till my dear friend finished his course in the 
 ministry and received his reward. 
 
 I entered college in 1824, when I was twenty years of 
 age. The college was then in its infancy, and it had a 
 
PREPARATORY AND COLLEGE COURSE. 89 
 
 hard struggle for existence. The students, scarcely less 
 than the trustees and faculty, were greatly interested in 
 all that was done to secure its endowment and its charter, 
 and great was the enthusiasm when the act of incorpora- 
 tion was obtained. 
 
 Rev. Heman Humphrey, d.d., was our president at that 
 time, and our professors were Messrs. Edward Hitchcock, 
 Nathan W. Fiske, Solomon Peek, Samuel M. Worcester, 
 and Jacob Abbott. Ebenezer S. Snell was then tutor. 
 
 In consequence of my home training, as described in 
 Chapter IV, the laws and rules of college never came in 
 conflict with my wishes. I never felt inclined to join any 
 college strikes. Sometimes I was a little troubled lest 
 some of those inclined to lawlessness would think I was 
 green or wanting in courage. But I could really find noth- 
 ing I wanted to do in violation of the requirement of col- 
 lege, or that would bring me into conflict with the officers 
 whose business it was to look after the unruly. It was no 
 virtue in me, but it was the result of my early training. 
 
 There was one thing, perhaps, that helped to keep me 
 watchful over my conduct in college. The year before I 
 went to Amherst for study, two students of college from 
 Sutton were sent home for insubordination. It seemed to 
 me at the time that it must be a terrible disgrace to them- 
 selves and a most grievous mortification to their parents 
 and friends. I said to myself: "What a dreadful thing it 
 would be should my brother, who was then in college, be 
 thus disgraced ! " And so, in the simplicity of my heart, I 
 wrote him a long letter, beseeching him to be careful and 
 do nothing that would bring such a disgrace upon him and 
 such grief upon his home. And this I did, although that 
 brother was a professing Christian and was studying for 
 the ministry ! Still, the bare thought that such a thing 
 
90 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 could happen was to me most appalling. This made such 
 an impression upon me that it no doubt served to make 
 me more watchful over my own conduct while in college. 
 
 While in the academy I became very much interested in 
 the religious meetings, both in the academy and in the 
 village. Rev. Daniel A. Clark was then the pastor of the 
 Congregational church near the college. I often was with 
 him in the meetings among his people. 
 
 During a time of unusual religious interest in the 
 academy, President Humphrey preached one evening. He 
 spoke without notes. I felt much alarmed as he men- 
 tioned his text, which indicated that he was going to speak 
 on the doctrine of election. That subject was more fre- 
 quently presented in those days than it is now. I feared 
 the preaching on that subject would check the revival. 
 But what was my surprise to learn that three young per- 
 sons, under the influence of that same sermon and while 
 they were listening to it, were led to hope in the electing 
 love and mercy of God ! And ever since then I have felt 
 that there is no doctrine or truth in the Word of God, 
 if properly and in a scriptural way presented, that will be 
 out of place in a revival. God's truth will not grieve afaay 
 the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Very early in my studies at Amherst, my attention 
 was directed to the colored people in town, of whom 
 there were quite a number. In the family where for 
 awhile I boarded, there was a colored servant whom we 
 all called "Mother Phillis." She was a widow about sixty 
 years of age. She was an intelligent and devoted Chris- 
 tian. Very often I used to get up early Monday mornings, 
 when she was engaged in washing, that I might have a 
 good religious talk with her. Those seasons were more 
 inspiring to my religious feelings than many a sermon. 
 
PREPARATORY AND COLLEGE COURSE. 9 I 
 
 This interest in Mother Phillis made me acquainted 
 with her children and their families. And early in college 
 I formed a Bible class in a private dwelling, about a mile 
 distant. This class was kept up till I left college. It was 
 one of the most interesting classes I ever taught. We 
 usually had a room full of persons of all ages. 
 
 My interest in this class of people was such that for 
 two or three years my heart was very much set upon 
 spending my life in Africa. Mother Phillis was most 
 deeply interested in this class. After I left Amherst, in 
 answer to a letter she thus expresses the overflowings of 
 a grateful, pious soul : — 
 
 I improve this opportunity to answer your kind letter. The past 
 acquaintance of which you speak is ever to be remembered by me : 
 for our sweet conversation about God I can not forget. When I call 
 to remembrance those past hours in which I took so much delight in 
 talking about God and his love to man, holy joy warms my aged 
 heart. Even now it is filled with sacred love and thanksgiving to 
 God that he gave me a friend with whom I could converse so freely 
 upon the soul-reviving subject of redeeming love. 
 
 I carried your letter to the class and it was read. They were all 
 rejoiced to hear from you, and to know that you had not forgotten 
 them. Oh, that I had the happy news to tell you that the class, or 
 even one of them, had begun to rejoice in hope of salvation through 
 a crucified Redeemer ! But alas ! it is not so. But be not dis- 
 couraged. We know not what the Lord in his great mercy may do for 
 their precious souls. Still continue your prayers in faith for us, know- 
 ing that the prayer of faith availeth much. 
 
 Our little class is becoming more interesting, and we have begun to 
 get a library. May God revive his work in this class until all shall go 
 forth joyfully praising God and the Lamb ! 
 
 I thank you for your kind exhortations. May God strengthen me 
 by his almighty grace to do my duty better, and live nearer to him 
 than I have hitherto done ; and may he crown all your undertakings 
 with success ! 
 
 In 1829, while I was at Andover Theological Seminary, 
 she wrote to a mutual friend of ours a most touching 
 
92 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 letter, expressing the greatest sorrow and disappointment 
 that her old friend and teacher was not to be at the com- 
 mencement at Amherst as was expected. 
 
 "Why did we indulge the hope," she writes, "of seeing 
 you and our former teacher here this fall ? Our fondest 
 expectations are now cut off forever. Tell Mr. B. that 
 all our class have cherished the strongest hopes of seeing 
 him. Even little Harriet says : ' Grandma, Mr. Bullard 
 is coming next week ! ' But alas ! her expectations failed 
 with ours. 
 
 " A few weeks since I said : l Commencement is close by, 
 and then I shall see my best friend ; yes, my eyes, ere they 
 are closed in death, shall see him once more.' But now 
 I know that my eyes shall see him no more, and my ears, 
 which have so oft heard the voice of prayer from his lips, 
 shall hear his voice no more. Tell Mr. B. that our Bible 
 class has improved some, and our teachers very much." 
 
 Is it strange that such appreciation of the little service 
 I was able to give this class led me to feel a very deep 
 interest in them and in behalf of this race every-where ? 
 
 During most of my vacations in college I taught school ; 
 one winter in South Weymouth. The school-house was 
 very small for the large number of scholars. There was 
 a large, old-fashioned fire-place, but the house was heated 
 by a stove, sometimes literally heated. The spacious 
 fire-place was utilized by placing in it several seats, which 
 were occupied by some of the smaller children. Then 
 boards were placed across the passage-ways between the 
 tiers of seats so as to accommodate several more of the 
 scholars. 
 
 The people in Weymouth were in the habit of making 
 a good deal of the closing examinations of their schools. 
 I was informed that many of the older scholars in my 
 
PREPARATORY AND COLLEGE COURSE. 
 
 93 
 
 school — as the examination was the last session of the 
 school — were in the habit of absenting themselves. So 
 I told the school, a few weeks before the close, that there 
 ought to be a new and larger school-house in this district. 
 This house was quite too strait, too small, for such a large 
 number of scholars, and that it was old and every way 
 inconvenient. And then I told them " I would almost 
 promise them a new school-house before the next winter 
 if they would do one thing. Let every scholar be present 
 at the examination. Fill every seat so that all the parents 
 and friends who come to the examination will have to 
 stand, and so that they can see how inconvenient the 
 house is for so many scholars, and I believe the district 
 will at once build a new and more spacious house." 
 
 The examination day came, and every scholar was 
 present and every seat was occupied. The friends came 
 in and filled every inch of space — the floor — between the 
 seats and the entry, and numbers were on the outside 
 looking in at the windows. The crowd was such that the 
 scholars, when they recited, had to stand upon their seats 
 to be seen ! It is enough to say that the people of " Fore- 
 Street District " saw and felt the necessity of a larger and 
 and a better school-house for their children ; and the next 
 season it was provided, and the teacher's promise was 
 fulfilled, much to the joy and comfort of the scholars. Of 
 course this event made the teacher a very popular man 
 among the scholars. 
 
 Two winters I taught the district school in what is 
 called " Eight Lots," in the town of Sutton, about two 
 miles from my old home. Then one winter I taught the 
 grammar school in the town of Canton, Conn. And I 
 find, among my old papers and documents, two written 
 addresses that I delivered to my school, one near the 
 
94 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 beginning and the other at the close. Judging from these 
 addresses, and from my recollections, religious instruction 
 was made quite prominent ; and teacher and scholars were 
 on the most friendly terms, so that the separation, at the 
 close, was very tender ; and all carried away pleasant 
 memories of the few weeks we had spent together. 
 
 Shortly after Amherst College received its charter in 
 1825, measures were taken to form a college church, and in 
 March, 1826, one was formed under the name of "The 
 Church of Christ in Amherst College." 
 
 The college was founded by the prayers and toils and 
 sacrifices of Christian men, and it has ever been, in a re- 
 markable sense, a Christian college. It has often been the 
 scene of the special out-pouring of the Holy Spirit. There 
 were two revivals of remarkable interest during my con- 
 nection with college, in 1827 and 1828. 
 
 In Professor Tyler's " History of Amherst College during 
 its First Half -century," he has used the following extract 
 of a letter, which, by his request, I wrote him, in regard 
 to an incident in the latter revival : — 
 
 Only a few weeks before the close of the term President Humphrey 
 was all ready one Saturday to start for his former home in Pittsfield, 
 when some students called on him and told him that there were signs 
 of seriousness in college. Dr. Humphrey turned out his horse and 
 gave up his visit. At evening prayers he stopped the pious students 
 and gave them a most solemn exhortation to earnest prayer and faithful 
 labor for a revival. The Holy Spirit was evidently present. Sabbath 
 day several were hopefully converted, and for a day or two conversions 
 were constantly occurring, when all at once the work seemed to stop. 
 
 Monday evening the president again stopped the pious students 
 after prayers and, in the most solemn and anxious manner, said : 
 "Something is wrong!" 
 
 Never shall I forget that day ! and many will probably remember 
 while they live that judgment-like Monday. The students were 
 gathered every-where in little clusters, as solemn as if some great 
 
PREPARATORY AND COLLEGE COURSE. 95 
 
 calamity had just fallen upon us. Soon the college was one great 
 house of prayer. In every entry and from many a room could be 
 heard the voice of the most earnest, agonizing supplications. From 
 that hour the work went on. Those who were bowed down under 
 conviction of sin found relief, and there were conversions almost every 
 day till the close of the term. 
 
 In these revivals there were many most remarkable 
 cases of conversion ; some of them of those who were, as 
 many felt, the most hopeless, as they were certainly the 
 most reckless, in college. Among the converts were the 
 late Rev. A. W. McClure, d.d., the eloquent and able 
 preacher, author, editor, etc. ; and Henry Lyman, the 
 devoted missionary, who fell a martyr among the Battas of 
 Sumatra. 
 
 There were many events of interest, serious and com- 
 ical, that might be mentioned, connected with my four 
 years in college. It may not be out of place to record 
 the following incident: — 
 
 A few years ago I was at the commencement services 
 at my Alma Mater. At the prize speaking, with two 
 other gentlemen, I was requested to sit on the plat- 
 form with the professor who presided. At the close of the 
 evening session, as the professor was about to announce 
 the prizes, he said : — 
 
 " It may be interesting to the audience to be informed 
 that there is a gentleman on the platform who, sixty years 
 ago, at the first prize speaking in Amherst College, when 
 he was a freshman, spoke and received a prize ! " 
 
 This singular and most unexpected announcement was 
 received with a burst of applause from the audience. 
 How little we know in regard to our future ! We may 
 propose, but God disposes. 
 
 Some one, a few days before my class graduated, asked : 
 •" What are you going to do after you graduate ? " 
 
g6 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 My instant reply was : " I am going immediately to 
 Andover Theological Seminary, and right through the 
 course into my work. You don't find me going off to 
 teach, as some of the class are going to do." 
 
 A few days after, Prof. Jacob Abbott, my professor in 
 mathematics, sent for me to call at his room. On meeting 
 him he said he had received a letter from Augusta, Me., 
 asking him to send some one to teach a private school 
 of twenty or twenty-five boys, who were fitting for col- 
 lege. He then said he had sent for me, to ask if I would 
 go and take charge of that school. 
 
 What a change in all my plans and possibly in my 
 whole life-work that question wrought ! In the first 
 place, the asking of that question of me I could not but 
 regard as complimentary to myself. Then, the place and 
 the character of the school seemed very desirable, and 
 so I yielded my proposed plans and followed what seemed 
 to be the leading of providence, and accepted the offer. 
 And it is pleasant, at this distance of time, to be able to 
 say that I never saw occasion to regret the course I then 
 decided to take. 
 
 It was always a matter of interest to me to notice how 
 differently some officers in college were regarded by differ- 
 ent classes. With one class a professor would be very 
 popular, and perhaps with the next class that came under 
 his instruction, extremely unpopular. I would often 
 inquire with myself : " What is the cause of this differ- 
 ence ? Is it likely that the professor is constantly chang- 
 ing ? Is he affable with one class and then arbitrary and 
 censorious with the next, or is the change in the temper- 
 ament and character of the class ? " 
 
 The following reminiscences of Prof. Jacob Abbott I 
 wrote for the " memorial edition of his Young Christian/* 
 prepared by his sons : — 
 
PREPARATORY AND COLLEGE COURSE. 9 7 
 
 Jacob Abbott was my professor in mathematics and natural philoso- 
 phy in Amherst College from 1825 to my graduation in 1828. My 
 recollections of him as a professor and as a Christian man have been 
 very pleasant. There was no officer in college who was more uni- 
 formly popular and more generally respected by all classes of stu- 
 dents than he. He was remarkably paternal, or rather fraternal, in 
 his intercourse with the students. He was always approachable by 
 every one. No one felt repelled from him by his looks and general, 
 manners, but rather encouraged to go to him more freely for counsel. 
 
 While in perfect accord with all the faculty, in regard to the im- 
 portance of a healthy college discipline, and ever ready to rebuke: 
 wrong-doing, yet there was no air of the autocrat about him, nothing 
 overbearing and dictatorial. There was no officer in college to whom 
 a student in any trouble would sooner go than to him. He knew he 
 would be received kindly, and that the professor would be most ready 
 to give him all the help he was able. There was no one in whose 
 judgment and decision, in regard to any matter between the students, 
 all would more fully confide. I recall one very remarkable case. 
 
 A small number of one of the literary societies became disaffected 
 in regard to some action of the society, withdrew and formed a new 
 organization. The seceders claimed a portion of the library. The 
 contest over the matter became very sharp. At length both parties 
 agreed to submit the question to Professor Abbott and abide by his 
 decision- The two parties met, and it was marvelous to see how 
 wisely, impartially, and convincingly he laid the whole subject before 
 the contestants. As he proceeded from one step to another he carried 
 the conscience of every one till, with consummate skill, he brought 
 the parties to his decision. While the decision was very trying to the 
 large majority, they accepted it without a reflection on the judge. No 
 other officer in college, I think, could have arbitrated the case so wisely 
 and secured such ready acceptance of his decision. 
 
 As a teacher Mr. Abbott was always popular with the class. He 
 had a remarkable faculty of making the dry study of mathematics 
 attractive. He seemed to have an inexhaustible fund of anecdote 
 and illustration, which he used as felicitously in teaching science as 
 he did subsequently in preparing popular literature for the young. 
 He had a tact in enlisting the interested attention of the class. He 
 threw so much personal interest and enthusiasm into his manner of 
 instructing that he excited a corresponding enthusiasm in the students. 
 
 I think very few students were much inclined to deceive him in 
 
98 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY II FE. 
 
 regard to their lessons or their general conduct, or to play tricks upon 
 him, as some were in the case of some other officials. His dignified 
 and courteous bearing and his affable treatment of all seemed to 
 command the respect of all, and to disarm even those naturally 
 inclined to exhibitions of fun and mischief. 
 
 Mr. Abbott was always respected and revered as a truly Christian 
 man. All believed him sincere in what he said and did as a professed 
 follower of Jesus. He entered with great earnestness into all plans 
 and efforts to promote the religious awakenings that frequently ex- 
 isted while he was in college. Many students, now actively engaged 
 in Christian work, or who are, through faith and patience, inheriting 
 the promises, no doubt remember his earnest words of exhortation, 
 counsel, and prayers in connection with their awakenings and early 
 religious experience. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A YEAR IN AUGUSTA, MAINE. 
 
 SOON after graduating, in 1828, I went directly to 
 Augusta, Maine. My journey was in a packet. 
 This was my first experience upon the ocean. It was a 
 wearisome voyage, as we were for a long time becalmed. 
 The rolling of the vessel, as we lay in the hot sun, was 
 any thing but pleasant to the few half-seasick passengers. 
 I had just enough of nausea to prevent me from patron- 
 izing the steward for nearly two days. I suffered more 
 than I did in my voyages to and from Glasgow in 1880, for 
 I was not at all uncomfortable in those trips, though our 
 return one was extremely rough. 
 
 As we entered the Kennebec River and our discomfort 
 left us, the mate brought me a cup of coffee, a nice piece 
 of smoked herring, or "Kennebec turkey," as it is called 
 in Maine, and some sea-crackers. Did ever a king relish 
 the most sumptuous dinner as I did that simple repast ? 
 
 My home for the year spent in Augusta was in the 
 most delightful family of the late Rev. Benjamin Tappan, 
 d.d., pastor of the Congregational church in the town. 
 And to make every thing as favorable to me, pecuniarily, 
 as possible, he proposed that I should teach two of his 
 daughters, Elizabeth, now the wife of Rev. E. B. Webb, 
 d.d., late pastor of the Shawmut Church in Boston, and 
 Jane, in Latin, one hour a day out of school, for my board. 
 This proposal was most gladly accepted. 
 
 As for the school, which I was told was to consist of 
 twenty or twenty-five boys fitting for college, I did not 
 
 99 
 
IOO INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 find, in two respects, what I anticipated. First, the 
 places in which it was held, for we were obliged to make 
 several changes, were any thing but convenient and 
 inviting. And in the next place I found that about every 
 branch of study, from Homer's Iliad to the elementary 
 reader, was to be taught ; and that there must be about 
 as many classes as there were scholars. Of course it was 
 evident, from the first, that no teacher, under such cir- 
 cumstances, could do any justice either to himself or to 
 his pupils. It also greatly increased the labors of the 
 teacher to have so many classes. 
 
 With these exceptions the school was found to be very 
 pleasant. The scholars were from the leading families of 
 the town. It was not many weeks before the request 
 came that a class of six or eight young misses might 
 be admitted to the school ; and erelong the number of 
 pupils was thirty-six. This addition to the number at 
 first proposed I consented to, though the teacher's salary 
 was not correspondingly increased. 
 
 Yet under all these unfavorable circumstances, so far 
 as any expressions were known, the school was regarded 
 a success. Several of the scholars obtained a liberal 
 education and prepared themselves for the different 
 public professions — four or five of them for the ministry. 
 Rev. Benjamin Tappan, Jr., who read most of Homer's 
 Iliad during the year, was, for several years, pastor of the 
 Winthrop Church, Charlestown, and afterward, for many 
 years, pastor of the Congregational church in Norridge- 
 wock, Maine. His wife, Delia Emmons, a daughter of 
 Judge Emmons, of Augusta, and granddaughter of the dis- 
 tinguished divine, Rev. Dr. Emmons, of Franklin, Mass., 
 was also a member of my school. 
 
 This year in Augusta was a very busy and, to me, inter- 
 
A YEAR IN AUGUSTA, MAINE. IOI 
 
 esting one, outside of the school and the one hour a day 
 in teaching Latin. Soon after commencing the school, 
 by the request of Rev. Dr. Tappan, the pastor, I prepared 
 and read to his people, at the close of the morning 
 sermon, an address on the subject of Sabbath-schools. 
 In a short time I took measures to gather a Bible class 
 on Sabbath afternoons, for colored people. There were 
 only six or eight of that class of persons in the place, but 
 so much interest was awakened that they came from 
 Hallowell, two miles, and even from Gardiner, six miles, 
 and I soon had a class of twenty-five or thirty. I wrote 
 to a friend the following account of this class, which may 
 interest my readers : — 
 
 After the exercises of the first Sabbath, I sat down in rather a melan- 
 choly mood, and began to think of my Sabbaths spent in Massachu- 
 setts. On no public exercise of the Sabbath did my mind rest with 
 such intense interest as my Bible class for the colored people. The 
 realization that the many pleasant seasons spent in that class were now 
 at an end not a little increased my sadness. But the inquiry soon 
 arose in my mind, May there not be some of that neglected people in 
 this place? If so, can they not be collected into a class? On learning 
 that there were two or three small families, consisting, in all, of some 
 six or eight souls, I resolved to search them out. Accordingly, the 
 next Sabbath afternoon I called at one of their dwellings and found a 
 very intelligent-looking woman, who listened with much apparent 
 interest to the explanation of my object, and said that she could not 
 read any, but she should like to learn, so that she might read her Bible. 
 This readiness to enter into my plans greatly encouraged me to hope 
 that a class could be collected with but little difficulty. 
 
 As I approached the next dwelling, near by, I heard the loud laugh 
 and the voice of merriment. This damped my early hopes. I stopped, 
 turned about, and well-nigh resolved to abandon my object, at least for 
 that time. But a moment's reflection influenced me to seize the pres- 
 ent opportunity and go forward. I entered with some reluctance, and 
 there found six or eight colored persons, some from other towns, who 
 had collected together to spend their Sabbath evening in amusement. 
 
 It would be rather difficult for a person not familiar with such scenes 
 
I O 2 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 to conceive the variety of emotions which the presence of a stranger,, 
 especially on such an errand, produced among them. At first they 
 manifested an astonishment bordering on consternation. But as the 
 object of my visit was explained, and the advantages of spending a 
 part of the Sabbath in the study of the Bible mentioned, together with 
 the interest manifested by a class of colored persons in Massachusetts,, 
 the first excitement subsided, and some began to show great interest; 
 some appeared indifferent ; and some half-concealed a smile of 
 derision. 
 
 After some more conversation, they concluded to consider the subject,, 
 and decide in reference to it at my next call. During the week I called 
 again, and found my compensation the only thing concerning which 
 they had any further inquiries to make. Being informed that the only 
 compensation expected or wished for was their attendance and improve- 
 ment, they readily accepted my proposals and appointed the next Sab- 
 bath for organization. 
 
 On the next Sabbath I found some six or seven assembled, awaiting 
 my arrival. Having implored the aid of the Spirit, without which all 
 our efforts are inefficient, they were requested to read a chapter in the 
 Bible. Some could read with considerable ease, some very little, and 
 some not at all. 
 
 I felt that the success of this experiment depended, in a great meas- 
 ure, upon the impression made at the first meeting ; and it was so 
 ordered that the impression was most favorable. A very lively interest 
 was evidently awakened among several of the class, who soon visited 
 many of the colored people living two, and even six, miles distant, and 
 told them all about their class and invited their attendance. 
 
 On the following Sabbath our number was somewhat enlarged, and 
 the interest increased. One middle-aged female, who barely knew her 
 alphabet, had purchased a Testament, and began to spell out some of 
 the small words. She continued to improve every week, and was soon 
 able to read with the class with some ease. Not unfrequently she 
 would repeat five or ten verses of Scripture which she had learned, with 
 much painstaking, during the week. 
 
 One girl, eighteen or twenty years of age, who was quite intelligent,, 
 has been of great service in hearing some of the children read and recite 
 their lessons. She usually has recited herself from fifteen to fifty verses 
 every Sabbath. Another little girl of nine recited ten, sometimes forty,, 
 verses with great propriety. 
 
 Almost every week has shown some increase of interest, sometimes 
 
A YEAR IN AUGUSTA, MAINE. IO3 
 
 of numbers. During the latter part of autumn the class varied in num- 
 ber from twelve to twenty, some of whom came a distance of six miles, 
 most of them with their new Bibles or Testaments. 
 
 About this time one of the class suggested the expediency of meet- 
 ing a part of the time at an adjoining town, for the better accommoda- 
 tion of numbers living at a distance ; at the same time he manifested 
 his interest by generously offering to procure a carriage for my convey- 
 ance. This suggestion led to the organization of another class in that 
 town, under the care of several resident young men. My class was 
 somewhat diminished by the formation of this new one, but continued 
 to have an average number of twelve or fourteen. 
 
 The interest of the class, which decreased a little during the intense 
 cold of winter, revived again in the spring, and continued to increase 
 through the summer. At some meetings a very deep solemnity has 
 pervaded the class ; and personal conversation has in some instances 
 discovered a tenderness of conscience which encourages the hope that 
 the Lord, who " has made of one flesh all the nations of the earth, 11 
 does intend to prepare some of these poor souls for his heavenly king- 
 dom. 
 
 A girl about twenty years of age, who has long been striving hard, 
 in opposition to many natural obstacles, to learn to read, having made 
 but little or no progress, one day burst into tears and said: " I do 
 want to learn to read my Bible." 
 
 Another girl, about the same age, who had made considerable pro- 
 gress in her efforts to read, said, with eyes full of tears : " Oh, how I 
 want to be able to sit down and read one chapter in my Bible. But I 
 am almost discouraged, and sometimes think I will give it up." After 
 a little encouragement, she said: "I will begin once more and try 
 harder, for I do want to read my Bible." 
 
 The woman mentioned above, who had begun to read with the class, 
 has appeared exceedingly interested ever since the class was organ- 
 ized. She refuses to work out on Wednesday, for she wishes to spend 
 that day at home, so as to devote part of it to her lessons for the Bible 
 class. She often shows much sorrow for sin, and expresses strong de- 
 sires to become a Christian. Oh, may the Lord renew her heart ! This 
 class, which I now leave, I commend to the prayers of those who love 
 the souls of all men, and to the protection of the God of all grace, 
 praying with earnestness that I may meet each member of it in the 
 kingdom of glory. 
 
1 04 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 At nine o'clock Sabbath morning I had a class of the 
 boys of my school in the Sabbath-school at the church. 
 I then rode three miles and held a public service in a large 
 school-house, in what was called the North Parish, read- 
 ing a printed sermon. In a short time I organized a 
 Sabbath-school, which I superintended in this school-house 
 at the close of the morning service ; then in the after- 
 noon we had a Bible service, for which I made very 
 careful preparation. This service became so crowded 
 that the house and entry were full, and many gathered 
 on the outside about the windows. Then at five o'clock 
 in the afternoon I held my Bible class for colored people 
 in the village. This made the Sabbaths of the year very 
 busy days. 
 
 A revival of great interest commenced in the North 
 Parish, soon after these various services at the school-house 
 began. As the results of this revival, in a year or two 
 a Congregational church of about sixty-five members, 
 including several who were already professors of religion, 
 was formed. A convenient house of worship was erected 
 a year or two later, at the dedication of which I delivered 
 a written address. 
 
 All my half-holidays were spent, after the revival com- 
 menced, in visiting among the people of my little parish. 
 And frequently I attended their weekly-prayer-meetings. 
 Some of the most interesting memories of my life are 
 connected with our services among this most appreciative 
 and affectionate people. 
 
 In the annual report of the Maine Sabbath-school 
 Union for 1832, the board of managers thus speak of the 
 school here referred to : — 
 
 " In the North Parish of Augusta the Sabbath-school 
 embraces almost the entire number of adults and chil- 
 
A YEAR IN AUGUSTA, MAINE. 105 
 
 dren who usually meet together for worship. The whole 
 history of this church is identified with the history of 
 Sabbath-school operations among them. The exercises of 
 the school have constituted their choicest means of grace 
 and salvation ; and perhaps in no place have the priv- 
 ileges of Sabbath-school instruction been, or can be, more 
 affectionately cherished. Within the year eleven have 
 been converted from three classes, and nine of these are 
 adults who have never, before the last spring, been con- 
 nected with a Sabbath-school." 
 
 In a recent letter from my former and highly respected 
 pupil, Rev. Benjamin Tappan, d.d., of Norridgewock, 
 Maine, he writes : — 
 
 My Dear Old Friend and Teacher, Mr. Bullard, — I had quite an 
 unexpected pleasure last evening in receiving and reading your kind 
 letter, which I have read again to-day. I remember well those old 
 Augusta days, the very pleasant addition you made to my father's 
 family ; the great improvement of your teaching in the secular school 
 upon that of your predecessors ; the excellent religious influence you 
 exerted as a teacher in the Sabbath-school and in your social inter- 
 course. The North Parish work I did not, of course, know so much 
 about, except through the report of others. But I can think of it 
 only as a blessing to Augusta that you spent that year there. I know 
 that was my father's and mother's feeling. It must be a matter of 
 great joy and thankfulness to you that you have been enabled to do 
 so much good in your long life. 
 
 My year at Augusta was, indeed, a very busy, but, to 
 me, a very enjoyable year. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 TWO YEARS AT ANDOVER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 
 
 IN the autumn of 1829, at the close of my year in 
 Augusta, I entered the theological seminary at Ando- 
 ver. I had been looking forward to this institution with 
 very great interest. . I had supposed there was no spot 
 on earth much nearer heaven. It would be, I thought, so 
 easy to be good there. The very atmosphere, I supposed, 
 would be fragrant with heavenly odors. There I should 
 find a sacred retreat which the great Tempter would never 
 dare to approach. 
 
 While there was much in the seminary and its environ- 
 ments that was indeed helpful in the Christian life, I soon 
 found that prayer and watchfulness were not less needed 
 here than in college or any of the walks of life. Wherever 
 the sons of God may be, Satan will be sure to come among 
 them. 
 
 While the studies of the seminary were the main thing 
 to occupy my time and thoughts, I felt it a duty and 
 privilege to be doing something, so far as I might, for the 
 good of others. So I at once connected myself with the 
 Sabbath-school of the South Church in the village. 
 
 The first year I was the teacher of a class of mothers, 
 and the second year assistant superintendent with the late 
 Rev. Thomas Brainard, d.d., of Philadelphia. 
 
 That school was probably one of the largest, if not the 
 largest, in the state. On one Sabbath there were present 
 six hundred and seven persons, including those of all ages 
 from three to about ninety. In one part of the house there 
 
 106 
 
TWO YEARS AT AND OVER. \OJ 
 
 were several classes of women, in another several of men ; 
 and in the gallery, sweeping around three sides of that 
 great church, were the young men, most of the young men 
 connected with the congregation, and no one of them ever 
 intimated that he was either too old or too wise to be in 
 the Sabbath-school studying the Word of God. And as a 
 result of this general interest in studying the Scriptures, 
 blessing after blessing, rich as could come from heaven, 
 was shed down upon that people. 
 
 Once a month notice was given by the superintendent 
 that next Sabbath would be the " contribution day." All 
 were invited to bring at least one cent each. On the con- 
 tribution day, just before the offerings were taken, I used 
 to go round among some of the smaller scholars and ask 
 them if they had their pennies for the contribution. If 
 any one said he had forgotten to bring one, I would loan 
 him a cent, saying if he thought of it he could bring it to 
 me the next Sabbath. Only a few years ago a lady, who 
 was then a member of a class of eight young girls of from 
 eight to ten years of age, met me and asked if I remem- 
 bered loaning cents for the contribution to the children 
 who had forgotten to bring them. When informed that I 
 well remembered it, " Well," said she, " I used to leave 
 mine at home on purpose, so as to show you if you loaned 
 me one I should remember to bring it the next Sabbath." 
 
 When Dr. Brainard, who was two years my senior in the 
 seminary, left, I was chosen superintendent of this school. 
 It was a very responsible position, and I had labored quite 
 earnestly to prepare myself for it in visiting my corps of 
 teachers and many of the families from which the scholars 
 came. But most unexpectedly I was called to engage in 
 public Sabbath-school work in the state of Maine, of which 
 an account will be given in the next chapter. 
 
1 08 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY IIFE. 
 
 One vacation during my course at Andover I was 
 employed, under the appointment of the Massachusetts 
 Sabbath-School Union, which was composed of the Con- 
 gregational and Baptist denominations of the state, in 
 visiting and addressing eighteen of the churches and 
 schools in the northern part of Worcester County in 
 regard to Sunday-school matters ; and one vacation I was 
 engaged by the friends of this institution in Kennebec 
 County, Maine, in promoting this cause among the 
 churches and schools in that county. 
 
 These vacation labors very likely, without such a thought 
 of it on my part, had much to do in preparing me for what 
 has been my life-work. 
 
 About this time quite a new and extensive interest was 
 awakened in the cause of Sunday-schools. In 1829, my 
 first year at Andover, a Sabbath-school and Bible class 
 association was formed among the students of the semi- 
 nary, and a similar one in the divinity school of Yale 
 University, New Haven, Conn. The object of these soci- 
 eties was to collect and diffuse information concerning 
 Sabbath-schools and Bible classes, and to learn the best 
 methods of conducting and extending them. 
 
 The association at Andover held frequent meetings, at 
 which papers were read, followed with free discussions on 
 various practical subjects connected with the management 
 of these schools and classes. There were several commit- 
 tees : one of correspondence, whose duty it was to corre- 
 spond with clergymen and others in all parts of this and 
 foreign lands in regard to the interests of the institution ; 
 one on review, whose duty it was to examine and recom- 
 mend books for the library ; and one on publication, with 
 which Professor E. A. Park, then a student, and myself 
 were connected, whose duty it was to prepare articles 
 
TWO YEARS AT AND OVER. IO9 
 
 from the communications received bv the committee of 
 correspondence and from the papers and discussions of our 
 monthly meetings for the press. Twelve or fifteen such 
 articles were published in The Sabbath-School Treasury of 
 the Massachusetts Sabbath-School Union for 1830-31. 
 
 The subjects of some of these articles were as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 " How can ministers of the gospel best promote the interests of 
 Sabbath-schools ? " 
 
 " Mutual instruction. 11 
 
 " What is your mode of teaching? 1 ' 
 
 " How can Sabbath-schools be made to benefit remote parts of the 
 town? " 
 
 " Methods of replenishing the library, 11 etc. 
 
 At a meeting of the students of Andover Seminary, 
 June 12, the year previous to the organization of the asso- 
 ciation, the following resolution was passed : — 
 
 Resolved, That we will endeavor to make ourselves acquainted with 
 the best system of Sabbath-school management and instruction and to 
 qualify ourselves in all respects as far as we are able to lend our influ- 
 ence to this cause ; and that we consider ourselves obligated to aid, 
 according to the measure of our ability, in promoting its advancement 
 wherever God in his providence may call us. 
 
 All these students carried the spirit of this resolution 
 with them into the ministry ; and they were ever the warm 
 friends and supporters of this institution. 
 
 Many feel that the students in all our theological semi- 
 naries should receive instruction on this subject that shall 
 help to prepare them to give efficiency to their Sunday- 
 schools. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 THREE YEARS IN THE SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK IN MAINE. 
 
 MY oldest brother, the late Rev. Artemas Bullard, 
 d.d., for eighteen years pastor of the First Presby- 
 terian Church in St. Louis, Mo., was, for four or five years 
 prior to 1832, the secretary of the Massachusetts Sabbath- 
 School Union. The year I was in Augusta he attended 
 the meeting of the General Conference in Maine. In an 
 address in regard to Sunday-schools, he recommended to 
 the churches the employment of an agent to labor in 
 Maine in visiting the schools already established and to 
 organize new ones where needed. He told the people 
 that he would obtain for them the man, if the churches in 
 Maine would raise the money for the necessary expense. 
 In 1830 the board of managers of the Maine Sabbath- 
 School Union, wrote him, reminding him of his promise, 
 and requesting him to send them the agent and, if he 
 could, they wished him to send me. 
 
 When my brother proposed this agency to me, my 
 feelings were entirely opposed to it. I did not wish to 
 leave the seminary without completing the usual three 
 years' course. And then, how could I give up the great 
 interest I had anticipated in superintending that important 
 Sabbath-school in Andover ? 
 
 The question of duty in this matter was one of the 
 most serious that ever had come before me. At the close 
 of my theological course my heart was set upon finding 
 my field of labor at the West. My brother thought that 
 my most direct course to the West was by the way of 
 
SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK IN MAINE. I I I 
 
 Maine ; that a few months in this work in the Sabbath- 
 school cause would be the best way to fit myself for the 
 great field at the West. 
 
 After much consideration and seeking the advice of 
 wise counselors and especially divine guidance, I accepted 
 the invitation and became the general agent of the Maine 
 Sabbath-School Union. My first expectation was to spend 
 only some six months in this work, and then return and 
 finish my course at Andover. But it was not long before 
 the work became so interesting and its continuance 
 appeared so important, that I was urged by the board to 
 close my connection with the seminary. This I did, and 
 as general agent and corresponding secretary, I continued 
 my labors for the Union three years. 
 
 At that time the institution of Sabbath-schools in Maine 
 was comparatively in its infancy. There were only about 
 three hundred schools connected with the Union, in the 
 Congregational and Baptist churches, and not over five 
 hundred in the whole state, containing, perhaps, a total of 
 twenty thousand teachers and scholars. 
 
 In describing the work of these three years in Maine, I 
 shall not do better than to repeat a portion of the account 
 given in my " Fifty Years with the Sabbath-schools," 
 published in 1876: — 
 
 At the sixth annual meeting of the Union, the first since my connec- 
 tion with it, January, 1832, so important did the work appear that the 
 following resolution was presented, and after a most earnest advocacy, 
 unanimously and with much enthusiasm adopted : — 
 
 Resolved, That, relying upon divine assistance, we will establish a 
 Sabbath-school in every town and school district in the state, where it 
 is practicable and advisable, within a year and a half from this time. 
 
 During the discussion of this subject, a member of the board of 
 managers offered, in case the resolution should be carried into effect, 
 to give one hundred and fifty dollars towards the expense of the under- 
 taking. 
 
I I 2 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 It was understood that it was not generally advisable to establish a 
 school in any district where the children could attend any school 
 already existing ; and it was not considered practicable unless it could 
 be accomplished at a reasonable expense of money and labor. 
 
 It was comparatively an easy matter, on a pleasant January evening, 
 and in a warm and comfortable church, to pass this resolution, but it 
 was found to be a very different matter to carry it into effect. But this 
 action of the Union deeply stirred the hearts of all the friends of the 
 cause in the state ; and it is believed there never has been a period 
 when there was a greater amount of Sabbath-school work done in 
 Maine than during the year and a half contemplated in that resolution. 
 
 Early in the spring, though the traveling before the roads were set- 
 tled was exceedingly difficult, I traversed the state in every direction, 
 visited the auxiliary unions, and held meetings to secure in every 
 county and town committees and individuals who would become 
 responsible for the accomplishment of their portion of the work. 
 Nearly the whole state was thus appropriated to committees and indi- 
 viduals. And a vast amount of labor from voluntary and unpaid 
 agents was secured during the year. Young women were obtained to 
 teach district schools, with special reference to the establishment of 
 Sunday-schools in the towns and neighborhoods where they taught. 
 Merchants were pledged to converse with their customers from adja- 
 cent towns or districts, and persuade them, if possible, to see that the 
 work was accomplished in their respective communities. Juvenile 
 sewing circles were formed to help furnish funds for carrying on the 
 enterprise. 
 
 It is interesting, at this distance of time, to look back and see the 
 enthusiasm manifested so extensively in this undertaking. Men and 
 women every-where entered into it most heartily. Ten gentlemen took 
 seventeen towns and promised to visit them on the Sabbath, and, so 
 far as it was practicable, to establish schools where they were needed. 
 An aged minister, with whitened locks, pledged himself to carry the 
 resolution into effect in seven different towns, in some of which there 
 never had been a school. The plan he adopted for establishing a 
 school in one of these towns was quite novel and interesting. Having 
 consulted with the minister of the place, and appointed a meeting for 
 the purpose, he took his superintendent and several teachers and went 
 to the meeting. After addressing the people on the subject, he 
 assisted in organizing a school into classes, and choosing the superin- 
 tendent and teachers. Then, with his superintendent and teachers, he 
 
SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK IN MAINE. I 13 
 
 gave the people a practical illustration of their manner of teaching and 
 conducting a Sabbath-school. This was over fifty years ago, and yet 
 was precisely like the Sabbath-school exercise often given at our con- 
 ventions of the present day. A few weeks after this, two other schools 
 were in operation and arrangements were made to organize two more. 
 
 At the close of a meeting at another place, while several gentlemen 
 were consulting together on the work, a young woman offered to 
 assume the responsibility of establishing and conducting a school in a 
 certain district in an adjoining town, where she expected to teach the 
 public school. . 
 
 " But if I should not," she said, "it is only four miles and a half, 
 and I can walk out on Saturday, spend the Sabbath in the Sunday- 
 school, and then return on Monday." 
 
 She taught the school, as she expected, and also established and sus- 
 tained a Sunday-school, almost unaided by any one. 
 
 " There is such a neighborhood," said a man, " where there must be 
 a Sabbath-school. I don't know whom we can get to go out there. I 
 don't know as there is any one ; but I will see that the work is done." 
 As he finished this remark a woman, perhaps fifty years of age, said : — 
 
 " Why won't you let me go to that neighborhood? " 
 
 One of the managers of a county union proposed, at their meeting 
 for consultation, that an agent should be employed six months to assist 
 them in redeeming their pledge. He also informed them where no 
 small part of the necessary funds could be obtained. 
 
 "There are fifteen or sixteen young ladies," said he, "who have 
 been, or are now, connected with my class in the Sabbath-school, and 
 have all become hopefully pious. Two months ago, they formed them- 
 selves into a sewing society, to meet once in two weeks. They have 
 already in their treasury about thirty dollars, and they say they will in- 
 crease it to seventy-five or one hundred dollars, and give it towards 
 defraying the expenses of an agent in this county, if the board will 
 employ one. They have also pledged themselves to redeem one hour 
 from sleep every morning to work for the cause of Sabbath-schools. 
 
 In another county, instead of employing an agent, the pastors of the 
 Congregational churches made an arrangement in the spring for a gen- 
 eral exchange, when all were to present the subject of Sabbath-schools 
 to each congregation. In addition to this, each minister was to spend, 
 a few days in some part of the week with the brother with whom he 
 exchanged; and they two were to go into all parts of the parish, where 
 it was needful, and hold meetings on the subject, to establish, revive, 
 
I 1 4 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 or encourage Sabbath-schools, as the case might require. The effect 
 of this labor was most happy, both upon the ministers and upon the 
 people. The former, from the very fact that they labored in the cause, 
 became more deeply interested in it ; while the latter naturally con- 
 cluded that an object which had taken such strong hold upon the feel- 
 ings of their ministers must be an important one, deserving their hearty 
 cooperation. These are but a few specimens of the zeal with which 
 men and women all over the state entered into this noble work. 
 
 At the next annual meeting it was reported that a great amount of 
 work had been performed, and one hundred new schools liad been 
 organized ; but much more remained to be done to carry out the reso- 
 lution than could be accomplished by the general agent alone. 
 
 Early in the spring, therefore, I visited the colleges, theological and 
 other seminaries, and clergymen, secured the services for this work of 
 eighteen students and eight or ten ministers, for from one or two to 
 seven weeks each; so that, at the anniversary in January, 1834, it was 
 reported that the objects of the resolution passed in 1832 had been 
 substantially accomplished. 
 
 During that year, one hundred and eighty-nine new schools were 
 organized, making the whole number connected with the Union nine 
 hundred and twenty-nine, containing a membership of over thirty-eight 
 thousand. 
 
 During the three years of this agency about three hundred new 
 schools were established under my direction. Some of these schools, 
 for the want of the fostering care of the church, in a few months 
 became extinct, but many of them are now among the most flourishing 
 and efficient schools in the state. And there were many men and 
 women who took part in that work who long looked back upon it with 
 no small degree of satisfaction. And there were many laborers in those 
 days — almost threescore years ago — in Maine, who would compare 
 favorably with any of the most zealous and successful Sunday-school 
 workers of the present day. 
 
 Soon after the commencement of my agency, the board 
 began to publish a small weekly paper, The Sabbath- 
 School Instructor, edited by the secretary, Mr. William 
 Cutter. Through this paper, which was widely taken 
 in the schools and churches, I was able to keep the 
 friends of the Union informed of my work ; and also 
 
SABBATH-SCHOOL- WORK IN MAINE. 115 
 
 to furnish articles to be read at the Sabbath-school 
 concerts, as well as to address parents, teachers, and 
 children. 
 
 The publication of this paper greatly aided in carrying 
 out the resolution. Its importance was constantly dis- 
 cussed and the cooperation of the churches earnestly 
 solicited. The frequent reports from the schools helped 
 to encourage other schools ; and the discussion of the 
 best methods of conducting schools was also very helpful 
 and stimulating. 
 
 In order to give me more influence and facility in my 
 agency among the churches, at the suggestion of many of 
 the ministers in Maine, I applied to an association at 
 Augusta, October 25, 1831, and was licensed to preach the 
 gospel, and at the annual meeting of the Union, January 
 13, 1832, was ordained as an evangelist. The exercises of 
 the occasion were peculiar, inasmuch as they were all more 
 or less directly connected with my special work. The fol- 
 lowing account of the services appeared in The Sabbath- 
 School Instructor, published weekly in Portland, by the 
 Union : — 
 
 " Ordained in Portland, on the thirteenth instant, Rev. 
 Asa Bullard, as an evangelist. Introductory prayer by 
 Rev. Adam Wilson, of Portland [Mr. Wilson was the edi- 
 tor of a Baptist paper and a member of the Board of Man 
 agers of the Union] ; sermon by Rev. Benjamin Tappan, 
 of Augusta, text, Deut. 31: 12, 13(1); consecrating prayer 
 by Rev. Jothan Sewall, of Chesterville ; charge by Rev. Dr. 
 Tyler, of Portland ; right hand of fellowship by Rev. 
 Professor Alvin Bond, of Bangor ; address by Rev. Daniel 
 D. Tappan, of Alfred ; concluding prayer by Rev. M. 
 Butler, of the Baptist church, North Yarmouth. 
 
 " The exercises of the occasion were appropriate and of 
 a peculiarly interesting character. The sermon exhibited 
 
I I 6 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY II FE. 
 
 in a happy and impressive manner the importance of bib- 
 lical instruction. Among other topics, the preacher dwelt 
 upon the Sabbath-school institution, as combining the 
 most successful means for diffusing a knowledge of the 
 Bible, and pre-occupying the minds of the rising genera- 
 tion in favor of the sacred truths and pure morality of the 
 gospel." 
 
 Only a week or two before the above occasion, I was 
 taken very seriously ill with an epidemic then prevailing 
 in the city, and for a few days was in a critical condition. 
 At first it was supposed that the ordination could not take 
 place at the time appointed, but the council had been called 
 and all who were to take a part in the exercises were pres- 
 ent (excepting my brother, Secretary of the Massachusetts 
 Sabbath-School Union, who was to have given the right 
 hand of fellowship), and it was thought best to proceed. 
 The invalid, then slowly convalescent, was bundled up and 
 carried to the church, and the exercises, after a short and 
 not very searching examination of the candidate, pro- 
 ceeded. In the consecrative prayer, Father Sewall, as he 
 was called, as he laid his hand, tremulous with age, on my 
 head, tenderly and with choked utterance said r — 
 
 " We had feared, O Lord, that we should be called to 
 follow this thy young servant to the grave, but thou hast 
 in great mercy rebuked his disease, and art now permitting 
 us to consecrate him to the work of the ministry, to labor 
 in thy vineyard." 
 
 In February, 1832, the Congregational church and 
 parish in the town of Bloomfield, Maine, — now Skowhe- 
 gan, — gave me a unanimous call " to settle within the 
 gospel ministry." But there seemed to me to be no 
 intimation of providence for me to change my field of 
 labors, and the call was declined. 
 
SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK TN MAINE. II J 
 
 In some respects the most important and interesting 
 event connected with my worldly and, indeed, my religious 
 life took place during my three years' work in Maine — my 
 marriage. It occurred May 16, 1832, in Amherst, Massa- 
 chusetts. During my five or six years in Amherst, in my 
 preparatory and collegiate course, I was acquainted with 
 Miss Lucretia G. Dickinson. She and two or three of 
 her young female cousins and associates, then sixteen or 
 seventeen years of age, had but recently become inter- 
 ested in religion and united with the church. It was 
 about the same time and at about the same age that I 
 had myself taken the same important step ; so from 
 almost the first week that I entered the town I was 
 brought into acquaintance with this circle of young Chris- 
 tians. My first boarding-place, on entering the academy, 
 was at the home of one of the cousins. 
 
 About the close of my third year in college, I thought 
 of teaching a year. This plan was given up, but not till 
 I had lost both my room-mates, with whom I had enjoyed 
 a most pleasant fellowship for three years, and also the 
 chance of a room in the college buildings. This, provi- 
 dentially and, as now is evident, most happily to me, was 
 the means of my obtaining a room and board at the pleas- 
 ant home of Samuel Fowler Dickinson, Esq., and after 
 nearly a year's residence together in the same house, or, 
 as the adage has it, after we had " summered and wintered 
 each other," we mutually entered into a promised alliance 
 of interests for life. 
 
 The three or four years of our betrothal gave us the 
 opportunity of testing each other's fidelity to our mutual 
 pledges, and also of the truth of the proverb that there is 
 "more happiness in anticipation than in participation." 
 But after walking in happy fellowship with my now sainted 
 
I I 8 INCIDENTS IN A B US V LIFE . 
 
 companion for more than fifty-three years, I can by no 
 means accept the adage. 
 
 The following items in regard to her father are gath- 
 ered from Professor Tyler's " History of Amherst College 
 during its first Half -century " : — 
 
 Samuel Fowler Dickinson was born in Amherst, October 9, 1775. 
 He graduated at Dartmouth College in 1795, at the age of twenty. 
 Though the youngest of his class, he received the second appoint- 
 ment. He united with the West Parish Church, and at twenty- 
 one he was chosen one of the deacons, an office which he held 
 nearly forty years. He began the study of theology with an older 
 brother, Rev. Timothy Dickinson, of Holliston, Mass., intending 
 to enter the ministry. But finding he needed a more active life, he 
 turned his attention to the legal profession, and after the usual term 
 of study, established a law office in his native place. 
 
 In 1827 he was chosen representative of the town in the general 
 court, and subsequently a member of the Massachusetts Senate. 
 
 He was ranked among the best lawyers — perhaps he was the very 
 best lawyer in Hampshire County — and might doubtless have had 
 a seat on the bench if he had continued in the practice of his 
 profession. 
 
 Having a family of five sons and four daughters to educate, and at 
 the same time having at heart the general welfare, he, with a few 
 others, established the academy at Amherst. He started the subscrip- 
 tion for it. And this academy was the mother of Amherst College, 
 and the college was expressly owing to his suggestion and influence. 
 His steadfastness, perseverance, the self-sacrificing devotion of his 
 time, property, and personal service, gave it success. 
 
 As the work of erecting the first building of the college proceeded, 
 and all the available means were used up, Mr. Dickinson would pledge 
 his private property to the bank to obtain money that the work might 
 go on. And when there was no money to pay for the teams to draw 
 the brick, or men to drive them, his own horses were sent for days 
 and weeks till in one season two or three of them fell by the wayside. 
 Sometimes his own laborers were sent to drive his horses, and in an 
 emergency he went himself rather than the work should cease. At 
 the same time he boarded more or less of the workmen, and some- 
 times paid their wages out of his own pocket, while his wife and 
 
SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK IN MAINE. 
 
 119 
 
 daughters toiled to board them. With all the zeal and efforts of 
 numerous friends and benefactors, the work would often have stopped 
 had he not pledged his property till the money could be raised. His 
 own means at last began to fail. His business, which was so large as 
 to require all his time and care, suffered from his devotion to the 
 public. He became embarrassed, and at length actually poor. And 
 in his poverty he had the additional grief of feeling that his services 
 were forgotten, like the poor wise man in the proverb who " by his 
 wisdom delivered the city, yet no man remembered that same wise 
 man." 
 
 When Lane Seminary went into operation he was offered a situation 
 as steward, with the oversight and general management of the grounds. 
 
 He accepted it and remained at Cincinnati several years, and then 
 accepted a similar situation in connection with the Western Reserve 
 College, at Hudson, Ohio. After a year of great labor and many 
 discouragements, he died at Hudson, April 22, 1838, at the age of 
 sixty-two, in the full possession of his faculties, and in the precious 
 hope of rest and reward in heaven. His body lies in the cemetery at 
 Amherst by the side of the wife of his youth, amid the graves of his 
 relatives and friends, and within sight of the college which he so loved 
 and cherished, and to which he devoted so many years of his life. 
 
 The last time I ever saw Squire Dickinson was as we 
 were taking our leave of the paternal home after the wed- 
 ding ceremony. As he helped his daughter into the car- 
 riage, he turned to me and said : — 
 
 " I wish I was able to give a fortune with my daughter, 
 but I am sure you will find a fortune in her." 
 
 And for the more than fifty-three years we were per- 
 mitted to walk together in the most endearing of all earthly 
 relations I did, indeed, find a fortune in her. 
 
 A small company of relatives and friends accompanied 
 us in carriages about ten miles to a public house in Belch- 
 ertown, where they provided a lunch, and then, with their 
 kind wishes and farewells and benedictions, left us to 
 pursue our journey. After visiting my old home in Sutton., 
 and friends in several other places we made our way to 
 
I 20 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 friends in Boston! I purchased a new chaise and a fine 
 orthodox horse at Andover, and thus equipped we jour- 
 neyed to our new home in Portland. 
 
 After spending three weeks in introducing to various 
 friends the stranger I had brought among them, I left her, 
 "a stranger in a strange land," for three weeks' labors in 
 the western counties of the state. My first night was 
 passed in the town of Buxton with the Rev. Mr. Lowing, 
 pastor of the Congregational church in that town. A 
 somewhat amusing incident occurred in connection with 
 this visit. As was the practice very generally in those 
 days in Christian families, they had worship both morning 
 and evening, with reading of the Scriptures. At evening 
 worship the twenty-third chapter of Deuteronomy was 
 read. In reading the twenty-fourth chapter — showing 
 that they were reading in course — in the morning, the 
 fifth verse read thus : " When a man hath taken a new 
 wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be charged 
 with any business ; but he shall be free at home one year, 
 and shall cheer up his wife which he hath taken." This 
 was, under the circumstances, surely a very singular coin- 
 cidence. I inquired, after prayers, if I was not going 
 counter to the Scriptures, and if I ought not to return to 
 my wife. Such a return, I found at the end of my tour, 
 would have cheered up a very lonely bride in that strange 
 city. 
 
 I had, in my previous year and a half's labor, visited 
 almost every town in the state. Every-where, among cler- 
 gymen and laymen, there was manifested the most cordial 
 hospitality. All were frank and open-hearted ; and the 
 interest the ministers felt in my work secured for me a 
 special welcome to every parsonage. 
 
 The clergyman's house, in those days, was indeed 
 
SABBA TH-SCHOOL WORK IN MAINE. I 2 I 
 
 regarded as the minister's tavern. It was open to all 
 clergymen. Now and then a minister would be found who 
 would call on a perfect stranger for hospitality, giving very 
 strange reasons. One who had been traveling in Maine 
 called on a pastor of one of the large churches in Massa- 
 chusetts for entertainment during the night ; and he gave 
 as a reason for taking such liberty that "he met his 
 brother one day, as they both stopped at the same trough 
 to water their horses." That was many years ago, and 
 such hospitality is not expected at the present day. 
 
 The following extract from a letter written during my 
 three weeks' tour in the western part of the state, spoken 
 of above, will show the earnestness and cordiality with 
 which the ministers entered into my work among them : — 
 
 The ministers here have almost torn me in pieces. I could not 
 satisfy their wishes for my labors among their people if I could divide 
 myself into twenty agents. To-morrow they are to meet, and then I 
 shall say to them : " Here I am at your disposal for three weeks. Use 
 me just as you can agree. 11 In this way they must assume all the 
 blame, if blame there be, if I do not visit all the places where they 
 may wish my services. 
 
 It is exceedingly gratifying to me to hear the ministers and others 
 speak of the number of hopeful conversions and the happy results 
 which have followed my meetings among their people last year. How 
 much grace I do need ! Do not forget me in your prayers. 
 
 On my return to Portland I found that our home was 
 not quite what was expected. So, with a small and com- 
 pact outfit, we made our home for several months in our 
 chaise, traveling sixteen hundred miles through almost 
 the whole state, east of Portland, down to Sebec, Eastport, 
 and Calais, with only the St. Croix River separating us 
 from British territory. 
 
 Over all this ground I had been the year before, visiting 
 nearly every town and village, and every-where the greatest 
 
12 2 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 interest had been expressed in my work, and wherever I 
 had made my home for a day the warm-hearted, hospitable 
 inmates most cordially invited me to come again and be 
 sure to bring my " better half " with me, so I knew just 
 where to stop in every place we visited. And my better half 
 became a fellow-helper in the work, pleading the Sabbath- 
 school cause with the mothers and children at home, while 
 I was holding meetings and laboring among the people 
 outside. Sometimes she was left for a day or two, while 
 I branched off into several adjoining towns or districts. 
 At Calias she was left in a pleasant and hospitable family, 
 while a Mr. Nash, an earnest Sunday-school man of the 
 place, and myself, on horseback (for there were no roads 
 for a carriage), visited Princeton, Alexander, Crofordville, 
 and several other places back in the new country ; and 
 held meetings and organized a new school in every place 
 we visited. 
 
 In Princeton there were about seventy-five inhabitants, 
 scattered along a road for a mile or more. I called at 
 every house and gave notice of a meeting to be held at a 
 small school-house at two o'clock in the afternoon, where 
 I was to give an address on Sabbath-schools, and if the 
 people became interested, organize one in their town. The 
 wash-tubs and every thing else in the houses and on the 
 farms with which the people were engaged at work were at 
 once put aside ; and all the inhabitants, except the mothers 
 with little ones, were at the meeting. After my address, 
 in which all seemed interested, I requested " all who wish 
 to have a Sabbath-school organized, to rise," when all but 
 three young men arose. We aided in choosing the super- 
 intendent and teachers for the school, which was to begin 
 the next Sabbath. 
 
 After explaining the whole manner of conducting the 
 school, Mr. Nash told them about a library and informed 
 
SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK IN MAINE. I 23 
 
 them if they would raise five dollars, the Sabbath-school 
 friends in Calais had authorized him to say that they would 
 obtain for them ten dollars' worth of good books. And the 
 money was at once raised on the spot. In one of the 
 other places we visited, Mr. . Nash, instead of saying, as he 
 meant to have said, that the Calais friends would raise five 
 dollars for the library, if they would raise the same, sai 1 
 that " the Calais friends would raise as much as they 
 would." They raised on the spot fifteen dollars, and the 
 Calais friends could not back out, so the new school 
 obtained a fine thirty dollar library. 
 
 This autumn journey of sixteen hundred miles, while 
 full of pleasure to the laborers, was apparently full of 
 interest and profit to the people visited. 
 
 This was the only time, in all my life-work in Sunday- 
 school, that I have ever presumed to take any of my family 
 with me. 
 
 Among the interesting incidents connected with our 
 journeyings may be mentioned the following: — 
 
 We had an interesting experience in a visit to the then 
 new town of Weld, where the Abbott family for awhile 
 made their home. The road for miles was new and rough 
 and through extensive woods where the fires had swept, 
 and many of the trees were leafless and dead. There 
 came up a high wind. We were riding with the chaise 
 turned back, and were in no small apprehension lest some 
 of the dead trees might fall upon us. Soon we came to a 
 tree, a foot or so through, that had just fallen directly 
 across our way. There was no getting round it, and we 
 had no axe. Having lightened the chaise of its load, I 
 carefully led the horse over the tree, then turning him one 
 side, succeeded in rolling one wheel over, without capsiz- 
 ing the carriage, and then turning him the other way, 
 rolled the other wheel over. 
 
124 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 Weld we found one of the most picturesque townships 
 we had visited in Maine. There were high hills, or 
 broken ridges of mountains, on all sides, excepting on the 
 south, by which we entered. It appeared like a vast crater 
 of a volcano, about twelve miles in diameter, in which 
 quietly reposed the town. 
 
 It is well known that the Abbott familv have ever been 
 noted for their literary character. And almost every spot 
 in this town bore marks of it in the classical names they 
 had given. The beautiful lake in the center of the valley 
 was called Loch Lomond ; there was Lee Meadow, the 
 Dingle, and the Ben Venue High School. There was no 
 high school, but there was a fine eminence where they 
 proposed that a high school should some time be located. 
 
 It was said that the members of the Congregational 
 church and society were all on one side of the lake, 
 and the Baptists on the other, so that, not " a great 
 gulf," but "much water," separated them. 
 
 Our visit to this romantic town, our meetings in the 
 different societies and districts, and our most hospitable 
 entertainment for some days at the model home of Esquire 
 Abbott, the honored father of these distinguished literary 
 sons, are among our most vivid and pleasant recollections 
 of the State of Maine in those long years ago. 
 
 Our last year in Maine we boarded in the family of the 
 late Mrs. Payson, widow of the late Rev. Dr. Payson, 
 whose memory we found most fragrant among all the 
 members of his church and society. 
 
 In the family of Mrs. Payson were her two daughters, 
 Louise, afterwards the wife of the late Professor Hopkins, 
 of Williams College, and Elizabeth, afterwards Mrs. 
 Prentiss, and author of " Stepping Heavenward " and 
 several other excellent works. 
 
SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK IN MAINE. 
 
 !25 
 
 After two years and eight months of almost unin- 
 termitted labor, I became pretty thoroughly tired, not 
 of my work, but in it. I had been almost constantly on 
 the wing, and, like Noah's dove, " found no rest for the 
 sole of my foot." I had traveled between seven and 
 eight thousand miles (five thousand of it with my own 
 horse) ; preached and given addresses about eight hundred 
 and fifty times ; visited more than a thousand different 
 families ; attended between fifty and sixty public meetings 
 and numerous meetings of committees for consultation. 
 A portion of the time I conducted the correspondence 
 of the Board of Managers, prepared their reports, etc. 
 
 At the end of this term of almost three years I 
 addressed to the Board a communication, resigning my 
 connection with the Maine Sabbath-School Union. In 
 answer to this communication, the Board unanimously 
 adopted the following action, January 7, 1834: — 
 
 Rev. Asa Bullard, — While we regret that you feel it to be your 
 duty to terminate your services as general agent of the Maine Sabbath- 
 School Union, it affords us the highest pleasure to express to you our 
 entire approbation of your devoted labors in behalf of the Sabbath- 
 school cause in Maine, and our deep sense of the value and faithful- 
 ness of your services. 
 
 You will carry with you wherever you may labor in the cause of 
 Christ our best wishes, and our fervent prayers for your success. 
 
 Permit us to commend you to the friendship and good offices of all 
 Christians among whom you may be called, in the providence of God, 
 to labor. 
 
 By order of the Board of Managers, 
 
 A. Richardson, President. 
 William Cutter, Secretary. 
 
 After being, as I thought, providentially led to give up 
 my early plan of engaging in missionary work in Africa, 
 I became greatly interested in the inviting field for 
 Christian work at the great west. Indeed, I went to 
 
126 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 Maine, as a good friend suggested, as the " most direct 
 way to the west." A year or two of this Sabbath-school 
 work in Maine, it was thought, would be the best prepara- 
 tion for what I then supposed was to be the scene of my 
 life-work. 
 
 Just before resigning my connection with the Maine 
 Sabbath-School Union, as mentioned above, Rev. Stephen 
 Peet, agent of the American Seamen's Friend Society, 
 for the inland and western waters, under date of Cleveland, 
 Ohio, November 26, 1833, wrote a long letter in regard 
 to his work, from which I give the following extracts : — 
 
 Dear Brother, — Having learned that your thoughts have been 
 turned towards the west, I wish to direct your attention to a field of use- 
 fulness to which, I am informed by your friends, you are in a good 
 degree adapted — a field long neglected, but vastly important, and which 
 is now white for the harvest. I refer to the inland waters of our 
 country and the multitudes of seamen and boatmen who are engaged 
 upon these waters. 
 
 After giving a minute account of the great need of 
 Christian labor among this interesting class, and of what 
 had already been accomplished in erecting chapels and 
 employing preachers, establishing libraries and schools for 
 their benefit, he says : — 
 
 The chaplain at Cleveland will be the pastor of a congregation reach- 
 ing through the center of this state, a distance of 343 miles, and over 
 all Lake Erie, from Buffalo to Detroit. There is a population of 
 perhaps two or three hundred in the vicinity of the water who, perhaps, 
 never entered a place of worship, to be looked up and brought out. 
 There are all the boatmen on the canal to be visited and furnished with 
 Bibles, etc., and the hundreds and thousands of travelers and emi- 
 grants who are filling up the great valley. 
 
 The question now, dear brother, is, Will you enter this field and 
 engage in the business of preaching and laboring among the seamen 
 and boatmen of the western waters? I have conversed with your 
 
SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK IN MAINE. 
 
 127 
 
 brother at Cincinnati [my brother was then district secretary of the 
 American Board of Foreign Missions for the valley of the Mississippi] 
 on the subject. He says he thinks you will come, and that you ought 
 to come. I wish you to occupy the station at Cincinnati, Cleveland, 
 Buffalo, or Louisville, to be determined after your arrival, etc. 
 
 This seemed to me a "Macedonian call," and I readily 
 took it into serious consideration ; and when I had so far 
 accepted it that Mr. Peet probably supposed I was on the 
 way thither, I was most unexpectedly "let " at Boston by a 
 call to what has proved to be my life-work, to become the 
 secretary and general agent of the Massachusetts Sabbath- 
 school Society, now called the Congregational Sunday- 
 School and Publishing Society. 
 
 After very serious and prayerful consideration, and 
 much marveling at the manner in which providence had 
 several times so obviously disposed of what I proposed, I 
 accepted the invitation and entered upon the service for 
 the Society March 1, 1834. And the work has been to 
 me most congenial ; and I have not since, during all these 
 years, desired for one moment any other field of Chris- 
 tian labor. Not that there may not be more important 
 ones, yet for me none more promising. In no other field 
 is one brought so closely into connection with home life. 
 In no work does the laborer meet with warmer sympathy 
 than that connected with parents and children. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MY CONNECTION WITH THE CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY- 
 SCHOOL AND PUBLISHING SOCIETY. 
 
 MY life-work, for fifty-four years prior to the first of 
 March, 1888, has really been with the Congrega- 
 tional Sunday-School and Publishing Society. And a brief 
 summary of this work may be interesting before entering 
 upon the details. 
 
 There is not a person now connected with any of the 
 offices of the Society, or the Board of Managers, nor 
 among the employees, who was connected with the 
 Society in any way when I entered upon my labors for 
 it, March 1, 1834. 
 
 In my work as general agent for nearly fifty-seven 
 years, including my three years in Maine, I have made 
 over 4,000 visits in 1,300 towns and parishes, preached and 
 given addresses 7,729 times, and traveled about 300,000* 
 miles, not including a tour of three months in Europe.. 
 With the exception of three western tours, all this traveL 
 has been in comparatively short journeys, mostly in New 
 England. I have attended annually more or less public 
 meetings, state and county conferences and associations of 
 churches, Sabbath-school conventions, festivals, etc., in 
 different parts of the country. In connection with these 
 visits, I have probably addressed more than two million 
 persons, perhaps more than eight hundred thousand dif- 
 ferent persons, and a large portion of them many times. 
 
 In my connection with this Society I edited every 
 number of its monthly periodical, The. Sabhath-ScJiooC 
 
 128 
 
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CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL SOCIETY. I 29 
 
 Visitor for ten years ; was assistant editor of The Con- 
 gregational Visitor for three years ; and edited, or pre- 
 pared, every number of its weekly periodical, The Well- 
 Spring, over forty years, till April 25, 1884. For many 
 years over sixty thousand copies of The Well-Spring per 
 week were published. 
 
 I was the corresponding and recording secretary of the 
 Society, of the Board of Managers, and of the Sabbath- 
 school Publishing Committee, and for several years of the 
 Theological Publishing Committee also. I prepared, while 
 acting Secretary, all but five or six of the annual reports 
 of the Society, and all the quarterly reports of the Sabbath- 
 school Committee and the Committee on Agencies. I 
 wrote numerous circulars, letters to Sabbath-schools and 
 juvenile societies, and other public documents. For sev- 
 eral years I read all the manuscripts for books, prepared 
 those that were accepted by the committees for publication 
 for the press, and read all the proofs. 
 
 To every Sabbath-school that would contribute to the 
 Society from twenty-five to one hundred and fifty dollars 
 annually for its missionary work we promised a letter to be 
 read at its concert. These letters were from our mission- 
 aries or Sabbath-school friends, or I wrote them myself. 
 From one hundred to one hundred and fifty copies of these 
 letters were sent every month to as many schools. This 
 was continued for eighty concerts. I wrote or compiled for 
 publication by the Society about forty of its i8mo books, 
 containing over four thousand pages ; thirty-six 32mo 
 booksi containing eight hundred pages ; and numerous 
 cards. I made it my duty and pleasure to perform what- 
 ever other labors I could make of service to the Society in 
 its work in behalf of the cause of Sabbath-schools. 
 
 At the end of forty years a new Secretary was appointed, 
 
I3O INCIDENTS IN A BUSY II FE. 
 
 and I was chosen Honorary Secretary and relieved from 
 a large portion of my accustomed labors. A committee 
 of the Board of Managers, of which the Rev. J. H. 
 Means, d.d., of Dorchester, was chairman, appointed to 
 consider the case of the former Secretary, reported, May 
 14, 1875, as follows: — 
 
 That the Board recall with gratitude the earnest and effective labors 
 of the former Secretary, who for forty-one years has stood before the 
 churches as a prominent advocate of the Sabbath-school cause, and 
 has stimulated by his addresses a great multitude of teachers and 
 scholars in all parts of the land. 
 
 That, although his relations to the Society are now changed by the 
 appointment of another as Secretary, it is desirable that his services 
 be still retained in presenting the work and claims of the Society 
 before Sabbath-schools and churches as opportunity may permit, and 
 in rendering such other service as the Board may direct ; and that his 
 title be Honorary Secretary. 
 
 My services commenced with the Society in its infancy. 
 It was organized May 31, 1832, and I prepared the annual 
 report for the second anniversary, May 29, 1834. At the 
 close of the first year, ending May 30, 1833, tne whole 
 business of the Depository was less than eight thousand 
 dollars. 
 
 The objects of the Society, according to the second 
 article of its constitution, were "to promote the opening 
 of new, and the increase and prosperity of the existing, 
 Sabbath-schools ; to form depositories for supplying Sab- 
 bath-schools with suitable books, on the lowest terms 
 possible ; to stimulate and encourage each other in the 
 moral and religious instruction of children and others " ; 
 so that the Society commenced organizing new Sabbath- 
 schools and aiding destitute ones, especially at the west, 
 from its beginning ; and the amount of donations from the 
 Sunday-schools for this purpose for the first year was 
 $690.47. 
 
CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL SOCIETY. 131 
 
 At the close of forty years, when a new Secretary was 
 appointed, the business of the Depository for the previous 
 year was not far from $140,000. The amount of donations 
 for our benevolent work was over $8,000, and it was dis- 
 tributed in books and papers in three hundred and thirty- 
 three different needy places. » 
 
 During these forty years it is estimated that the busi- 
 ness of the Society was at least $2,500,000, and the amount 
 of charitable contributions that the Society expended, 
 mostly in books and periodicals for organizing and main- 
 taining Sabbath-schools, at least $200,000. 
 
 The missionary work of the Society, in visiting and 
 organizing schools, till within a few years was almost 
 wholly through voluntary agents. Home missionaries 
 were ready to do this work within a reasonable distance 
 from their churches, if the Society would provide them 
 with the libraries and Sabbath-school helps that were 
 needed. Some missionaries, with their helps, organized 
 and sustained six or eight schools. One missionary vol- 
 untarily visited several counties around his especial field 
 of labor, and organized over thirty new schools. 
 
 For several years the Society employed six or eight paid 
 missionaries, among whom was the well-known lay evan- 
 gelist, Mr. K. A. Burnell. And the annual reports of the 
 Society will show that a most important work was accom- 
 plished from year to year. 
 
 The great difficulty in this part of our work was the 
 want of funds. A large part of the schools that contrib- 
 uted to the Society wished their contributions to go to 
 specific schools, so that they could receive letters from the 
 schools aided. 
 
 I have now a letter from the late Rev. Henry Ward 
 Beecher, dated Lawrenceburg, Ind., January 25, 1838, 
 
1 3 2 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 acknowledging the gift of a library from the Society for 
 his Sabbath-school, which he superintended. This letter 
 was to be sent to the schools that contributed the money. 
 
 The Shorter Catechism. 
 
 In 1835 I came across a book entitled "Anecdotes on 
 the Shorter Catechism." As the study of this catechism, 
 so common in my early days, seemed to have died out, I 
 conceived the plan of publishing one question of the cate- 
 chism with the answer, the proof-texts, and one of the 
 anecdotes in this book, in The Sabbath-School Visitor each 
 month, in order to revive, if possible, the study of this 
 catechism of my childhood. I had published only two or 
 three questions before letters began to come, asking, 
 " What has become of the catechism ? Why is it not 
 studied, as formerly, in our families and schools ? " 
 
 About this time the late Rev. David Sanford, then 
 pastor of the Congregational church in Dorchester village, 
 offered, if our Society would publish a cheap edition of the 
 catechism, to take five hundred copies. In about two 
 weeks the Society published five thousand. A short time 
 after this we published it with the proof-texts ; then we 
 published the " New England Primer," and then a book 
 called " Exercises on the Shorter Catechism." 
 
 Soon a very general interest was awakened on the sub- 
 ject in families and in Sabbath-schools. Superintendents 
 and pastors began to offer Bibles to all who would commit 
 it to memory. In many cases more than a hundred Bibles 
 were required to meet the offer. It cost the superintend- 
 ent of a school in West Springfield, Mass., over seventy- 
 five dollars to redeem his pledge. Within fifteen years the 
 Society published and sold, in its various forms, probably 
 not less than half a million copies of the catechism. The 
 
CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL SOCIETY. I 33 
 
 influence I was thus providentially permitted to exert, in 
 reviving the study of this excellent compendium of truth, 
 I regard as among the most important events of my life. 
 
 Visit of One Thousand Teachers to New York. 
 
 In August, 1855, the governors of some of the public 
 charitable institutions in New York invited the Sabbath- 
 school teachers in Massachusetts to visit Blackwell's and 
 Randall's Islands. It was regarded as a religious enter- 
 prise, undertaken with a view to advance the kingdom of 
 Christ. After many meetings for consultation and due 
 arrangement, about one thousand teachers embarked on 
 a steamer on Monday afternoon, September 24, for New 
 York. 
 
 After breakfast and a few exercises, almost two thou- 
 sand children from the various asylums and other institu- 
 tions for orphans, half-orphans, the friendless, the deaf 
 and dumb, etc., who are supported by the charities of 
 New York, were gathered at the palace. The children 
 of the different institutions were all arranged in squares 
 like patchwork, by themselves, and all arrayed in the 
 dresses peculiar to each institution. One square I called 
 " polished ebony " because it was composed of colored 
 children. 
 
 At this meeting, which was attended by the Sunday- 
 school superintendents and teachers of New York and 
 Brooklyn, and many of the clergymen and members of 
 the churches, there were addresses of welcome, responses, 
 etc. 
 
 One of the most interesting scenes of the occasion 
 was the appearance before the great audience of Bessy 
 Rourke, — a little child of about six years of age, — who 
 gave a " History of the Five Points Mission," and pointed 
 
134 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY II FE. 
 
 out the picture of the famous Old Brewery of that 
 locality. At the close of the beautiful and affecting 
 address of this little girl, I was called upon to respond. 
 
 The reception given to the visitors from Boston, our 
 visits to the various asylums and reformatory institutions, 
 our meeting with the Sabbath-school friends in Brooklyn, 
 and all the addresses were full of interest and inspiration. 
 
 Every thing connected with this event was adapted to 
 magnify the influence and importance of the institution 
 we represented. 
 
 This visit of one thousand teachers to New York led to 
 the holding of Sunday-school conventions, which have 
 now become so common. 
 
 Visits to the Army. 
 
 The Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing 
 Society, in connection with various other benevolent and 
 philanthropic organizations, during our late war engaged 
 in the work of furnishing the soldiers with reading. The 
 Society prepared a box of six books in uniform style, 
 called " The Soldier's Library," of which large numbers 
 were sent to the army. I compiled a book called " The 
 Soldier's Diary," and a " Book for Leisure Moments," that 
 was widely distributed among the soldiers. Some very 
 interesting cases were reported where fallen soldiers were 
 identified by this book found in their possession. I also 
 edited half a dozen small 32mo books : " The Discharged 
 Soldier," " Hope for the Lost," "Colonel Armine Moun- 
 tain," " Rest for the Soul," etc., which were published by 
 the Society and widely circulated in the army. 
 
 I made two visits to the Potomac and James River 
 armies for the purpose of gathering information that would 
 aid me in presenting the subject of "reading for the 
 
CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL SOCIETY. 1 35 
 
 soldiers " to the churches, and taking collections for the 
 object. The Christian Commission gave me a commission 
 that permitted me to visit the different armies as a 
 preacher, while gathering the desired information. 
 
 In my first visit I was in Washington at the time of the 
 second inauguration of President Lincoln. I spent a day 
 at Annapolis among the five hundred officers and fifteen 
 hundred soldiers who had just arrived from their sufferings 
 in Salisbury Prison. 
 
 In the evening a large number of them left, on a fur- 
 lough, to visit their friends, mostly in New England, and 
 I started with them. At Philadelphia we changed cars, 
 and I tried to get into one of the last two cars, filled with 
 soldiers. I wanted to be with them and help to cheer 
 them on the way. But the cars were so full no place could 
 be found. 
 
 About two o'clock on that disastrous night, we overtook 
 a disabled engine of a freight train. While we were thus 
 detained, and, as it was said, "with no signal out," we 
 were run into by an express train. The last two cars were 
 telescoped and the engine of the express train was driven 
 two thirds through those cars, mangling the poor soldiers 
 most fearfully. A large number were killed or wounded ! 
 We had to break through the cars with axes to get the 
 soldiers out, and their overcoats were saturated with the 
 scalding steam in which they were enveloped. It was the 
 most heart-rending scene I ever witnessed, and, but for 
 the ordering of a kind providence, I should have been 
 among the sufferers. How strange that those poor sol- 
 diers, who had just escaped the horrors of a rebel prison, 
 should so soon meet such a fearful scene of mutilation and 
 death ! 
 
 In connection with this visit, with some thirty members 
 
I36 INCIDENTS IN A B US Y LIFE. 
 
 of Congress and others, I had the pleasure of visiting our 
 soldiers at Bud's Ferry, and dining with General Hooker. 
 We went in the steamer Yankee, the flag-boat of the 
 Potomac flotilla, as far as Mattawoman Creek. There we 
 took a smaller boat called the Stepping Stone, often men- 
 tioned in connection with the war. From there we were 
 carried to General Hooker's quarters, several miles in 
 wagons over a new corduroy road. While going up the 
 Mattawoman Creek, we could see the smoke of the rebel 
 camp three miles distant at Cockpit Point. While looking 
 at it, we saw the smoke and heard the report of two shots 
 from that camp. On reaching Bud's Ferry, I found that a 
 shell had fallen within twenty rods of the First Massachu- 
 setts Regiment ; the shell which I saw did not burst. 
 The second shell burst very near the Eleventh Massachu- 
 setts, and I have a piece of it which I brought home as a 
 relic. At the dress parade of the First Massachusetts, 
 Colonel Cowden called on me for an address, in which I 
 gave as one reason for not going into the war, my fear 
 that the rebels would mistake my white head for a flag 
 of truce. 
 
 This visit was on a Saturday, and on Sunday morning it 
 was found that the rebels had fled. 
 
 In my visit to the James army I had the pleasure of 
 lunching with the commanding officer, General Devens, 
 and several of his staff officers. It was the day of the 
 capture of Wilmington. The general issued a proclama- 
 tion of the fact to his soldiers, and ordered a salute 
 on the good news. He gave me the privilege of carrying 
 the order, on my way to the colored regiments of his 
 army. The colored troops received the news with the 
 most uproarious excitement and enthusiasm, and cried 
 out : — 
 
CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL SOCIETY. 137 
 
 " Bres the Lord ! — Wish it was Richmond ! " 
 
 I visited Bermuda Hundred, at one time the headquarters 
 of General Butler, and also the famous Dutch Gap. The 
 agent of the Sanitary Commission, who kindly loaned me 
 his horse to visit this noted spot, requested me to leave 
 the horse some distance from the gaps, as rebels two or 
 three miles off were wont to throw shells if they saw 
 visitors there. So while I went and examined the place, I 
 hitched the horse out of danger. 
 
 At Deep Bottom I spent a very dark and stormy night 
 alone in a tent of the Sanitary Commission, which was 
 within a few miles of Richmond, and where was often 
 heard the guns of those on picket. A part of this night 
 I spent writing my " Editorial Correspondence," for 
 The Well-Spring. During this visit I traveled about fifteen 
 hundred miles ; preached or gave addresses in chapels of 
 the Christian Commission, in hospitals, gunboats, and 
 schools of the freedmen, sixteen times ; and held personal 
 conversations with soldiers in the cars, steamboats, hospi- 
 tals, camps, forts, and by the wayside. 
 
 It was very pleasant to me in both of these visits to 
 meet so many of the colored people at Washington and 
 other places, and to attend their meetings and listen to 
 their strange and excited manner of worship. At a meet- 
 ing in Washington, I heard three men and three women 
 pray. They were very fervent, and all made use of the 
 same expressions ; as that " the Lord would come over 
 the mountains of their sins," and that they might not 
 " get within gun-shot of the devil." One young woman, 
 who was quite diffident, prayed for her sister, that the 
 Lord would help her in bringing up her children ; and 
 then she prayed for her husband, " that we may dwell 
 together like two loving doves upon the same bough." 
 
I 3 8 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 At first I said to myself : " Though that is a beautiful 
 expression, it is not a good figure, because doves never 
 light on boughs ; " but in a moment it occurred to me, 
 "This means the turtle-doves," of which the woods at the 
 South are full. 
 
 Very soon after my second visit, Richmond fell and the 
 war was closed, and all the interesting facts I had gathered 
 were now, of course, of no avail in my work. 
 
 International Sunday-School Convention. 
 
 In May, 1875, I had the pleasure of attending and 
 taking part in an international Sunday-school convention 
 at Baltimore. The most popular Sunday-school speakers 
 of the country and of the Provinces and Europe were 
 present, and during the three days' sessions, subjects of 
 great practical interest were discussed. 
 
 My Interest in Children. 
 
 I have always felt a peculiar interest in children. I 
 never meet them by the way or in public conveyances with- 
 out feeling myself drawn towards them. My custom for 
 many years has been to have cards and little books to 
 present to such as I have the opportunity. And it is now 
 a very common thing to meet men and women, in all cir- 
 cumstances in life, who remind me of a little book or card 
 they received from me when they were children. And 
 many a one often adds with interest : " And I have got it 
 yet." 
 
 It has always seemed very strange that little ones, 
 when well-behaved, can be repulsive to any one. Some 
 years ago I had a correspondence with a woman on this 
 subject, which was so peculiar that the substance of it 
 may interest others. 
 
CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL SOCIETY. I 39 
 
 In an address at a Sabbath-school convention, I ex- 
 pressed interest in the young by saying I thought 
 heaven would be a poor place for one to live who did not 
 love children. About a fortnight afterwards a young 
 woman, an entire stranger, who happened to be present, 
 having learned my name and address, wrote me a letter. 
 Having repeated the above remark, she said : — 
 
 Now, Mr. Bullard, I do not love children. They are repulsive to me 
 as a general thing, and I want to ask you if, on that account, I must 
 be excluded from that happy place? I read in the Bible, " Repent and 
 believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Nothing is 
 there said about loving children as being essential to salvation. Since 
 I was a child myself I have wished to have as little to do with 
 children as possible. I have been told that I ought to cultivate a love 
 for children, but what would such a love amount to? With me, love 
 for any one must spring up spontaneously within me, or is good for 
 nothing. Perhaps it is wrong for me to feel like this, but what can I 
 do? I merely ask, as a great favor, that you will write me a few 
 words in explanation of what you said. I must, indeed, despair of 
 salvation if that is one of the conditions. 
 
 In reply to this strange letter, among other things 
 I said : — 
 
 Must not heaven be a poor place for people who do not love 
 children, unless their feelings are changed? Suppose angels and 
 saints are here " repulsive" to a person. Unless there is a change of 
 feeling in this respect, would not heaven — where there will be so 
 many saints and angels — be a " poor place " for that person? 
 
 There will certainly be multitudes of children in heaven. The 
 Saviour says, " Of such is the kingdom of heaven ; " and " Except ye 
 repent and become as little children " — as those that are so ' ' repulsive " 
 to you — "ye cannot see the kingdom of God." Then, it is said, 
 "Unless we have the Spirit of Christ we are none of his." But Christ 
 loved little children, and took them in his arms and blessed them. 
 They were not repulsive to him. He was displeased with his disciples, 
 to whom they were so ' ' repulsive " that they rebuked those who brought 
 them to him that he might bless them. 
 
1 40 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY II FE. 
 
 I did not say that any one would be excluded from that happy 
 place on account of not loving children ; but only that it would be a 
 " poor place " for such. If children are " repulsive " to you, and you 
 "wish to have as little to do with them as possible,' 1 I should think 
 you would want the Saviour, who is preparing a place among the 
 "many mansions" for his people, to prepare one for you, with "No 
 admittance to children " on the door, to make it really heaven 
 to you. 
 
 Would not a conservatory or a flower-garden be a poor place for 
 one who does not love flowers — to whom they are " repulsive "PI can 
 as readily conceive of a person who does not love flowers as one who 
 does not love children. 
 
 I said at that Sabbath-school meeting that do floral exhibition 
 could be more beautiful than that crowd of smiling, happy children. 
 Can it be that those children were "repulsive" to you? Was that a 
 repulsive scene when they sung so sweetly those beautiful songs ? 
 
 When I speak of children in heaven of course I mean well-behaved 
 children, and I do not know that any others are ever admitted to that 
 blissful home. 
 
 What a world this would be without any children ! It 
 would be like blotting out all of the stars from our evening 
 skies, and like sweeping away every sweet flower from the 
 meadows and the hillsides. 
 
 The prophet, in speaking of the new Jerusalem, says 
 that " the streets were full of boys and girls playing in 
 the streets thereof." 
 
 Old People s Day. 
 
 Rev. Wm. J. Batt, late of Stoneham, Mass., now chap- 
 lain at the Reformatory, Concord, used to have once a year 
 what he called " Old People's Day." All the old people of 
 his congregation and, indeed, of the town were invited to 
 his church at an afternoon service especially for them. 
 Mr. Batt usually invited some elderly minister to be with 
 him and take part in the services of the day. 
 
CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL SOCIETY. 141 
 
 At the "Old People's Day" in 1881, I was invited to 
 be with Mr. Batt. The house was quite full on the occa- 
 sion. There were sixty people present who were over 
 sixty years of age, and twenty-five who were eighty years 
 of age or more. A bouquet was presented to each of these 
 twenty-five. They arose, as their names were called, and 
 received the bouquets as they were presented by the hands 
 of children. At the close of the meeting one of those 
 addressed said : " It knocked twenty years right off from 
 my age." 
 
 Perhaps it may not be improper to give the following 
 account of the services of that day, which Mr. Batt 
 published : — 
 
 The day passed very pleasantly indeed. Rev. Mr. Bullard's ser- 
 mon in the forenoon was upon the true method and spirit of studying 
 the Bible, in order to the growth of noble character. It was one of 
 the most remarkable sermons preached in any pulpit that day, we ven- 
 ture to say. The preacher was seventy-seven years old and in no way that 
 we could see asking the least indulgence of his hearers on account of 
 his age. There was indeed only the least possible suggestion that he 
 was old. His hair was abundant, white and not gray. Quite tall in 
 figure, he stood up almost like an arrow for straightness. . . . His voice 
 was clear and strong and was heard easily every- where in the house. 
 Emphasis vigorous, matter excellent, style finished. The sermon was 
 delivered without any notes and yet was reasonably brief. Mr. Bul- 
 lard's address in the afternoon was very felicitous. 
 
 A good audience was present in the evening to hear Mr. Bullard's 
 account of the World's Sabbath-school Convention in London, to 
 which he was a delegate. It was full of instruction and was very 
 greatly enjoyed. 
 
 After reaching home at night, Mr. Bullard was asked if he would 
 take a cup of tea, or what he would like for refreshments. The old 
 man of seventy-seven, who had taught a Bible class and spoken at 
 three services, replied : " Nothing, unless it is another meeting." 
 
 Almost all of this long ministerial life has been spent in the Sabbath- 
 school work. Young people come up in sets. We may reckon five 
 years to a set. Youth do not go much beyond that limit of difference 
 
I42 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY IIFE. 
 
 of ages in their intimate associations. As often as once in about that 
 period of time a new set of young folks comes upon the stage. In this 
 way of reckoning, Mr. Bullard, as a writer of books, as an editor, as a 
 director on a large scale of the religious instruction of the young, has 
 powerfully molded five or ten generations of youth ! What a life to 
 look back upon ! What a life for other men to honor ! And not really 
 old yet ! 
 
 Fiftieth Anniversary. 
 
 At the regular quarterly meeting of the managers of 
 
 the Society the following action was taken : — 
 
 On the first day of March, 1884, our revered and beloved father, 
 Rev. Asa Bullard, reached the fiftieth anniversary of his election to 
 office in this Society. The length of his term of service is believed 
 to be unprecedented in the history of similar Sunday-school and 
 publishing organizations. The Board of Managers, therefore, desire, 
 first of all, to recognize devoutly the good hand of our God upon his 
 servant, and to give thanks for that gracious providence which raised 
 up, so early in the history of Sunday-schools, a man richly endowed 
 with gifts of mind and heart for the twofold and difficult work of 
 providing a proper Sunday-school literature, and of awakening an 
 intelligent and profound interest throughout and beyond New England 
 in the religious education of the young. The members of the Board 
 also desire to extend to Mr. Bullard their fraternal and hearty con- 
 gratulations upon his completion of so protracted a period of service, 
 and, speaking not only for themselves, but also for the thousands of 
 Christian people to whom his name is familiar as a household word, 
 to assure him of their appreciation of his eminently faithful, wise, and 
 successful labors through all these years for Christ and his kingdom, 
 Their prayer is that his youthfulness of spirit, which is still unabated, 
 may be immortal, and that the favor of God, which has been so long 
 and bountifully bestowed upon him, may be still more abundant and 
 also everlasting. In view of the faithful labors of Mr. Bullard, con- 
 tinued now for half a century in the service of this Society, the Board 
 deem it fitting to adopt the following resolution : — 
 
 Resolved, That Mr. Bullard deserves to be relieved, and for the 
 future is relieved, of all editorial labor; but that he be retained in the 
 service of this Society, and his salary be $600, with the request that 
 he will continue, as opportunity is given him, to address Sunday- 
 
CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL SOCIETY. 
 
 H3 
 
 schools, churches, and other assemblies, in behalf of the work of the 
 Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society. 
 
 The editor of The Pilgrim Teacher, in referring to this 
 action of the Board, says : — 
 
 The case of Rev. Asa Bullard is doubtless unprecedented in the 
 fact that he has now for fifty years been the official representative of 
 a Sunday-school society, presenting its claims earnestly and effectively 
 during all this period in the various pulpits of the denomination 
 throughout the land, especially in New England. His services in this 
 line are still in active demand, and there was a long period of years 
 when the call for him from all directions was far greater than he could 
 answer. Though now well advanced, he is still very active, and there 
 are few men of any age who can perform such service more acceptably 
 than he. Mr. Bullard has done and is still doing a great and impor- 
 tant work. He keeps up with the times remarkably well, and always 
 has a wonderful freshness for a man of his years. 
 
 A pastor, in a local paper, writes under the following 
 head : — 
 
 A Veteran in Sunday-school Work. — March i, 1834, Rev. 
 Asa Bullard was appointed Secretary of the Massachusetts Sabbath- 
 School Society, now called the Congregational Sunday-School and 
 Publishing Society. From that time till now he has been actively 
 engaged in the service of the Society, giving the labors of a long life 
 to advance the interest of Sunday-schools and the teaching of the 
 Word of God. January 1, 1844, The Well-Spring was started, of 
 which Mr. Bullard was the editor ; and he still assists in preparing 
 its pages. Every number for forty years has passed through his hands. 
 This continuous service of half a century has hardly a parallel in the 
 history of benevolent societies. Fifty years of labor for children and 
 youth, by voice and pen, is a privilege rarely granted to any one man. 
 A generation has sprung up and passed away since he began his work. 
 He is yet hale and vigorous, and his voice is often heard in the 
 churches, where he is always welcome. This is written, of course, 
 without his knowledge ; but we know that the many thousand boys 
 and girls who have heard him speak, many of whom are gray-haired 
 now, will wish for him yet many years of health and usefulness. 
 
1 44 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 Sunday-School Superintendents Union. 
 
 Six or seven years ago the Congregational Sunday- 
 schools of Boston and vicinity formed a union for mutual 
 benefit. It includes superintendents, present and past,, 
 and assistants. Meetings are held monthly. An hour 
 is given to social intercourse, after which there is a 
 collation ; then an hour and a half or two hours are 
 spent in an opening devotional service and a discussion 
 of some practical subject connected with the Sunday- 
 school work. This is opened by a paper or address of 
 about twenty minutes, by some one chosen by the execu- 
 tive committee. These meetings are very stimulating 
 and instructive. At the close of the spring meetings,, 
 one is held in June, called the Ladies' Meeting, at which 
 the members can invite their lady friends, and a public 
 meeting in the church follows the collation, at which 
 there are addresses usually by clergymen. 
 
 At a meeting in 1883, the president invited me, as 
 a guest, to be present. In the course of the meeting 
 one of the members, after some pleasant remarks about 
 a venerable man he used to know when a boy, moved 
 that " Mr. Bullard be chosen as an honorary member 
 of the Union." Another member seconded the motion 
 with some very pleasant remarks, and I was chosen by a 
 rising vote. 
 
 This I regard as a great honor and as one of the most 
 complimentary acts ever rendered me. After acting as 
 chaplain at the table a year or two, I have been elected as 
 " Chaplain of the Union for life " ! 
 
 Sabbath-schools Forty Years Ago. 
 
 The work of the farmer when I was a boy was a 
 hand-to-hand work. There were none of the labor- 
 
CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL SOCIETY. 1 45 
 
 saving machines and various facilities, now so numerous, 
 • to lighten the toil of the husbandman. The fork then 
 used was almost as much as a boy twelve years old could 
 lift. Now that article is almost light and delicate enough 
 for a table-fork. The farmer now rides to plow, to 
 harrow, to sow, to reap, to mow, to rake, etc. 
 
 The difference in the Sabbath-school work forty years 
 ago and now is almost as great. Then it was truly a 
 hand-to-hand work. There were no " helps over hard 
 places," none of the numerous — perhaps too numerous — 
 helps that are now provided for superintendents and 
 teachers to make their work comparatively easy and 
 efficient'. 
 
 And yet any one who will examine my volume, " Fifty 
 Years with the Sabbath-schools," will no doubt be as- 
 tonished, as I was in preparing it, to see how little there 
 is in the Sabbath-school work of to-day that is really 
 new. A lady in Kansas writes : — 
 
 " I have read your ' Fifty Years with the Sabbath- 
 schools ' with both pleasure and profit, being constantly 
 startled by the thought that what we are pleased to call 
 'new methods ' are not new." 
 
 Now, take the teachers' meeting. Forty years ago 
 it was extensively observed, and was regarded as the 
 thermometer of a school. It was not a meeting to 
 study the lesson so much as to compare and harmonize 
 views and aid each other in the best mode of teaching 
 it to the scholars. A boy twelve years old wrote a com- 
 position to be read at the concert, on " The Importance 
 of the Teachers' Meeting," and illustrated his subject 
 by the fact that one Sabbath he heard three teach- 
 ers — his own, the one before him, and the one behind 
 him — give three different answers to the same question ; 
 
1 46 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 and he thought they ought to come together and try to 
 teach alike. 
 
 The concert was extensively observed forty years ago, 
 and was every-where spoken of as the largest and most 
 interesting meeting held, as it is now. It was a meeting 
 for prayer, singing, recitation of hymns and Scripture, 
 and addresses. It was not so much an exhibition as it 
 is in some schools at the present day ; but it was the 
 children's meeting, and they came even from a distance 
 the coldest winter evenings. As long ago as the concert 
 was held on Monday evening, at East Boston ; on that 
 evening there was a display of fireworks, firing of guns, 
 etc., in the vicinity of the vestry, and yet most of the 
 older pupils of the school, boys and girls, came in and 
 were quietly seated through the whole exercises of the 
 evening, apparently unmoved by the roar of the cannon 
 and the blaze of the rockets without. We can hardly 
 find an example of more interest in the concert at the 
 present day. 
 
 Forty years ago there was no exercise in which the 
 children so much delighted as in singing. Yet there 
 were then few hymn and tune books but those used 
 in the church. In Taunton, a hymn suited to the 
 capacities of the children was chalked on a blackboard 
 — yes, a blackboard forty-five years ago ! — and committed 
 to memory by the whole school. This was sung at the 
 concert to a simple tune adapted to the words, and, said 
 the superintendent in his report : " If the Sabbath-school 
 room may ever be said to resemble ' a little heaven below,' 
 it was while the hundred youthful voices united in a song 
 of praise." You might often hear aged fathers and mothers 
 exclaim, after a concert was over : " Did you ever hear any 
 thing like it ? How the little creatures did sing ! " 
 
CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL SOCIETY. 1 47 
 
 More than fifty years ago adult classes began to be 
 formed quite generally in the schools in New England. 
 It soon became common to receive reports that a large 
 portion of the church and congregation were connected 
 with the school. In the report of the Massachusetts 
 Sabbath-School Society for 1841, it is stated that in 226 
 schools in Massachusetts were 11,692 scholars over 
 eighteen years of age, or an average of over fifty in 
 each school. The pastor in Conway, with a congregation 
 of three hundred or four hundred, counted but eleven of 
 his people who did not enter the school at the close of 
 the morning service. 
 
 "Mission," or " neighborhood," or "branch" schools, as 
 they were called, were then common. In country towns 
 then, as now, such schools were not usually for poor 
 children or foreigners, but for those who were too 
 distant to attend the school at the church. Some 
 churches sustained several such schools. One church 
 in Fall River for many years sustained seven such 
 schools from one to three miles from the church. 
 
 Some forty years ago one church in Boston asked : 
 " What shall we do for the neglected children and youth 
 in our city ? Shall we form mission schools, as some of 
 the churches are doing, or shall we try to gather these 
 neglected ones into our own school ? " 
 
 The decision was to gather them into their own school 
 and seat them with their own children. And the result 
 was that the school in one year and a half was increased 
 from one hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty. Of 
 the infant class of about one hundred children all but 
 fifteen or twenty were gathered in from the streets. A 
 class of eighteen Swedes was gathered, thirteen of whom 
 in a year and a half were converted and united with the 
 
1 48 INCIDEN TS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 church. The pastor said of them : " They learned the 
 ' language of Israel ' before they had learned our own lan- 
 guage." 
 
 Visiting scholars at their homes was very common. 
 One teacher in Hopkinton traveled on foot nineteen miles 
 on Fourth of July, 1841, while others were spending the 
 day in pleasure-seeking, to visit the members of his class. 
 
 Reciprocal visits by persons chosen for the purpose to 
 address the concert in neighboring schools and inter- 
 change of letters to be read at the concert were quite 
 common forty or fifty years ago. 
 
 The most important and marked feature in the Sabbath- 
 school work forty years ago was that the chief end with 
 most teachers seemed to be the conversion of the scholars. 
 Sixty-three schools in Massachusetts in 1841 reported 
 1,622 hopeful conversions during the year; and twenty- 
 seven of those converts the same year commenced pre- 
 paring for the ministry. Ninety members of the school 
 in Hopkinton and eighty in Holden were that year con- 
 verted. In Hopkinton every class was visited and from 
 three to seven in some classes converted. A whole class 
 of seven men, from thirty to forty-four years of age, formed 
 a year before, were all converted. In a class of nineteen 
 young men fourteen were converted. A teacher who 
 wrote a note to her scholars every week soon rejoiced over 
 the conversion of six of them. Another teacher, who 
 requested her scholars at a certain hour every day to pray 
 for their own salvation, hoped that five were soon con- 
 verted. It was common to hear of the conversion of whole 
 classes. 
 
 The pastor in West Needham, now Wellesley, reported 
 in 1841 that there were not more than three or four in the 
 whole school over ten years of age who were not either 
 
CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL SOCIETY. 
 
 149 
 
 indulging hopes or anxious for their souls. The district 
 school near by was like a Sabbath meeting. At noon the 
 girls went by themselves to a neighboring building, and 
 spent the time in prayer and reading the Bible ; and the 
 boys went into another place for the same purpose. The 
 boys had a weekly prayer-meeting by themselves at 
 the dwellings of their parents ; and besides this two or three 
 seldom met together without prayer. Their voices were 
 often heard in prayer, not only in their retired chambers, 
 but also in barns and sheds and ships. " I am sometimes 
 filled with wonder," said the pastor. " I never witnessed 
 any thing like it. I can not doubt that they are sincere. 
 Forty-two are now hoping. I rejoice, and yet I rejoice 
 with trembling." 
 
 This is a sample of the Sabbath-school work quite gen- 
 eral forty and fifty years ago. 
 
 Several Calls to Other Fields of Labor. 
 
 In 1838, my brother, Rev. Artemas Bullard, then pastor 
 of the First Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, Missouri, 
 wrote me as follows : — 
 
 "My church has just sent off a strong colony to form 
 a second church. Half the wealth of my church goes, 
 and more than half of its pious strength. It is a choice 
 draft. They have a man engaged only till spring, then 
 the church will wish to call a pastor. I wish it might be 
 your duty to come and be its pastor." 
 
 It would have been very pleasant to have been 
 associated with my brother, as a pastor, in that grow- 
 ing city. But I did not " see it my duty " to accept a call, 
 had a formal one been extended to me. 
 
 A few years after this my brother wrote, in behalf of 
 the Bible cause for the valley of the Mississippi, a very 
 earnest invitation for me to become the Secretary and 
 
1 5 O INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 General Agent of that cause. This invitation was warmly 
 urged by my father-in-law, Samuel Fowler Dickinson, Esq., 
 then connected with the Lane Theological Seminary at 
 Cincinnati. Among the inducements presented for me to 
 accept this invitation, was the fact that the field was the 
 whole valley of the Mississippi, while my present field 
 of labor was only New England! Just as though any one 
 could properly cultivate either. And besides the field of 
 the Massachusetts Sabbath-School Society, was the Con- 
 gregational churches throughout the country. 
 
 And then again, some years later, a similar call was 
 made for me to engage in the tract cause for the west. 
 
 As inviting as these fields appeared, I could see no good 
 reason for leaving a work of sufficient importance to 
 engage the best energies of any one ; and a work, too, in 
 which I had become very deeply interested, and that was 
 so in accord with all my feelings. And I have never seen 
 any occasion to regret my decision. The Sabbath-school 
 work is the one to which, in the providence of God, I was first 
 called, and I have been most happy in giving to it my life. 
 
 Several years after this, a member of the Board of the 
 American Sunday-School Union wrote me, inquiring what 
 would induce me to leave the Society with which I was 
 connected, and enter the service of the Union ? That 
 was before the various denominations had so generally 
 arranged to conduct their Sunday-school work through 
 denominational organizations. The influence and opera- 
 tions of the Union were then much more extensive than 
 now, and no doubt, had I been inclined to enter into its 
 service, it would have been very much, pecuniarily, to my 
 advantage. But my prompt and decisive reply was that 
 no pecuniary or any other inducement would lead me to 
 leave my present position, so long as the Society desired 
 my services. And so that question was settled. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THREE TOURS THROUGH THE WEST. 
 
 IN 1842 I made a journey west as far as Indianapolis 
 and St. Louis, in company with my brother-in-law, 
 Judge Barton, and my brother Talbut, who was a physician 
 in Indianapolis. Two or three incidents of the journey 
 may be here recorded. 
 
 One Sabbath was spent in Marietta, Ohio, where this 
 brother graduated at the college in that city. The day 
 was made busy in preaching and addresses connected with 
 my Sabbath-school work. m 
 
 On our way down the Ohio River one day, in a thunder- 
 shower, my brother requested me to remind him on reach- 
 ing Cincinnati to reveal a secret to me. That secret was, 
 as I learned on reaching the city, that we were then sitting 
 directly over several casks, not of whiskey but of gun- 
 powder ! He was acquainted with some of the officials of 
 the steamer, and though it was unlawful to carry that arti- 
 cle on the boat, they had told him of the fact. When 
 asked why he had seated himself in such a dangerous 
 place, his reply was that " if the boat should be struck 
 by lightning, or if for any cause the powder should be 
 exploded, we were probably as safe there as we should 
 be in any part of the steamer." 
 
 While in Cincinnati we visited the Lane Seminary. By 
 invitation of my brother, one evening, we attended a pan- 
 orama of the infernal regions. My brother repeatedly 
 warned me against being frightened at what might be 
 seen. I will not describe the scenes there represented — 
 
 151 
 
152 
 
 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 the chains of darkness, the gnashing of teeth, the 
 unquenchable fire, etc. Suffice it to say they were awful, 
 but not more so than what is revealed to us in the lan- 
 guage of the Bible of the woes of the lost. But I think 
 the descriptions in the Word of God much more likely to 
 lead men to flee from the wrath to come, than any such 
 mechanical representation. If we will not hear Moses 
 and the prophets, neither would we be persuaded, though 
 one should rise from the dead. This panorama, however, 
 was merely » pecuniary not a religious affair. 
 
 We spent a Sabbath at Indianapolis. Every church in 
 the city, except one small Baptist church, including that 
 of our brother-in-law, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, who was 
 absent, was closed, that all the people might attend a 
 camp-meeting in the outskirts of the city. The evening 
 service was almost as much a pandemonium, so far as 
 noise and confusion were concerned, as the one repre- 
 sented in the panorama we witnessed at Cincinnati. 
 There was praying, half a dozen at a time, singing, shout- 
 ing, exhortation, falling into a trance, etc. etc. Two or 
 three of Mr. Beecher's young brothers were there. When 
 a woman, with a shriek, fell into a trance, and was taken 
 up by several of the brethren and carried into a tent, the 
 Beechers hurried away and followed to see the result. 
 They overheard the victim in the trance, and who, of 
 course, was all unconscious, say : — 
 
 " Lay me down carefully, brothers ! " 
 
 When at Chicago we found a young city with a 
 population of sixteen thousand. We felt that we could 
 stand in the center and almost shake the city. Its growth 
 since then is one of the marvels of the age — now a city 
 of probably over seven hundred thousand inhabitants. 
 
 One of the great inconveniences of our journey was the 
 
THREE TOURS THROUGH THE WEST. 
 
 15. 
 
 mode of traveling. Then, of course, there were no rail- 
 roads, and through much of the rich prairie-land our high- 
 ways were corduroy roads, — timbers laid crosswise, — 
 over which the stages or great lumber wagons went jolting, 
 jolting, almost taking away one's breath, and requiring the 
 utmost effort to keep the seat. One day our lumber 
 wagon was filled up with mail-bags, among which we 
 found our seats as best we could. The kind-hearted 
 driver, seeing our inconvenience, consoled us with the 
 statement that a new stage was to be put on the road in 
 a few weeks. That was doubtless better for future 
 travelers, but somehow very little consolation or comfort 
 did it afford us, tired and bruised wayfarers as we were. 
 
 Another inconvenience we found was in our food. An 
 Irishman fellow-traveler said : " I can't ate their cookin* 
 out here." A very little could we eat, except at Indianap- 
 olis and St. Louis, where we were entertained by New 
 England friends. Almost every thing that was cooked 
 was done in lard. Chicken fixings, ham even, and every 
 thing else were made to swim in lard. 
 
 At St. Louis we found a real New England home for a 
 few days with my oldest brother, Rev. Artemas Bullard, 
 d.d., pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, which office 
 he held with remarkable success for eighteen years, when 
 he lost his life, with some thirty other citizens of St. Louis, 
 in that fearful railroad accident at the Gasconade Bridge, 
 in November, 1855. 
 
 On our return journey we took a steamer at Chicago, 
 by way of the lakes, for Buffalo. When we found that we 
 could not reach Buffalo before the Sabbath, though the 
 captain on starting had assured us, we could, we stopped 
 over, on Saturday morning, at Mackinaw, or, as we used 
 to call it in our geography lessons in my school days, 
 
I 5 4 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY II FE. 
 
 Michilimackinac. Here, with a New York clergyman, 
 we conducted service forenoon and afternoon, at the old 
 chapel of the American Board of Foreign Missions. This 
 chapel was erected by the Board when it had a mission at 
 the island many years before for the Indians. By stop- 
 ping over for the Sabbath, we had an opportunity to look 
 about this unique and romantic spot, and we also escaped 
 a fearful gale upon the lake Sabbath night. The Great 
 Western, that came in Monday morning, had a very rough 
 time, and was much injured by the storm. But our sail to 
 Buffalo on Monday was most delightful. 
 
 A Second Western Tour. 
 
 At the end of twenty-five years' labor with the 
 Society, in 1859 the Board gave me a vacation of ten 
 weeks, to make a more extensive journey to the west for 
 rest and recreation. Before starting I prepared the lead- 
 ing articles, with the engravings, for twelve numbers of 
 The Well-Spring. These were put into the hands of the 
 printer, and then I kept him supplied with all the copy he 
 needed by my " Editorial Correspondence." 
 
 Mr. K. A. Burnell was then laboring as a missionary of 
 the Society at the west. He was notified of my expected 
 visit, and informed that I would be willing, now and then, 
 to attend and address a meeting, if he wished to arrange 
 for such services. On reaching him, I found that he had 
 arranged for a meeting at two o'clock p. m. for children, 
 and in the evening one for older persons, for every day for 
 a week or two ! That, to be continued for a very long 
 time, I felt would be rather over-doing the matter, inas- 
 much as it was a tour for rest. 
 
 I very soon found that the west was largely made up of 
 New England people, and that most of them, in their 
 
THREE TOURS THROUGH THE WEST. 1 55 
 
 younger days, were familiar with The Well-Spring or The 
 Sabbath-School Visitor, and with the name of the editor ; 
 and every-where they were urgent for meetings. The 
 Sabbaths at Detroit, Milwaukee, Chicago, Quincy, Law- 
 rence in Kansas, St. Louis, Cincinnati, etc., were crowded 
 with services. 
 
 At Chicago there were arranged three public meetings 
 in different parts of the city ; and I visited and addressed 
 eight Sabbath-schools and the Bridewell. 
 
 At Milwaukee, besides several other services, there was 
 a meeting in the afternoon of all the evangelical Sunday- 
 schools of the city. It was held in the Spring Street 
 Congregational Church, of which Rev. W. DeLoss Lane, 
 d.d., now of South Hadley, Mass., was pastor. 
 
 After addressing the school of the Plymouth Church, 
 which took a large number of . The We 11- Spring, the school, 
 by a most hearty vote, sent greetings to their brothers and 
 sisters of The Well-Spring family, and to the Sabbath- 
 school children of New England. 
 
 I attended a Sabbath-school convention of several days, 
 for southern Wisconsin, at Racine. At a mass meeting 
 in a small grove, it was estimated that there were present 
 four thousand children. 
 
 I also attended a large Sabbath-school convention at 
 Fond du Lac, for northern Wisconsin. One evening meet- 
 ing was addressed by Governor Randall and myself. The 
 governor said he had been a scholar, teacher, and superin- 
 tendent in the Sabbath-school. Though not a professor of 
 religion, he expressed great interest in the cause. 
 
 In one of my addresses at a children's meeting, I had 
 given expression to some fears lest his excellency might 
 complain of my having entered his state without permis- 
 sion and stolen from him the hearts of the children. To 
 this the governor replied : — 
 
I56 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY II FE. 
 
 "If the reverend gentleman has stolen the hearts of 
 the children of Wisconsin, he is welcome to them. It is 
 the only thing he could have stolen and deserve to be 
 pardoned ; and I will pardon him freely without a petition. 
 I do not think he will use the affection of the children 
 for any bad purpose. In that case the end justifies the 
 means." 
 
 My visit to Lawrence, Kansas, I had anticipated with 
 much interest, as over $500 worth of Sunday-school books 
 and papers had been sent by our Society to that city, to 
 aid in promoting the Sabbath-school cause in Kansas. 
 And these were the first publications of the kind sent to 
 that territory. And besides, two Sabbath-schools had been 
 organized in Lawrence by the names of Beecher and 
 Bullard schools. At the close of my address, at a united 
 meeting of the evangelical schools, at 4 o'clock p.m., by 
 the suggestion of one of the superintendents, a collection 
 was cheerfully taken to help meet the expenses of my 
 western tour. This was also done at several meetings in 
 different cities, without any suggestion from the speaker. 
 
 A somewhat curious occurrence took place in this city, 
 showing the influence of the children compared with that 
 of the women. 
 
 Notice had been given in the papers and by bulletins, 
 without any intended opposition to our meeting, that the 
 pastor of the Unitarian church would preach at four 
 o'clock p.m. on Woman. That was the same hour at which 
 our united meeting of the children was called. I said to 
 the pastor of the Congregational church, Rev. Richard 
 Cordley : " The women will beat the children and we shall 
 have a small meeting. All will wish to hear what the 
 preacher has to say about woman." 
 
 There was not as much said in public about woman as 
 
THREE TOURS THROUGH THE WEST. 1 57 
 
 at the present day. We went to our meeting, and to my 
 surprise, the house was literally packed, every seat was 
 occupied and many were standing. 
 
 While singing the hymn before the address we were still 
 more surprised to see the Unitarian clergyman with all his 
 congregation of six women come into our meeting. The 
 children had carried the day. 
 
 My visit at St. Louis was especially noteworthy. This 
 was only four years after the tragic death of my brother, 
 the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church. A strong 
 family resemblance secured for me every-where — in the 
 street, in my many calls upon the families of this society, 
 in the Sabbath-school, and in the church — an immediate 
 recognition that was most affecting. While these scenes 
 were a constant and almost painful appeal to all my ten- 
 derest emotions, they were still a most gratifying evidence 
 of the deep affection with which the memory of my 
 departed brother was cherished by his devoted people. 
 There was scarcely any thing that touched my feelings 
 more deeply than the tenderness with which the pastor, 
 Rev. Dr. Nelson, frequently spoke of his predecessor, the 
 sympathy he manifested with his people in their bereave- 
 ment, and the pains he seemed to take to cherish among 
 them these affectionate recollections of their departed 
 friend. Had he been an own brother, I know not how he 
 could have spoken of him with more esteem and love. 
 
 At the time of my visit to St. Louis in 1842 the popula- 
 tion was about 32,000; at the time of this visit in 1859 it 
 numbered not far from 190,000. 
 
 On the next Wednesday afternoon I addressed a large 
 gathering of the Sabbath-schools of Indianapolis. This 
 city is quite noted for its enterprise in the Sunday-school 
 work. A few years before it was reported that nearly 
 
I 5 8 INCIDENTS IN A B US Y LIFE. 
 
 every child of the city that could be brought in was con- 
 nected with some Sunday-school. 
 
 On Saturday, by special invitation of the Young Men's 
 Christian Association of Cincinnati, I addressed a large 
 children's meeting in a mammoth tent. In the morning 
 of the Sabbath I addressed the school of the Presbyterian 
 church that worshiped at the chapel of the Lane Theo- 
 logical Seminary on Walnut Hills. In the forenoon I 
 preached at the Congregational church under the pastoral 
 care of Rev. Henry M. Storrs. In the afternoon I 
 addressed a mission school at the west end of the city, in 
 their beautiful new chapel, and also a Methodist school. 
 At three o'clock I addressed an interesting meeting of 
 children and friends in Rev. Mr. Storrs' church, and in the 
 evening preached to a great multitude at the tent. 
 
 This busy day closed the public labors of my western 
 tour, and on Monday my steps were turned for home, 
 which I safely reached on Friday morning, having been 
 absent nine weeks and four days. In this tour I traveled 
 about six thousand miles, preached and gave addresses 
 ninety-eight times, and brought home to the Society one 
 hundred dollars, more than the expenses of the tour. 
 
 On reaching home I found that the printer of The Well- 
 Spring had not only received from me in my absence all 
 the articles he needed for the paper, but enough for a 
 month or two to come. 
 
 A Third Western Tour. 
 
 In the spring of 1864 the Sabbath-school in Grinnell, 
 Iowa, through the teachers, several of whom were officers 
 in the college in that place, invited me to visit the school 
 at the time the Association of the state was to hold there 
 its annual meeting. This school took a large number of 
 
THREE TOURS THROUGH THE WEST. 1 59 
 
 The Well-Spring, and the children, especially, wanted to see 
 and hear the man who made it. 
 
 I commenced this tour May 27, 1864. The first day, in 
 the western part of the state, the train narrowly escaped 
 a fearful disaster. The engine displaced a short rail, 
 hurling it several rods into the bushes. Two baggage cars 
 were thrown from the track just as they were passing a 
 deep culvert. The wheels of the forward one came 
 within an inch or two of dropping into the culvert, by 
 which event the whole train would have been instantly 
 stopped, and no one can tell what a wreck would have 
 been made by the concussion. 
 
 All spoke of our escape as wonderful, calling for the 
 most devout thankfulness to a kind, superintending provi- 
 dence. I could but inquire, How many thought of the 
 kind providence that had brought us all the way from 
 Boston to that spot without any accident ? 
 
 In consequence of the detention caused by this disaster 
 I spent the Sabbath at Lockport, N. Y. , instead of 
 Detroit, Mich., according to my plan. Rev. Joseph L. 
 Bennett, pastor of the Congregational church, at once 
 arranged for me to preach in the morning at the Methodist 
 church; at noon to address the Sunday-school of that 
 church and his own ; at three p.m. address a united meet- 
 ing of five schools ; and in the evening preach at a united 
 meeting of the Presbyterian and Methodist churches. 
 
 At Grinnell the Association, which commenced its 
 session on Wednesday, was held through the week and on 
 the Sabbath. At 1 o'clock p.m. on Saturday, the Associa- 
 tion suspended its business and gave up the church for a 
 meeting of the Sunday-schools in Grinnell and the adjacent 
 towns, that the scholars might see and hear " the man 
 who makes The Well-Springy I also had an opportunity 
 
1 60 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 of addressing the school that had invited me there on the 
 Sabbath. 
 
 A little three-year-old boy came to the children's meet- 
 ing, expecting to see something marvelous, as he had 
 been told that "the man who makes " The W 7 ell- Spring 'was 
 going to speak. After looking some time at the speaker, 
 he turned to his mother and said with an expression of 
 sore disappointment : " Why, mother, he is only an old 
 man!" He was expecting to see some wonderful animal, 
 such as he had once seen at a show or exhibition ; but 
 instead of that he was only an old man. He little knew 
 how young that old man's heart was. 
 
 On leaving Grinnell, I visited several towns and cities in 
 Iowa, as far west as Des Moines, which is very near the 
 center of our continent, and on my return journey I 
 visited Cincinnati and Indianapolis. Meetings were held 
 in all these places. 
 
 In this tour of about one month, I traveled three thou- 
 sand two hundred and eighty miles, visited thirteen towns 
 and parishes, and preached or gave addresses thirty-three 
 times. My " Editorial Correspondence " for The Well- 
 Spring, giving an account of the various places visited and 
 the scenes and events witnessed, were published in fifteen 
 consecutive numbers. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SOME EXCURSIONS. 
 
 Visit to Prince Edward's Island. 
 
 THROUGH the courtesy of the late Frank Snow, 
 Esq., of Boston, president of the Boston and Colo- 
 nial Steamship Company, and Captain P. A. Nickerson, of 
 the steamer Alhambra, I had a free passage to Prince 
 Edward's Island in the summer of 1866. We touched at 
 Halifax and Plaister Cove, and reached Charlottetown, the 
 capital of the island, seven hundred miles from Boston, in 
 seventy-two hours. 
 
 Sabbath morning there was a large fire that destroyed 
 nearly $300,000 worth of property. This calamity de- 
 ranged nearly all my plans for services in the churches 
 and Sabbath-schools for that day. 
 
 The superintendent of the Wesleyan school, William 
 Heard, Esq., learning that my accommodations at a public 
 house were not altogether comfortable, most kindly invited 
 me to his beautiful home, where for more than a week his 
 interesting family gave me the most hospitable entertain- 
 ment. 
 
 The next Sabbath I preached in the forenoon at the 
 National Scotch Presbyterian Church ; at half-past two 
 addressed the Episcopal school, and at three o'clock 
 addressed a united meeting of all the Protestant schools 
 in the city, excepting the Wesleyan, which was preparing 
 for a special meeting for the evening. This school, which 
 numbered over four hundred, held its fiftieth anniversary 
 
 161 
 
1 6 2 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 in the evening. The senior preacher, Dr. Richey, and the 
 new young preacher, who that day began his work with 
 that people, and also the superintendent of the school, all 
 invited me to preach a Sabbath-school sermon on the occa- 
 sion. This invitation I most gladly accepted. Although 
 I was seeking to recruit my somewhat impaired health, 
 this was too important an opportunity to do hopeful work, 
 to be unimproved. Every church in the city gave up its 
 evening service to attend this fiftieth anniversary of a 
 Sunday-school. 
 
 The spacious new chapel of this people was completely 
 packed ; and the seats were arranged in a sort of amphi- 
 theater, so that the immense audience seemed closely 
 around the speaker. Never, before or since, have I spoken 
 under the pressure of such an excitement. For in no 
 other instance had I felt while speaking the stimulus of 
 the oft-repeated and emphatic "Amen ! " "That 's true ! " 
 etc. 
 
 On Tuesday afternoon I was invited to a public gather- 
 ing — or, as it is there called, " tea " — of this people in 
 a pleasant grove, for a further commemoration of their 
 interesting anniversary, and where another opportunity 
 was given me for an address. 
 
 Through the kindness of several gentlemen I had five 
 or six delightful drives and excursions into the country 
 and across the island. One of these was fourteen miles 
 to the north side of the island, to a place called Rustico. 
 After a pleasant sail in company with the rector of the 
 Church of England and about twenty of his people, we 
 had a fine picnic, spreading a table-cloth on the ground, 
 and seating ourselves in rustic style on the grass. 
 
 I returned to Halifax by steamer to Glasgow, and then 
 across Nova Scotia, forty-one miles by stage and sixty by 
 
SOME EXCURSIONS. 1 63 
 
 rail. At New Glasgow, with a friend I had met on a boat, 
 I went two miles to visit the Albion coal-mines. With 
 a guide we went half a mile into one of these mines, till 
 we came to the shaft where the coal is drawn up. We 
 were, perhaps, a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet from 
 the surface. The passage where the coal had been taken 
 out was from ten to twenty feet wide and ten or twelve 
 feet high. Every once in awhile we came to a large pas- 
 sage, running out on one side or the other, far into total 
 darkness, showing what vast quantities of coal had been 
 taken out. And then, on either side of us and overhead, 
 it was all coal, no one knows how thick. 
 
 When we reached the shaft, we were told that the men 
 were at work blasting out the coal " a mile farther in " ! 
 But we did not care to pursue our way, with only two little 
 lights, any further into this deep darkness. 
 
 Close by the shaft there were extensive stables for the 
 horses, dug out of the solid mass of coal. There were the 
 hostler and two or three boys, with small lamps fastened 
 to the front of their caps, who have the care of the horses. 
 The horses are employed in drawing cars, or small boxes 
 of coal, on a railway to the shaft, where they are drawn 
 up by machinery and emptied. The horses never leave 
 the mines to see the light of day till they are disabled. 
 
 When at Halifax I visited the gold-mines at Waverley, 
 sixteen miles from the city. There were five or six com- 
 panies successfully working the mines. Some of the 
 mines had been worked down one hundred or two hundred 
 feet. The crushers by which the gold-bearing quartz is 
 reduced to fine dust consist of from six to sixteen steel 
 or iron upright shafts, each weighing six hundred pounds. 
 A horizontal shaft runs near the top of these, with a flange 
 for each. This is turned by steam-power, causing these 
 
1 64 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 heavy shafts to rise at irregular times and fall upon dies at 
 the bottom, crushing or pounding to dust the quartz, as it 
 is shoveled in large lumps into the hopper. A stream of 
 water is constantly flowing in upon this, washing it, as it 
 becomes fine, through a sieve, carrying away the stone- 
 dust and leaving the fine gold, which is heavier, to settle 
 into little cups, where it mingles with quicksilver and 
 forms an amalgam. This is put into a retort, and by 
 means of heat the mercury is passed off in a vapor and 
 condensed for use again, and the fine gold is left. It is 
 a very curious and interesting process. 
 
 On the Sabbath at Halifax, I held several services and, 
 among others, addressed a united meeting of the various 
 schools in the city. 
 
 On Tuesday evening I had the pleasure of attending a 
 quarterly meeting of the Halifax and Dartmouth Sunday- 
 school Association, which embraces fourteen schools con- 
 nected with the different evangelical churches. This gave 
 me the opportunity of seeing and addressing a large num- 
 ber of the teachers in that region. 
 
 In this visit of twenty-four days I traveled fourteen 
 hundred miles and preached and gave addresses eleven 
 times. 
 
 The " Coit Excursionists " 
 
 Was an organization composed of citizens of Worcester 
 and vicinity for an annual steamboat excursion. It took 
 its name from the captain of the steamer in which the 
 company of two or three hundred made their first excur- 
 sion. In 1870 I was permitted to accompany the mem- 
 bers of this association, in the fine steamer New Bruns- 
 wick, Captain S. H. Pike, in an excursion to the principal 
 towns along the coast of Maine, to St. John and Frederic- 
 ton, the capital of the Province. 
 
SOME EXCURSIONS. 1 65 
 
 On this excursion I was often called on to aid the chap- 
 lain in the religious and social services of his office. This 
 was an occasion of much-needed relief from my daily 
 round of duties. The company was select and the social 
 intercourse very enjoyable. 
 
 In 1871 the 
 
 Bay State Excursion 
 
 was projected. On the eighth of August a company of two 
 hundred and fifty started from Commercial Wharf, Boston, 
 in the above-named steamer, for an eight days' excursion 
 on the eastern coast. This excursion extended to St. 
 John and Fredericton. 
 
 The company, soon after getting under way, was for- 
 mally organized by the choice of officers — president, 
 vice-presidents, secretary, chaplain, surgeon, and execu- 
 tive committee. I was chosen president and chaplain. 
 As the company was divided, for convenience' sake, into 
 two sections for dinner, one section receiving their meals 
 first one day and the other the next, and the chaplain was 
 called on to officiate at each, and as the president and 
 executive committee had to make all the arrangements 
 for the evening entertainments, and the president had to 
 preside at all the meetings held with the citizens of the 
 various towns and cities visited, this excursion, while it 
 was in all respects very pleasant, was to me a very busy 
 one. 
 
 Mr. C. B. Tillinghast, the secretary, prepared and pub- 
 lished an interesting and very sprightly account of this 
 tour in a handsome little volume of 69 pages, called " The 
 Bay State Excursion of 1871." The following extract 
 may be given here : — 
 
1 66 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 At a farewell meeting on our return, in Portland harbor, a sub-com- 
 mittee on resolutions, appointed by the executive committee, reported, 
 among quite a number of others, the following preamble and resolu- 
 tion : — 
 
 "The kind-hearted president and chaplain, Rev. Asa Bullard, who 
 devotedly administered to the spiritual 'needs- of the excursionists, and 
 whose uniform courtesy won for him from every heart the deepest 
 feelings of respect and regard, was remembered in the following reso- 
 lution, which was unanimously adopted : — 
 
 " Resolved, That the Rev. Asa Bullard, in double capacity of chaplain 
 and president, by his indefatigable, constant, and unceasing labor in 
 our behalf, has greatly contributed to our happiness, and that we 
 tender to him our heartfelt thanks. Always hereafter, until the pulse 
 of life shall cease to beat, we will recall with gratitude and pleasure 
 the very successful manner in which he has acquitted himself as our 
 spiritual guide over the beautiful waters and along the rock-bound, 
 evergreen shores of Maine and New Brunswick, as well as towards 
 those as yet unseen but forever unclouded shores, where the wicked 
 cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. 
 
 "We will fondly treasure his memory upon earth, and cherish the 
 hope that we may all meet him, at the end of life's short voyage, in 
 heaven. 1 ' 
 
 Mr. Bullard responded to this resolution with much feeling and with 
 words that touched the hearts of all. 
 
 A year or two afterwards there was another Bay State 
 Excursion ; but some trouble in securing a suitable steamer, 
 together with some other circumstances, made that occa- 
 sion less satisfactory than the former one. 
 
 Massachusetts Press Association. 
 
 For several years I was connected with the Massachu- 
 setts Press Association. A large portion of the editors 
 and publishers of the state were connected with the asso- 
 ciation. Every year this society had an excursion, in 
 various directions, of two or three weeks for rest and 
 recreation. 
 
SOME EXCURSIONS. 1 67 
 
 It would be difficult to bring together a more genial and 
 in all respects interesting company of traveling compan- 
 ions. All but the officers who had the arrangement for 
 the excursions, and especially the treasurer, who had all 
 the bills to settle, etc., were entirely at their leisure and 
 could enjoy all the changing scenes through which they 
 passed. I had the great pleasure of joining in several of 
 these excursions. One year the association visited the 
 great international exhibition at Philadelphia. The tickets 
 entitled the members, with their ladies, to the journey 
 there and back and to entertainments and free access to 
 all parts of the exhibition while there. 
 
 Another excursion took us to Saratoga, St. George, 
 across Lake Champlain to Burlington, Vt., where we had 
 our re-union exercises in the evening. 
 
 Still another memorable excursion was to Montreal, 
 Quebec, and up the Saguenay River. We spent a Sabbath 
 at Quebec, where I had an opportunity for abundant labor 
 in connection with the churches and the Sunday-schools. 
 The same was true wherever we spent the Sabbath in any 
 of the excursions referred to. As I was usually the only 
 clergyman on these excursions of the press association, I 
 was made the chaplain of the occasion. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 MY VISIT ABROAD. 
 
 THERE is, perhaps, no one privilege connected with 
 my temporal happiness that I have prized more 
 highly or that has afforded me more true enjoyment than 
 my three months' visit abroad in 1880; and I am most 
 happy to acknowledge my indebtedness for this privilege 
 to my late beloved pastor, Rev. James S. Hoyt, d.d., 
 now of Keokuk, Iowa. 
 
 Entirely unknown to me, he obtained from some of 
 my Sabbath-school friends and some of our Sabbath- 
 schools the means of my going as a delegate to the cen- 
 tenary of Sunday-schools in London. 
 
 Dr. Hoyt's first plan was to obtain the means for me 
 only to attend this meeting and return. But the responses 
 to his letters were so liberal that he was able one Friday 
 evening at the close of our weekly prayer-meeting, to the 
 surprise of every one, to present me with a five hundred 
 dollar excursion ticket for a tour in Europe for three 
 months. The applause of the people present was most 
 unbounded. He then informed those present that I should 
 be likely to need a little money in my pocket ; and, as the 
 ticket was obtained outside of his own congregation, many 
 of the church and society and the Sabbath-school most gen- 
 erously met this need. The Board of our Society kindly 
 gave me the necessary vacation for this visit, allowed my 
 salary to continue, and added a grant of money, and the 
 occupants of the Congregational House added their gen- 
 
 16S 
 
MY VISIT ABROAD. 1 69 
 
 erous gifts ; so that I was able easily to meet all the 
 expenses of the tour. 
 
 On the twelfth of June, at eight o'clock in the morning, 
 I left New York on board the Anchoria. Sabbath fore- 
 noon I had the privilege of preaching on the steamer to 
 a large and appreciative audience. 
 
 All the forenoon it was very foggy, and the steam whistle 
 was constantly giving forth its shrill, warning notes several 
 times a minute. At one o'clock we lunched, after which 
 two or three of us were still at the table making arrange- 
 ments for a Bible service in the afternoon, when we were 
 run into by the steamer Queen. Our boat sunk two feet 
 almost instantly. The cry was given : — 
 
 " All on deck ! Lower the boats ! Women and children 
 get in first ! " 
 
 I was the last passenger off the boat. We all were taken 
 aboard the Queen, the bows of which were all stove in, 
 but it was not injured as much as the Anchoria. What 
 was singular is that if our boat had been twenty-five min- 
 utes farther ahead or the Queen had been twenty-five 
 minutes later we should have been in clear sunshine. The 
 Queen came out of clear weather into a bank of fog, 
 coming upon us as a great phantom. It could not be seen 
 the length of the boat. Both boats had compartments, or 
 both would have sunk instantly. Two compartments of 
 the Anchoria filled with water at once. 
 
 As it was calm weather, the two boats made their way 
 slowly to New York, taking two days to sail three hundred 
 miles. 
 
 On Thursday we sailed again on the Ethiopia, and had a 
 most delightful voyage. Some thought it would be tempt- 
 ing providence for us to start again ; but it seemed to me 
 that it would be distrusting providence not to go. 
 
I 70 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 Fearing it might be foggy on the Sound, I took the 
 steamer Narragansett for New York one night earlier than 
 I otherwise should, and that was the night before she was 
 burned ! Had I waited till the next night, I should have 
 been aboard the Stonington, that ran into the ill-fated 
 Narragansett, and should have been too late for my 
 steamer. Having passed safely through these two perils, 
 under a kind providence, why should I not trust him in 
 the future ? 
 
 On account of our delay we did not reach Glasgow till 
 Monday morning, the twenty-eighth, the day when, at 
 twelve o'clock noon, the great Sunday-school convention was 
 to be organized. So I left the party with which I was to 
 visit in Scotland, before the meeting, and went four hun- 
 dred miles, fifty miles an hour, reaching London in the 
 evening. The next morning I went to the convention and 
 attended the meetings through the week. On Tuesday, 
 the next week, I returned, four hundred miles, back to 
 Glasgow, to meet the party that left New York on the 
 twenty-sixth, and with which I was to travel on the Conti- 
 nent. I might have waited in London till the party came, 
 but I could not give up old Scotland, of which I had heard 
 so much all my life, of its regard for the Bible and the 
 Sabbath, the wise family government and training. 
 
 Our tour was through some of the most noted places in 
 Scotland, England, Holland, on to Berlin, Dresden, Leip- 
 sic, Prague, Vienna, over the Semmering Pass to Adler- 
 berg, into the stalactite cavern seven miles, to Trieste, 
 Venice, Milan, Verona, upon the beautiful lakes of 
 northern Italy, through all the important cities of 
 Switzerland to Paris, and back to London and home. 
 
 The whole tour was one of great enjoyment. My 
 health was never better ; and this visit abroad has been 
 
MY VISIT ABROAD. 
 
 171 
 
 a source of joy to me, almost daily, ever since. Some 
 account of it that I gave, after our return, in The Congre- 
 gationalist, may appropriately be repeated here : — 
 
 My many friends who so kindly interested themselves in my late 
 visit to Europe may expect some public account of it. In a tour of 
 three months, in company with thirty or forty persons, mostly stran- 
 gers to each other, and of various tastes and temperaments, as may be 
 supposed, there will be many little inconveniences and things to annoy ; 
 and it would be the easiest thing in the world for one to make 
 himself delightfully miserable by allowing himself to be constantly 
 disturbed by them. 
 
 In one of the gloomy cells of the London Tower, the walls are 
 covered with incriptions sculptured by those who have there suffered 
 confinement. Among these are the following : " Grief is overcome by 
 patience. G. Gryfford, August 8th, 1586." " The most unhappy man 
 in the world is he that is not patient in adversities. For men are not 
 killed with the adversities they have, but with ye impatience which they 
 suffer." This is signed: "Charles Bailey. JEt. 29. 10 Sept., 1571. 11 
 And yet this Charles Bailey was an adherent of Mary Queen of Scots, 
 and suffered the tortures of the rack without making any disclosures 
 of importance. 
 
 Foreseeing the little vexations likely to occur in connection with the 
 anticipated tour, it was my deliberate resolve, in entering upon it, to 
 "possess my soul in patience 11 in all circumstances, and get all the 
 enjoyment possible out of it. While this resolve was, to a good 
 degree, carried out, it must be acknowledged that there were abundant 
 opportunites for "patience to have its perfect work. 11 There were a 
 few, especially of the more amiable sex, who seemed to see something 
 for their discomfort at nearly every step, and they very freely expressed 
 it. Complaining and fretting at something or other was the constant 
 burden of their song. And to many of the party this was certainly a 
 burden if not a song. 
 
 Some may wish to know the advantages or disadvantages of 
 making such a tour with an excursion party. For most persons, 
 especially ladies, going alone, or unattended by any who have been 
 before, an excursion party, with all the little inconveniences attend- 
 ing it, — particularly if the courier be intelligent, courteous, and 
 gentlemanly, — has many advantages. The party need have no care 
 for their baggage, for securing rooms at the hotels, paying bills for 
 
I 7 2 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY II FE. 
 
 board and service, fees for guides, for making arrangements for 
 carriages and seats together in the cars, obtaining railroad tickets and 
 tickets for concerts, cathedrals, palaces, picture galleries, etc., or 
 selecting the important cities and objects in these cities to be visited. 
 All this is the proper duty of the courier, and it takes a great deal of 
 care from the visitors, and prevents much waste of time. Then there 
 are some places of special interest to which individuals would scarcely 
 gain admittance. The managers of these excursions secure this 
 privilege for large parties beforehand. 
 
 There are also pleasant acquaintances formed in such a party. Not 
 infrequently among the younger members not a little innocent flirtation 
 is observed. Sometimes this develops into permanent attachments, 
 and sometimes they end with the excursion. Single ladies have been 
 encouraged to join these parties with the assurance that soon they 
 would find themselves quite at home. The chief danger in such cases 
 is that they may seek to attach themselves to one or more, as their 
 companions at the table and in the frequent walks and rides of the 
 party, without carefully ascertaining whether such companionship is 
 mutually agreeable. In such a company there will inevitably be a 
 grouping together in little clans of those of similar tastes and feeling. 
 And then again some may prefer becoming acquainted with most or all 
 of the party, and it may be annoying to have some particular one 
 watching for his or her company at every turn. 
 
 A member of a late European party said she wished there were more 
 gentlemen, it was so handy to have them about to carry your bag for 
 you. Most gentlemen have their own hand-baggage to look after ; and 
 then it may be supposed they have some other objects in view than to 
 look after the luggage of ladies who travel alone. 
 
 It is my decided conviction that, as this was my first visit abroad, it 
 was best that it should be made as it was, with an excursion party, 
 unless it could have been in company of one or two who had been 
 before. While there were some things not so agreeable, over which it 
 would have been easy to have made myself unhappy, yet, it is due to my 
 friends to say, all things considered, that the tour was most enjoyable, 
 and one of the happiest three months of my life. 
 
 The great objection to these excursions is that, while you may be 
 able to visit many more places in the same time, these visits are too 
 hurried. You go as a pilgrim and tarry, as it were, but for a night. 
 You have no time to learn any thing of the people, their manners and 
 
M Y VISIT ABR OAD. I J 3 
 
 customs and home life, except what you can see while flying through one 
 city after another. 
 
 A second visit, in company with two or three friends, would most 
 surely, in my judgment, be much more satisfactory and profitable, made 
 independently ; and it would probably be at quite as small expense. 
 Let the route be carefully laid out before starting ; then secure rooms 
 by letter or telegraph a few days or weeks in advance, and then remain 
 at each place as long as you may find it desirable. Such a visit I should 
 be most happy to make, should a kind providence ever open the way. 
 
 It is well known that generally throughout Europe the Sabbath is not 
 observed as it is with us. It is a holiday. Shops are open, and traffic 
 of all sorts is carried on much as on other days. Parades and shows 
 are even more frequent on Sunday than any other day of the week. 
 There is great temptation, even for those who are accustomed to 
 observe the Sabbath and attend public worship at home, to fall into the 
 habits of the people around them when abroad. In many of the 
 European cities there are places of Protestant worship, designed espe- 
 cially for the benefit of tourists and the English-speaking residents, but 
 there are comparatively few who attend them. In too many instances 
 even professing Christian tourists spend their Sabbaths much as they 
 do the other days of the week. 
 
 At the Sunday-school Centenary in London, one speaker said some 
 one asked a boy if his father was a Christian. " Yes," said he, " he 
 is a Christian, but he doesn't do much at it." It is to be feared that 
 there are not a few professing Christians who do not do much at their 
 profession when abroad. If a cooper or a blacksmith or a merchant 
 should do as little at his profession, he would find himself on the way 
 to the almshouse. 
 
 It was my purpose in starting on my late European tour to take my 
 religion, so far as I had any, along with me ; to do nothing on the Sab- 
 bath or any other day that would be inconsistent with my Christian pro- 
 fession at home ; so that the comforts and hopes of religion might be 
 my support in times of prosperity or of peril. The first Sabbath on 
 the continent was spent in Berlin. Divine service was held in the fore- 
 noon in the American chapel. This service is conducted by theolog- 
 ical students, mostly from this country, who are pursuing their theolog- 
 ical studies in that city. This is the only place where Protestant 
 worship is held in the city ; and this is maintained, as in several other 
 cities, for the special benefit of English and American residents and 
 tourists. Many of our party, and not a few of them professing Chris- 
 
I 7 4 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 tians, instead of attending this service, both for their own spiritual 
 good and the encouragement of those by whom it is maintained, took 
 an excursion of fifteen miles to Potsdam, the Versailles of Prussia, 
 and spent the day in visiting its splendid palaces, works, museums, and 
 other objects of interest. A Sabbath was passed in Vienna and also in 
 Venice, but there were no English or American services. In the latter, 
 I went in the morning to attend high mass at St. Mark's, but was too 
 late ; and the afternoon service was all in an unknown tongue, and the 
 bowings and courtesying and burning of incense seemed so unchristian 
 that I sought a sanctuary in my own room. 
 
 At Bellagio, on Lake Como, there was an English church near our 
 hotel ; but, as a clergyman of our party, whose habits had greatly dam- 
 aged his character as a minister and a Christian in the eyes of most of 
 those who had been in his company, was expected to take part in the 
 service, very few attended. Some thought they could worship more to 
 their taste under the great dome of the skies, amid the grand and pic- 
 turesque scenes of lake and mountain around them ; and others found 
 their Bethel in the quietness of their own rooms. Among other reli- 
 gious reading I found Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews most stimulating 
 and instructive ; and I would commend it to all tourists as very excellent 
 and profitable reading for the Sabbath day. 
 
 At Lucerne several of the party attended service in the forenoon and 
 evening in a Catholic church, and heard two instructive sermons by a 
 Scotch Presbyterian minister. The city authorities have placed this 
 church at the service of the Protestants for these two services, when 
 the Catholics do not use it. Although the walls of the church were 
 hung with pictures and images of the saints, and a light was visible 
 through the screen before the altar, yet the voice of praise and prayer 
 and the proclamation of the good news of salvation through a 
 Redeemer were sweet and refreshing. 
 
 At Geneva, Rev. Dr. Stevens, formerly editor of Zions Herald in 
 Boston, is maintaining religious services in the little American chapel 
 where Rev. Leonard W. Bacon, d.d., now of Norwich, Conn., for 
 some years preached. A young minister preached an excellent sermon, 
 .appropriate to tourists, on the words: " We have here no continuing 
 city. 11 I had the pleasure of addressing the little Sabbath-school before 
 the service, and of participating in the exercises of the evening meet- 
 ing for prayer and conference. 
 
 Our last Sabbath in Europe was in Paris. Rev. Dr. Hitchcock 
 preached in the morning. I attended his Sabbath-school, which he 
 
MY VISIT ABROAD. 
 
 175 
 
 invited me to address. He, in connection with a band of earnest 
 missionary laborers, is doing a good work in this city of pleasure and 
 worldliness. The money, in part, has been collected for a new and 
 commodious church, in place of the chapel which so many friends and 
 Sabbath-schools in America, some years ago, so generously aided in 
 building. 
 
 On our return voyage it was too rough and boisterous for a morning 
 service the first Sabbath, but Rev. Dr. Lang, of Glasgow, pastor of the 
 church where the late Dr. MacLeod used to speak, in the evening 
 spoke on the words : " When thou passest through the waters, I will be 
 with thee." His words were most comforting, as so many had been 
 awe-stricken when " no small tempest lay on us." 
 
 Several days, when the weather would permit, a season of family 
 worship was held, and a meeting for prayer and addresses on Wednes- 
 day evening, when so many of the churches at home were holding 
 their usual weekly meeting; and also on the evening of our last Sab- 
 bath, Rev. Dr. Lang preached a most eloquent and practical sermon in 
 the morning, on the words : " The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you 
 all." 
 
 It seems to me that I have had more enjoyment in every thing 
 adapted to impart joy from my attempt to maintain the same Christian 
 life while abroad, on the Sabbath and every day, as when at home. 
 
 The Sunday-School Centenary. 
 
 All who may be interested in reading this volume 
 may be glad to see a brief account of the great inter- 
 national convention in London, commemorative of the 
 founding of Sabbath-schools by Robert Raikes. 
 
 This convention was planned and admirably conducted 
 by the London Sunday-School Union. It commenced on 
 Monday, the twenty-eighth of June, at noon, and con- 
 tinued through the week. 
 
 Saturday evening, the twenty-sixth, the Union gave a 
 reception to the foreign delegates, at their rooms, 56 
 Old Bailey, directly opposite the old Newgate Prison of 
 London. This meeting was one of great interest. There 
 
I76 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 were present at the convention about three hundred 
 foreign delegates from Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Ger- 
 many, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and France, on the 
 continent ; one or two, even, from Australia, fifteen or 
 sixteen thousand miles distant ; Pastor Jacob and his 
 wife, from Oroomiah, Persia, and others from Canada 
 and the United States. A large portion of these dele- 
 gates were from America. The whole number, including 
 those in Great Britain, was nearly a thousand. 
 
 After a formal reception of the delegates by Sir 
 Thomas Chambers, President of the Union, and Sir 
 Charles Reed, one of its officials, addresses were made 
 by Messrs. Reed and Higgs of Gloucester ; Dr. Vincent, 
 of New York ; Vice-Chancellor Blake, President of the 
 Sunday-School Union of Canada ; Mr. Woodruff, of New 
 York ; Pastors Paul Cook and H. Taumier, of Paris ; 
 Mr. H. G. Wade, Secretary of Victoria Sunday-School 
 Union in Australia ; Mr. John Wanamaker, of Philadel- 
 phia ; Pastor Truve, d.d., President of the Sunday-School 
 Union of Sweden ; M. P. Palenquist, the Robert Raikes 
 of Sweden ; Dr. Bums, of Nova Scotia ; M. Brockel- 
 mann, Sunday-school missionary for Germany, and Dr. 
 Lowrie, of New Jersey, the author of " Shall we gather 
 at the river ?" 
 
 This meeting was a fine introduction for the meetings 
 of the coming convention. 
 
 On Sunday there were several large and spirited meet- 
 ings of the children of the Sabbath-schools,, in different 
 sections of the city. 
 
 The meeting for organization was at twelve o'clock on 
 Monday, at Guild Hall, and was presided over by the 
 Right Honorable the Lord Mayor. In his introductory 
 address he said : " To my mind nothing can be more 
 appropriate than that the centenary of Robert Raikes" 
 
MY VISIT ABROAD. IJJ 
 
 great work, the Sunday-school movement, should be 
 commemorated in the grand old Guild Hall of the city 
 of London." Addresses were also made by the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, Dr. Vincent, Lord Hatherly, 
 Alderman McArthur, m.p., since then chosen Lord 
 Mayor of London, and several others. 
 
 The subjects on which papers were read and addresses 
 made during the week, by persons previously appointed, 
 were the following : " The past history of the Sunday- 
 school system ; " " Position and prospects of Sunday- 
 schools on the Continent of Europe;" "The Church of 
 Christ, in its relations to Sunday-school work ; " " The 
 Word of God the appointed instrument of religious 
 education ; " " An efficient Sunday-school agency : its 
 nature and the means of its attainment ; " and " The 
 future of the Sunday-school system." 
 
 These various topics were well presented in thoroughly 
 prepared papers, though some of them were quite too 
 long, and by studied and earnest addresses. There was 
 very little opportunity for a free discussion by the dele- 
 gates generally on any of the subjects before the conven- 
 tion. The prominent Sabbath-school men from the 
 United States, Drs. Taylor, Hall, and Vincent, and others 
 from New York ; Mr. Woodruff, of Brooklyn ; Messrs. 
 Wanamaker, of Philadelphia, and Jacobs, of Chicago, and 
 a few others, had a due share in the exercises, and no 
 speakers acquitted themselves more acceptably to those 
 addressed. 
 
 Tuesday evening there were four meetings in different 
 parts of the city, for popular addresses on various 
 branches of the Sabbath-school work. These services 
 were especially practical and stimulating. 
 
 As the Sabbath-school work is comparatively new in 
 most places on the continent, most of the schools having 
 
I78 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 been established within the past twelve or fifteen years, 
 the reports and remarks of the delegates from those 
 sections were much like those we used to hear in our own 
 country, twenty-five or thirty years ago. There was 
 much zeal and earnestness in their manner and words, but 
 not very much that was new to those who had been in the 
 work a quarter or half a century. 
 
 Perhaps the most enthusiastic and stimulating meeting 
 was on Thursday evening, at Exeter Hall, and four of the 
 speakers were from our own country. 
 
 The children's day was on Wednesday. Forty-six 
 thousand persons gathered at the world-renowned Crystal 
 Palace, at Sydenham, fifteen miles from the city. All the 
 exercises had special reference to the children, and were 
 attended with extraordinary attractions. There was a 
 grand concert, in which five thousand well-trained 
 children delighted an immense audience for an hour. 
 After this there was a mass concert upon the terraces of 
 the palace, in which thirty thousand united their voices 
 with bands of instrumental music. 
 
 A delightful surprise was occasioned by the letting on of 
 the water to the numerous fountains, which was thrown 
 up in most fantastic forms. And there were games and 
 athletic sports for the children, with prizes, and a balloon 
 ascension, and many other arrangements, all for the 
 gratification of the young. In all the services of this 
 occasion, and in this great gathering of men, women, and 
 children, there was not a single case of disorderly conduct 
 or of intoxication. That Wednesday must long remain 
 in the memory of all those who were present as a day of 
 remarkable interest. That fairy palace, too, made wholly 
 of iron and glass, sixteen hundred feet long and three 
 hundred feet wide, with its beautiful grounds, must have 
 been photographed on the minds of all. 
 
MY VISIT ABROAD. 
 
 179 
 
 On Saturday the beautiful and appropriate bronze 
 statue of Robert Raikes was unveiled by Lord Shaftsbury, 
 in the Victoria Garden, on the Embankment, in the pres- 
 ence of a large audience. It is almost directly opposite 
 Cleopatra's Needle, where for ages it may be seen by the 
 myriads who will pass and re-pass on that frequented and 
 delightful promenade. 
 
 But the scene in connection with this centenary that 
 most deeply moved the feelings of every Christian heart 
 was the communion service at the Metropolitan Taberna- 
 cle. Mr. Spurgeon, the pastor of that church, presided, 
 and made a most tender and touching address. There 
 were between four and five thousand communicants pres- 
 ent. At the close, by the request of Mr. Spurgeon, all 
 that immense audience joined hands and sang Cowper's 
 hymn : — 
 
 "Ere since by faith I saw the stream," etc. 
 
 That scene alone was worth all it cost of money and 
 time and fatigue and peril to cross and re-cross the ocean. 
 I never expect again to see the like on earth. 
 
 Before commencing this visit abroad, I prepared the 
 leading articles, with the illustrations, of sixteen numbers 
 of The Well-Spring, I prepared three articles on the 
 steamer each way, and a large number while in Europe, 
 which were sent to the printer. We reached home on 
 Monday, and on Tuesday copy was wanted for the seven- 
 teenth number. 
 
 For many weeks after my return accounts of the places 
 I visited and the scenes I witnessed were published in 
 The Well- Spring. Those articles might interest the 
 readers of this volume, but they would swell it to an 
 unreasonable size. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE CHESTNUT STORY. 
 
 NO proper sketch of my life in connection with the 
 Sabbath-school could be given, that did not include 
 my "chestnut story." It is one of the most remarkable 
 Sunday-school stories of the age. 
 
 Perhaps I can not better present it here than in the 
 familiar and informal way in which I used to repeat it in 
 some of my addresses at Sabbath-school meetings, when 
 speaking on the subject of doing good. 
 
 Rev. George Constantine, d.u., now of Bombay, was 
 born in Athens, Greece. He was converted to Protestant- 
 ism by our foreign missionary, the late Rev. Dr. King. 
 He came to this country, and while at the high school in 
 Cambridge was converted to Christ. He then went to 
 Amherst College in 1855. 
 
 He soon heard of a neighborhood, about four miles from 
 college and within the same distance from twelve evangeli- 
 cal churches, where four towns come together : Shutes- 
 bury, Leverett, Pelham, and Amherst, and which was 
 often called " the devil's corner." No one seemed to be 
 taking any concern about the spiritual interest of this 
 neglected neighborhood. 
 
 Mr. Constantine said to himself : " That is no mission- 
 ary spirit at all, that sends missionaries to Greece and 
 Africa and heathen lands, and leaves a people within four 
 miles of twelve evangelical churches uncared for ! " 
 
 So he went to that neighborhood and established a 
 Sabbath-school ; and every Sabbath, at four o'clock in the 
 
 180 
 
THE CHESTNUT ST OR Y. I 8 I 
 
 afternoon, he walked four miles and conducted it, So 
 George Constantine, of Greece, became a foreign mission- 
 ary in old Puritan Massachusetts ! 
 
 I spent a Sabbath in Leverett, and at four o'clock in the 
 afternoon visited and addressed Mr. Constantine's mission 
 Sunday-school. After my visit, some of the children 
 wanted to take a collection to send books and papers to 
 poor children at the west. Mr. Constantine told them if 
 they did they must earn or save the money they were to 
 give. 
 
 So the children went to work. The boys picked stones, 
 packed shingles, went on errands, picked nuts, etc. One 
 boy — whom they called " deacon " because he brought in 
 all the new scholars, and who left off his hat and shoes 
 because "them other boys didn't wear none, and they 
 would feel badly if he did" — picked four quarts of wal- 
 nuts. The girls helped their mothers in various ways. 
 One little girl sewed six weeks and her mother gave her 
 a cent ! Was n't that good wages ? 
 
 Mrs. Nurse, a poor woman, picked two quarts of chest- 
 nuts and sold them to get money for her contribution. 
 Some family wants led her to use the money, intending to 
 pick some more chestnuts for the contribution. One cold 
 afternoon she took a neighbor's little girl and went in 
 search of chestnuts. There were not many that season, 
 and the squirrels had gathered what there were. After 
 searching some time and finding none, they came to a tree 
 where the ground was covered with leaves. They got 
 down upon their knees and began to brush away the 
 leaves, when they came upon a little heap of about half a 
 pint of chestnuts, that a squirrel, perhaps, had gathered 
 for winter's use, and forgotten where he hid them. 
 
 When the contribution day came Mrs. Nurse was n't 
 
I 8 2 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 present. After school Mr. Constantine called on her and 
 found her looking very sad. In answer to his inquiry why 
 she was not at school, she said : — 
 
 " I had n't any thing to give, and I did n't want to go." 
 
 She then told him about her using the "money she meant 
 to have given, but she had nothing now only these few 
 chestnuts. 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Constantine, "perhaps I will take your 
 chestnuts." 
 
 " Will you ? " she anxiously inquired ; "I think God will 
 bless them, for I wanted to give something." 
 
 As the result of the contribution of this school to the 
 Society, I received three hundred cents, four quarts of 
 walnuts, and half a pint of chestnuts. For the walnuts 
 I gave twenty-five cents a quart, when I could have pur- 
 chased ever so many for half that price. So I paid into 
 the treasury of our Society, as a donation from this school, 
 $4.00. I now had left on hand the chestnuts, for which 
 I hoped in some way to obtain fifty cents or a dollar, and 
 send word to the donor that " God had blessed her 
 offering." 
 
 New Year's night I was invited to attend a gathering 
 and supper of the Sabbath-school at Winchester, Mass. 
 I said : " I will take the chestnuts and see what can be 
 done with them." I counted them over, and found one 
 hundred and fifty that were sound and good, though all 
 of them were very small. There were very few that year 
 and they could n't afford to grow very large. 
 
 In the course of my address at the gathering, I related 
 the story of the chestnuts, and held up the bag containing 
 them, and said : " The good woman thinks God will bless 
 them ; now what shall we do with them ? Friends, what 
 shall we do with these chestnuts ? " 
 
THE CUES TNU T STORY. 1 8 3 
 
 A teacher said : " Why not put them up at auction ? " 
 
 "Very well," I replied; "we will, if you will act as 
 auctioneer;" and he was an auctioneer. 
 
 They were soon bid off for five dollars. The man who 
 bought them put them up again, and they were bid off for 
 two dollars and fifty cents. 
 
 I supposed this was the last of it. God had blessed them, 
 and I could inform the good woman that they had been 
 sold for seven dollars and fifty cents, and the money 
 given to the Society to aid in establishing Sunday-schools 
 at the west. 
 
 It was stormy at the time of this meeting, and the 
 attendance was so small that the meeting was adjourned 
 one week, and I was invited to be present. 
 
 In the meantime the auctioneer obtained possession of 
 the chestnuts, and divided them into four little bags. In 
 the course of the meeting he related the story of the 
 chestnuts and said he was going to put them up at auction 
 again. "But," said he," since the last meeting chestnuts 
 is riz', so I can't sell them all at once. I shall sell them 
 one bag at a time." 
 
 They were then bid off for two dollars and fifty cents a 
 bag — in all, ten dollars, or, including the former sale, seven- 
 teen dollars and fifty cents. I bought one bag to keep, to 
 remember the giver. Two of the purchasers gave me 
 their bags, saying, " Perhaps you can turn them to further 
 account." 
 
 Soon after this I attended a Sabbath-school meeting at 
 the Congregational church at East Cambridge (that house of 
 worship has since been removed to West Somerville). I car- 
 ried my three bags of chestnuts with me and, in the course 
 of my address, told the story of the chestnuts, held up 
 my little bags, and informed the audience as to their great 
 
1 84 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY II FE. 
 
 value, and that I could not sell for less than about five 
 dollars a bag. In a few days a little boy of that school 
 called on me and said with great enthusiasm : — 
 
 "Mr. Bullard, our school has raised five dollars, and I 
 want to get one of your bags of chestnuts to give to our 
 superintendent ! " 
 
 The next week another little boy came, saying in the 
 same excited manner : — 
 
 " Mr. Bullard, our school has raised five dollars more, 
 to buy the bag of chestnuts away from our superintendent 
 and give it to our minister ! " 
 
 And soon after, the minister gave me the bag to sell 
 again for the Sabbath-school cause. 
 
 A little after this the superintendent of that school 
 suggested that I should get some of those wonderful chest- 
 nuts blown into little glass bottles by the Bohemian Glass 
 Blowers, who were then in his neighborhood. Accordingly 
 I had, in all, perhaps one hundred and twenty-five of them 
 blown into these little decanters, or bottles with curious 
 stoppers in variegated colors. A part of the fourth bag 
 at length came into my hands, so that I had about one 
 hundred and thirty. 
 
 These little bottles were sold in every direction, for 
 from five to ten dollars apiece. Many of them were sent 
 back to me to be sold over again. 
 
 In my visit to the west in 1859, I to °k several of them 
 and left them in every state I visited, as far west as 
 Kansas for which I obtained about one hundred and thirty 
 dollars. 
 
 One of the most remarkable cases was at the Sabbath 
 school of the Phillips Church, South Boston, of which Rev. 
 Dr. E. K. Alden, now of the American Board, was then 
 pastor. The superintendent requested me to relate the 
 
THE CHESTNUT STORY. 
 
 185 
 
 " chestnut story." After school he asked me to leave one 
 of the bottles, as he thought they could do something 
 with it. The school went to taking up collections till 
 they had raised thirty dollars, which they thought was 
 a fair sum for it. Under the interest thus excited, they 
 went to taking collections to clothe poor children, in 
 which they raised quite a little sum. Then the school 
 presented the chestnut to their minister, and he soon 
 sent to the Society ten dollars to constitute the chestnut 
 a life member of the Society. 
 
 In relating the story to the Sabbath-school children, I 
 frequently referred to the fact that the stopper was blown 
 in, and that I wished all decanters and bottles had the 
 stoppers blown in. It would help in the temperance work. 
 " Now," I would say, "you see, you can not get this stopper 
 out, except in the way the little boy got the money out of 
 his money-pot, as he called it. 
 
 " ' Mother,' " said he, ' I wish I had a cent.' 
 
 " ' What do you want a cent for, my boy ? ' 
 
 " ' I want to buy a money-pot,' 
 
 " It was a little porcelain mug with a slit in the top 
 through which to slip in money, a sort of bank or contri- 
 bution box, which the boy wanted. He got his money-pot 
 and showed it to his uncle, who said : — 
 
 " ' What is that ? ' 
 
 "'Uncle,' said he, 'won't you slip a twenty-five cent 
 piece in there, and see how it will ring ? ' 
 
 " His uncle slipped in the money, but he could n't get it 
 out again. 
 
 " One day some time after, the little boy came to his 
 mother and said : — 
 
 " ' Mother, my money-pot is very heavy, and I wish I 
 knew how much money is in it. If you will roll out the 
 
1 8 6 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY IIFE. 
 
 table and put on the table-cloth, I will get a hammer and 
 hit the money-pot a crack, and we will see how much money 
 there is.'" 
 
 So his mother prepared the table and the little boy 
 hit his money-pot a crack, and out came — how much? 
 A dollar ? More than that. Two dollars ? More than 
 that — three dollars ! All this he had collected by asking- 
 persons to put in their money to see how it would ring. 
 
 " Now, the only way you can get the chestnut out of this 
 bottle is to hit it a crack." And a little girl out west who 
 could n't speak quite plain heard the story, when she 
 said : — 
 
 " ' I should n't t'ink any body would want to hit such a 
 pretty t'ing as dat a track. I dess I should n't.' " 
 
 At length all the bottles were disposed of and I ceased 
 to repeat the story. But the end was not yet. A year or 
 two afterward I received a letter from a gentleman in 
 Pennsylvania, saying that he was connected with a county 
 Sunday-school society, and that he had come across a little 
 glass bottle with a chestnut in it. On learning its history, 
 he thought it was a pity that its mission should cease, and 
 so had it photographed ; and he sold them for twenty-five 
 cents apiece, and he had raised one hundred dollars to buy 
 books for his poor schools. 
 
 He sent me a photograph, and said perhaps I could use 
 it in the same way. I had it copied, and in a year or two 
 disposed of some thousands at twenty-five cents each. I 
 did not sell them, but after telling the story and showing 
 the picture, I offered to give it to any who might want it 
 to remember the poor woman, who would make a donation 
 of twenty-five cents to our Society. 
 
 Now the pecuniary result of all this is, that not far from 
 two thousand dollars have come to the Sabbath-school 
 
THE CHES TNUT S TOR Y. 1 8 7 
 
 cause from these one hundred and fifty chestnuts. Has 
 not God blessed the mite of this poor woman ? 
 
 But this is not all. Similar cases have grown out of it. 
 The case connected with the Sanitary Commission during 
 the war, in which a " sack of flour " was sold over and 
 over till quite a sum was realized, no doubt grew out of 
 this chestnut story. 
 
 Then this story became widely known. Years ago I 
 received from some unknown person in Port Natal, South 
 Africa, six square letter sheets of paper, in which were 
 secured beautiful bouquets of dried grasses and flowers of 
 that country. They were all inscribed to me, some in the 
 language of the people there. On one of them was 
 written : — 
 
 " May they do as much good as did the poor woman's 
 chestnuts." 
 
 Just as though it had become my business to go round 
 the country and sell whatever any one might send me for 
 the cause of benevolence ! 
 
 The chestnut story was a "providential story." The 
 little girl who was with Mrs. Nurse when they came across 
 the little pile of chestnuts jumped up and clapped her 
 hands, saying, " Is n't God good to drop them down here 
 for us ? " So I called the nuts " providential chestnuts." 
 I am not to blame for the wonderful results. All I at first 
 sought was to get enough to show the poor woman that 
 " God had blessed them." 
 
 Mr. Constantine made us a visit while this story was 
 before the people. In the evening we cracked some of 
 the walnuts picked by the little boy of his school. When 
 he left he asked for a few to keep. I gave him a handful. 
 
 He visited Washington soon after, and one Sabbath day 
 addressed a mission school in the city and told the story 
 
1 8 8 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 of his own school at the corner, and of the chestnuts. 
 He exhibited a specimen of the walnuts, when two of the 
 teachers bought each of them one and gave him two dollars 
 apiece. He gave me the four dollars for the Society. I 
 told my family " not to crack another one of those wal- 
 nuts for any thing, for they were very valuable ! " In a 
 short time, however, I gave them permission to crack 
 them, on the ground that I could n't run two wheelbar- 
 rows at once. And so the whole matter has now come to 
 a close. 
 
 The story illustrates the importance of little things, of 
 little actions, right or wrong ones. " Behold, how great a 
 matter a little fire kindleth ! " 
 
 Perhaps I should add that in 1 864 I wrote a volume for 
 the society of over one hundred and twenty pages, called 
 " The Sabbath-school Chestnuts." It had an extensive sale, 
 but is now out of print. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 INCIDENTS IN HOME LIFE. 
 
 Our Home and Family. 
 
 DURING our first year in Boston we made our home 
 with a private family in the city. Here our first- 
 born died a few days after birth. The second year our 
 home was in the family of the late Rev. Jared Curtis, 
 chaplain of the State Prison, in Charlestown. I often offi- 
 ciated for him in his absence. 
 
 We united with the Winthrop Church in Charlestown > 
 then under the pastoral care of the late Rev. Daniel 
 Crosby. During a long illness of the pastor, Mr. Curtis 
 and myself took charge of the prayer-meetings ; and at 
 this time there was unusual religious interest among the 
 people. The invalid pastor, in a very humble and submis- 
 sive tone of voice, said : — 
 
 " How mysterious it is that the Lord should thus visit 
 my people when I am shut off from my work ! " 
 
 But we were only entering into his work. He had been 
 most faithfully sowing the good seed of the Word, and we 
 were now permitted to help gather in some of the harvest. 
 
 This year the eldest of our children now living was 
 born. We now felt that it was best to establish a home 
 of our own. One day I said to Mrs. Bullard : — 
 
 " I have been to look at a house in the city I saw adver- 
 tised to let. 
 
 " Well/' she inquired, " what do you think of it ? " 
 
 " The house is a good-looking one and pleasantly 
 
 189 
 
1 90 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 located, but I do not think we can afford to take it. The 
 rent is two hundred dollars more than my salary ! We 
 should have to live very economically to get along, under 
 those circumstances." So little we understood in regard 
 to this part of the expense of housekeeping in the city ! 
 
 We finally obtained a house in Barton Street, in the 
 extreme western part of the city. Here we resided for 
 five years ; and here two of our other children were born. 
 Then we kept house five years in Poplar Street, Boston. 
 And here our youngest child was born. 
 
 In full view of our home was the fine building of the 
 Massachusetts General Hospital. At first it was regarded 
 as quite an attraction to our limited city prospect. But 
 when we came to learn what a hospital meant, — that it is 
 constantly the scene of suffering and pain ; that here the 
 surgeon's instruments are in almost daily use, — much of 
 the attraction vanished. We looked upon the massive 
 structure with a very different sensation. 
 
 One day a nurse in one of the wards of the hospital, 
 who was a member of Bowdoin Street Church, then under 
 the pastoral care of the late Rev. Hubbard Winslow, and 
 to which church we had removed our church relations, 
 sent for me to visit one of her patients, a young woman 
 who was in an inquiring state of mind. I visited her and 
 gave her such instruction as her case seemed to require 
 and prayed with her. On leaving I was urged, both by 
 the patient and her nurse, to call again. In a few days 
 the visit was repeated. The same request, still more 
 urgently, was made. After a few visits more, it appeared 
 that the nurse and patient — and, indeed, several other 
 patients in that and two or three other wards that I had 
 visited — were anticipating the visits more and more, and 
 were disappointed if many clays passed without any. To 
 
INCIDENTS IN HOME LIFE. 1 9 I 
 
 obviate this state of things, the officials of the hospital 
 kindly arranged for my visit each week, on a day when 
 general visitors were not admitted. 
 
 After this, for a year or two, I visited five or six wards 
 every week, when my official duties did not call me from 
 the city. I went from ward to ward, spoke a few words 
 to every patient, trying to cheer the desponding and 
 guide and direct the minds of the inquiring as best I was 
 able. Then I read a few verses of Scripture and offered 
 a short prayer. 
 
 It was often very affecting to see how the countenances 
 of the patients, the convalescent and also those most 
 severely ill, even those who had but recently passed 
 through the most painful operation, would brighten up as 
 I entered the ward. Many of these patients were Catho- 
 lics, but all seemed interested to hear the few sweet words 
 of the blessed Book and the voice of prayer. 
 
 It was thought that several of the patients, in connec- 
 tion with these services, were led to trust in the Great 
 Physician, and that not a few who had learned to put 
 their trust in him were cheered and comforted. 
 
 This hour or more, in which so many short services 
 were crowded, was very fatiguing, but the interest mani- 
 fested made it an occasion of great personal enjoyment 
 and spiritual good to myself. 
 
 As my early years were passed in the country and on 
 the farm, and as I had learned to love every green thing 
 and every living creature, the confinement amid the brick 
 walls, narrow streets, and limited views of the city 
 became more and more oppressive, and we finally de- 
 cided to seek a residence in some rural place in the 
 vicinity. 
 
 My first visit of inspection was in Cambridge. After 
 
I 92 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 some inquiries in different parts of the town, — it was 
 not then a city, — I came to a man on Dana Hill, just 
 opposite Centre Street. He was fixing a gate. To the 
 inquiry if there was any house in the neighborhood either 
 to let or to sell, he replied that he did not know of any. 
 After a few moments of general conversation he said : — 
 
 " There is a man down there in Centre Street getting 
 into his wagon, wno does let and sell houses." 
 
 I had just time to hail him. And that house out of 
 which he had come has been our " Sunnybank " home 
 for forty years ! What important events were suspended 
 on that brief moment of time ! An instant more and 
 that man would have been beyond my call. Then where 
 would have been our home ? How different, in many 
 respects, might have been my life and that of my family \ 
 Here, at Harvard University, a son obtained his collegiate 
 and much of his medical education ; and here three 
 daughters obtained their education in a high school that is 
 equal to almost any, if not indeed to any, academy in the 
 land. Here, too, in a location with all that is desirable in 
 rural life, we are within easy access to the city and the 
 place of my official labors. 
 
 Our Present Home and How We Paid for It. 
 
 Our dwelling is on a lot of about one third of an acre. 
 As it stands on an elevated terrace, where the sun always 
 shines,, when it shines at all, and as we try to have it 
 always shine inside, we call it " Sunnybank." 
 
 When we took possession of this new home, we found 
 every tree and vine and shrub on the place had heen neg- 
 lected, and weeds had general possession. For the mere 
 pleasure of work and of seeing the improvement that 
 would follow it, as well as for the needed exercise, for 
 
INCIDENTS IN HOME LIFE. 193 
 
 many years, through all the seasons for such labor, I 
 spent from two to three hours before breakfast nearly 
 every morning in earnest labor on these neglected 
 grounds. They soon showed the effect of this labor. 
 An Irish gardener, in passing, often looked with great 
 interest on this early labor, and noticed the magical 
 changes that were constantly going on. One morning, 
 a little after four o'clock, he stopped and watched the 
 quick and energetic motions of this gentleman laborer for 
 a moment, and then exclaimed : — 
 
 " Ye 're the only gintleman in Cambridge ! " 
 
 I said in reply that if all the gentlemen in town did 
 their own gardening in that way, he would probably 
 sing another song. 
 
 At the end of two years the place was so improved that, 
 with the advice of friends, it was purchased. Only 
 about one quarter of the cost was paid down ; the rest was 
 encumbered by the ornament which the little girl said her 
 father was going to put on his house next week — a 
 mortgage ! 
 
 Now there was a new motive for economy in the house- 
 hold, and for the adoption of every suitable measure, not 
 only to pay the interest, but also to lessen the principal. 
 The interest was only about one quarter what the rent 
 would have been most of the next twenty years ; and by 
 the small sums, from time to time endorsed on the note, 
 this was yearly growing less and less. 
 
 At the end of about twenty years the mortgage was 
 canceled and the homestead was free ! No one who has 
 not experienced it can conceive the joy and gladness with 
 which the whole household hailed that important event. 
 
 On reckoning up the original cost and interest, includ- 
 ing also some two thousand dollars for additional and 
 
1 94 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 various improvements to the house and the grounds, and 
 also the expense for necessary repairs, shingling, painting, 
 etc., it was found that they amounted to just about the 
 same the rent for those years would have done ; but had 
 I been paying rent, I should have had no homestead. 
 
 That is the way I obtained our homestead, which is now 
 worth much more than it was when purchased. Besides, 
 the amount of comfort the family have had in the thought 
 that it was our own, or would be erelong, has been worth 
 more than all the economy, careful contrivance, and even 
 sacrifice, it has cost to secure it. 
 
 In a place where real estate promises to increase rather 
 than diminish in value I would advise all professional men 
 with any fair prospect of permanency in their location to 
 purchase a home at the outset. If the whole must be 
 mortgaged, the interest will not equal the rent. 
 
 Concentrated Labor. 
 
 From my experience on my little plat of land I have 
 been led to think much upon the importance of concen- 
 trated labor. It seems to me that most farmers in New 
 England have too much land. Their labor and their fertil- 
 izers are extended over too many acres. 
 
 At the west, where fertilizers are not needed, where 
 taxes upon lands are small, and where agriculture is 
 engaged in on a large scale and almost every part of it 
 done by machinery, it is different. There one farmer may 
 have his thousands of acres of corn and wheat and make 
 a profitable business of it. But with us here in New 
 England, if the labor, manure, fencing, etc., that are now 
 expended on many a farm were concentrated from one 
 third to one half, or even more, the results, it is believed, 
 would be greater than now. At the same time much 
 
INCIDENTS IN HOME LIFE. 
 
 195 
 
 expense for fencing and taxes would be saved, and the 
 better cultivation of the land would make all the labor 
 easier and in every way more satisfactory. 
 
 It is truly wonderful how much labor may be usefully 
 expended on a small piece of land, and what large results 
 will follow. The following illustration of the effects of 
 concentrated labor of this kind may be interesting to 
 some New England farmers, and especially to some small 
 land-owners. 
 
 The farm on which this labor has been performed con- 
 tains about one third of an acre. The house and barn, 
 the walks, grass-plats, borders and beds for shrubbery and 
 flowers, take about one half of the lot. On the remaining 
 seven thousand feet there are three cherry-trees, four 
 apple-trees, seven peach-trees, forty pear-trees (of some 
 thirty different kinds, some of the trees having two or 
 more kinds), one hundred grape-vines of eighteen different 
 varieties (many of these vines are on trellises around the 
 house and barn), one hundred hills of currants between 
 the trees and between the rows of trees (yielding last year 
 three bushels of currants), fifty hills of raspberries between 
 the rows of trees, and a few dozen hills of tomatoes. 
 
 Almost all these trees, vines, and bushes are in bearing 
 condition and yield abundantly. From this little spot 
 there has been gathered this season at least sixty bushels 
 of fruit. 
 
 The cost for enriching this small spot of land has been 
 but little beyond the cost of the few loads of loam each 
 autumn for the compost heap, as most of the dressing has 
 been made on the place of coal ashes. And there has been 
 but little expense for hired labor except for a few days in 
 the spring and autumn for spading the ground and getting 
 out the dressing. 
 
1 96 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 This is a specimen of the results of concentrated labor. 
 It is doubtful if the same amount of labor and fertilizers 
 expended over several acres of the same kind of land 
 would have given as good results. 
 
 An Hour in a Garden. 
 
 Some of my most pleasant and perhaps profitable medi- 
 tations have occurred while working in my little garden. 
 I seldom prune my vines without thinking of that beautiful 
 saying of our Saviour : "I am the vine, and ye are the 
 branches." 
 
 A single hour of labor and care in a garden — how 
 wondrous its results ! With pruning-knife and shears 
 and matting, how soon an ill-shaped, unsightly tree or 
 shrub is changed into an object of symmetry and grace ! 
 An hour among the vines, properly arranging them on 
 the trellis, and checking their too luxuriant growth so 
 that their vital forces may be employed in developing 
 the luscious clusters — how marked its influence ! A 
 brief season of care among the flowers and plants, 
 giving to the weak and drooping the needed support, 
 removing the hurtful insects and weeds, loosing the 
 hardened soil about the roots, and by judicious 
 pinching and pruning bringing them to forms of come- 
 liness and beauty — how it pays, and how satisfactory 
 as we look at the effects ! And then, as with hoe and 
 rake we pass through the paths and walks, and among 
 the trees and shrubs and plants, what a transformation 
 it produces ! And how smooth and velvety the lawn over 
 which has passed the mower ! Such are the effects of 
 an hour, now and then, of thoughtful care and labor in 
 the garden and grounds that grace and beautify and 
 cheer our dwellings. The more frequent these seasons, 
 
INCIDENTS IN HOME LIFE. 
 
 197 
 
 the less labor and care it will require to keep all in 
 perfect order, while only a few omissions will show to 
 every passer-by the evidences of neglect. 
 
 How sad that any — when it costs so little time and 
 labor — should, through sloth, want of taste, thought- 
 lessness, or indifference, leave their surroundings to be- 
 come unsightly, overgrown with noxious weeds, and a 
 confused mass of tangled vines and shrubbery. 
 
 And an. hour of labor and care in the garden of the heart 
 is not less wondrous in its effects than in the natural 
 garden. How a season spent in earnest communion with 
 the Scriptures or some devotional book, in meditation, 
 self-examination, and prayer, helps to give vigor and 
 beauty to all the Christian graces ! How it checks the 
 growth of worldliness, and pride, and love of ease, and 
 selfishness, and directs the forces of the soul to the 
 growth and development and sweetness of all the fruits 
 of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, 
 goodness, faith, meekness, temperance ! How such a 
 season helps to remove doubts and fears, and to 
 strengthen and support a weak and trembling hope and 
 a wavering faith ! 
 
 Without such seasons of labor and care, how soon 
 all the avenues of the spiritual garden become unsightly, 
 and every hurtful weed springs up to choke the delicate 
 plants of righteousness, and the whole scene becomes a 
 waste — no beautiful flowers or luscious fruits or pleas- 
 ant objects appear. 
 
 Frequent seasons of watchfulness and care are more 
 needful here than in our natural gardens. Every good 
 plant in the heart is an exotic, requiring much watch- 
 fulness and protection, while the hurtful ones that we 
 have to destroy are in their native soil. They spring 
 
I98 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY II FE. 
 
 up spontaneously, and grow up without culture. The 
 scorching sun, the withering drought, the desolating hail, 
 the sweeping tempest, the noxious insect., seldom injures 
 them. They are as tenacious of life as are the vexatious 
 purslane and witch-grass that again and again we root 
 up from our flower-beds. Nothing but the most persistent 
 efforts can check and eradicate them. 
 
 And yet we can have more certainty of success in the 
 culture of the heart than in that of the most favored 
 garden spot on earth. Every hour we spend there we can 
 have divine help. The great Gardener will give us his 
 aid. He will send the dew and the sunshine and the gen- 
 tle rain, if we faithfully watch over and care for the plants > 
 that will insure their growth and fruitfulness. 
 
 Let us only be as regular and earnest in the care of our 
 hearts as most lovers of ^nature are of their gardens, and 
 the north wind will awake, and the south wind will come 
 and blow upon them, that the spices thereof may flow out, 
 and He whom our souls love will come into his garden and 
 eat his pleasant fruit. 
 
 Silver Wedding. 
 
 The twenty-fifth anniversary of our wedding occurred 
 May 16, 1857. This anniversary we had known was 
 called in some countries in Europe the " silver wedding." 
 We had never heard of the celebration of this anniversary 
 under that name in New England. 
 
 It seemed to us proper that the event should be recog- 
 nized, and so we issued cards of invitation to a large 
 number of our friends and acquaintances to call on us at 
 our " Sunnybank " home in Cambridge on that occasion. 
 On the corner of the card of invitation were the words 
 "Silver Wedding," to indicate the event the gathering 
 was to celebrate. 
 
INCIDENTS IN HOME LIFE. 
 
 199 
 
 Many of the papers, secular and religious, gave very- 
 pleasant accounts of the occasion. It will interest at 
 least our special friends — and it may not be improper — 
 to give some specimens of these notices. 
 
 The Boston Journal spoke thus of it : — 
 
 We know of no person who can rejoice in the possession of the 
 deep and heartfelt affection of a larger number of friends , of all ages — 
 from the little child barely able to lisp the Lord's Prayer, to the aged 
 saints ready to enter upon the bliss of heaven — and scattered all over 
 New England, than the Rev. Asa Bullard, the devoted and beloved 
 Secretary of the Massachusetts Sabbath-School Society. There are very 
 few persons who have been connected with any Congregational 
 Sabbath-school in Massachuetts during the last twenty years, who 
 can not recall the kind words of counsel and instruction to which they 
 have listened with eager interest as they fell from his lips, and the 
 good resolutions which they have aided in forming or strengthening. 
 This great multitude of friends will be pleased to know that last 
 Saturday was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the marriage of Mr. 
 Bullard, and at this event, the silver wedding, as it is termed, was 
 commemorated by a social gathering of his friends in this vicinity at 
 his residence in Cambridge last evening. Notwithstanding the un- 
 pleasant weather, there was a general response to the invitations sent 
 out, the visitors filling the house to overflowing, and a more happy 
 assemblage we have never seen. 
 
 The evening was spent in social conversation and congratulations. 
 About nine o 'clock a bounteous collation was provided. At a season- 
 able hour the company retired, with the sincere and heartfelt wish that 
 their beloved friend and host, and his excellent and worthy companion, 
 with their children, may all be spared to celebrate a golden 
 wedding. 
 
 A number of the Cambridge friends of Mr. and Mrs. Bullard, 
 desirous that the celebration of the silver wedding should be 
 something more than a mere social gathering for an hour, placed upon 
 their parlor table a rich and beautiful silver tea-set appropriately 
 inscribed. Other friends contributed other gifts. Three "little 
 friends " of Mr. Bullard added a fine copy of Gray's Poems. These 
 testimonials of affection were as gratifying as they were unexpected 
 to the recipients. 
 
200 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 As many parents who were present expressed a wish 
 that their children might have enjoyed the occasion, on 
 Independence Day, July 4, we invited the members of the 
 Sabbath-schools of the Shepard Church, of which the late 
 Rev. J. A. Albro, d.d., was pastor, and of the Prospect 
 Street Church, of which Rev. C. W. Gilman was then pas- 
 tor, to spend the afternoon at our home. 
 
 The Boston Journal gave the following account of that 
 gathering : — 
 
 One of the most pleasant gatherings of the day took place in 
 Cambridge Saturday afternoon, at the residence of Rev. Asa Bullard, 
 the Secretary of the Massachusetts Sabbath-School Society. It was 
 a kind of sequel to the silver wedding of this most estimable man, 
 an account of which we gave a few weeks ago. At that gathering, 
 which was composed entirely of adults, the question was asked why 
 the children were not present. The best answer was that there was 
 not room for them then. Their kind friend, Mr. Bullard, had not, 
 however, forgotten them, and was looking forward to Independence 
 Day, when he hoped to meet them in the beautiful grounds attached 
 to his residence. Accordingly an invitation was last Sunday extended 
 to the scholars connected with the two Congregtional Sabbath-schools 
 in Cambridge, to meet their friend and the "children's friend 11 at his 
 house, on Saturday afternoon. The invitation was heartily responded 
 to, and about four o ^lock bright-eyed happy-faced little ones began 
 to assemble, and kept coming until there were four or five hundred of 
 them present. Several of the boys and girls brought beautiful bouquets 
 of flowers and handed them to Mr. Bullard as he greeted them on 
 their entrance. A delegation of girls from Rev. Dr. Albro's school 
 were dressed in white, and had their heads wreathed in flowers. As 
 they entered they handed Mr. Bullard two neat cases, which were 
 found to contain a splendid silver pie-knife and other articles of silver 
 ware, which were inscribed: "Shepard Sabbath-school, Cambridge, 
 to Rev. Asa Bullard. 11 Mr. Bullard acknowledged the kind gift in a 
 few appropriate words. 
 
 After the company were all assembled they were allowed an hour to 
 play about the grounds and have a good time. An ample collation 
 was then served out to them, and after thev were satisfied, brief 
 
INCIDENTS IN HOME II FE. 201 
 
 addresses were made to them by Rev. Mr. Gilman, Rev. Mr. Bullard, 
 Deacon Hosmer, superintendent of the Shepard school, Hon. 
 Charles Theodore Russell, and Rev. Dr. Albro. Before separating, 
 the children gave three hearty cheers as an acknowledgment of their 
 appreciation of the generous hospitality of their kind-hearted friend. 
 The occasion was a delightful one to all who were present. 
 
 The Cambridge Chronicle, after giving an account of the 
 above gathering, added the following : — 
 
 The sequel to the whole occurred on Monday evening last, when 
 quite unexpectedly to the recipient, Mr. Bullard was visited by the 
 superintendent and teachers of Rev. Mr. Gilman's Sabbath-school, 
 and received from the superintendent a silken purse containing twenty- 
 five dollars in gold. The purse was of blue, pink, and white, emblem- 
 atic of " friendship, love, and purity," and was bestowed as a token 
 of the love and esteem of the members of the school. The superin- 
 tendent of the infant department, in behalf of her little flock, also 
 presented Mr. Bullard with a beautiful fancy parlor chair, as a token of 
 their regard. 
 
 "The matter of gifts," The Chronicle says, "is by no 
 means a necessary part of a celebration like the above. 
 If a couple have been spared by a kind providence to walk 
 together in the wedded life twenty-five years, and have 
 honored that sacred and endeared relation by a faithful 
 observance of all the holy vows of the marriage covenant, 
 as sharers of each other's joys, and sympathizers and sup- 
 porters in each other's sorrows, what more appropriate 
 than to invite their friends, or for their friends if they pre- 
 fer, to go uninvited, to celebrate by mutual congratulations 
 such an interesting event ? We sincerely pity all our 
 bachelor friends who are willfully denying themselves all 
 prospect of such joyous occasions." 
 
 Another Silver Wedding. 
 
 In The We 11- Spring for February 25, 1859, was pub- 
 lished the following article : — 
 
2 O 2 INC ID EN TS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 It is not common for such an anniversary — a silver wedding — to 
 occur twice in the life of the same person ; and certainly not twice 
 within two years. But if spared till Monday, March I, 1859, we sna U- 
 have been married just twenty-five years to the Massachusetts Sabbath- 
 School Society. That will be our second silver wedding. 
 
 Now, if it were a pleasant season of the year, and we could procure a 
 tent large enough, it would give us the greatest pleasure to have another 
 silver wedding levee, and invite all of the two hundred thousand differ- 
 ent boys and girls, young people and men and women, whom we have 
 publicly addressed — and most of them many times — during the past 
 quarter of a century, to come and exchange greetings with the " man 
 who makes The Well-Spring." 
 
 But as this can not well be done, will all this great number of friends 
 who " remain unto this present" (alas ! what a multitude of them are 
 fallen asleep !) accept our most heartfelt greetings and good wishes ? 
 Many thanks for all the kind interest they have manifested in us and in 
 our labors. . . . 
 
 Though our labors for the past quarter of a century have been abun- 
 dant, they have been very delightful. Few men have had a more 
 delightful work than ours. Think, young friends, of the pleasure we 
 have enjoyed in preparing this little paper, through which, every week, 
 we have been speaking to more than 150,000 readers — parents, teach- 
 ers, and children. You can not be more happy in your most exciting 
 amusements than we have been in this work. 
 
 And then all our other duties, of correspondence, making reports, 
 preparing books for the Society, etc., during the week, have also been, 
 as a general thing, pleasant. And then think, too, of our opportun- 
 ities the past twenty-five years, in connection with this Society, and 
 for three years previous, in connection with the Maine Sabbath-school 
 Union, on the Sabbath and at conferences and Sabbath-school conven- 
 tions and festivals, of meeting and addressing these many, many thou- 
 sands of parents and children ! What work can be more delightful? 
 
 Golden Wedding. 
 
 Our golden wedding, or the fiftieth anniversary of our 
 marriage, came May 16, 1882. As our friends had done so 
 much for me in connection with my visit abroad, and fear- 
 ing that a special celebration of our jubilee might lead to 
 
INCIDENTS IN HOME LIFE. 
 
 203 
 
 further gifts, it was quietly observed among a few of our 
 relatives. 
 
 Rev. Daniel D. Tappan wrote to me on the occasion of 
 our golden wedding as follows : — 
 
 Weld, Maine, April 27, 1882. 
 My Brother Bullard : — 
 
 I see in The Congregationalist a fraternal suggestion in relation to the 
 " Golden Mile-stone " on the 16th of May; and on the score of long 
 acquaintance send the enclosed lines. We have, as you well know, 
 been more or less acquainted a long time ; indeed, perhaps as long as 
 you have personally known any of the friends who will greet you on 
 that interesting anniversary. I was present, as you may remember, at 
 your ordination in Portland in 1832, and took some small part, I think, 
 in the service. . . . 
 
 I presume you are both in fair health ; and I opine you will not 
 hasten to feel old, and that the same will not soon occur, unless the 
 " tabernacle " receive some great wrench. 
 Very best wishes for yourself and Mrs. Bullard. 
 
 Your brother, 
 
 Daniel D. Tappan, 
 Aged eighty-three years and a half. 
 
 Thou veteran children's friend, thy years 
 
 'Mid tireless cares have sped away ; 
 And times of blended joys and tears 
 
 Have ushered in this restful day. 
 
 And this associate at thy side, 
 
 In worthy deeds and love has shone, 
 Since when, now fifty years, as bride, 
 
 She linked her fortunes with thine own. 
 
 The glory His, and grateful love 
 
 May well remind of sovereign grace, 
 That helped you train, for seats above, 
 
 Such numbers of the rising race. 
 
 And now, not in inglorious ease 
 
 You cease from former robust care ; 
 Yet, young in heart, still aim to please 
 
 The Master, and for heaven prepare. 
 
204 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 But be your exit soon or late, 
 
 Its closing scene may Christ illume ; 
 Fit harbinger of bliss so great, 
 
 Reserved for saints beyond the tomb. 
 
 D. D. Tappan. 
 
 The Great Sorrow of my Life. 
 
 About three years after the above interesting anniver- 
 sary, my beloved wife was stricken with paralysis. After 
 four or five months of almost perfect helplessness, during 
 which she was most patient and never more loving and 
 lovable, and when we felt that she was slowly but surely 
 improving and was to be restored to us in health, on Sab- 
 bath morning, July 19, 1885, without the least warning, 
 she was suddenly taken from us, as if in a moment trans- 
 lated — " a noble woman glorified." We had walked 
 together in this most endearing of all earthly relations 
 fifty-three years and two months. 
 
 Among the many things for which we had occasion for 
 thankfulness during these months of hope and fear, was 
 the visit of our son, William R. Bullard, m.d., from 
 Helena, Montana. He came sixteen hundred miles, and 
 for two weeks our family was again reunited. We had 
 not seen him for sixteen years. He has a wife and a pair 
 of children thirteen years old, whom we have never seen 
 except in their picture. 
 
 Religion has never seemed more precious, as connected 
 with the family, than as I contemplate it from my now 
 stricken home. I thus moralize upon it : — 
 
 Sin has spread a withering blight over all the relations 
 of life. Nowhere has its influence been more destructive 
 than in the various relations of the family. And still, the 
 united, affectionate family — even where the rains and dews 
 
INCIDENTS IN HOME LIFE. 205 
 
 of divine grace have never fallen — is one of the most 
 verdant spots in our world. Here one common bond of 
 sympathy and love binds all hearts together. The dear 
 names of father and mother, sister and brother, are music 
 to each other's ears. Each helps bear the other's burdens. 
 Envy and selfishness seem to have so far yielded to the 
 power of even natural, unsanctified affection, that the hap- 
 piness of each is to see the others happy. This is, indeed, 
 a comparatively green spot in the midst of a surrounding 
 desert. 
 
 But let the rains of heaven be shed down upon this 
 spot, and what a change ! A more abundant luxuriance 
 now springs forth on every side, and it is clothed with a 
 far deeper verdure and a far richer beauty. Religion puri- 
 fies and sweetens all the tender and endearing relations of 
 such a family. It adds a silken cord to the bonds of sym- 
 pathy and love. It diffuses a softening, hallowed influence 
 among all its ^members, and makes the good parent, the 
 obedient child, the affectionate brother and sister, the 
 amiable companion, a better parent, a more obedient, loving 
 child, a more affectionate brother or sister, and a more 
 amiable companion. Religion produces such a union of 
 feeling and sentiment that a discordant note seldom mars 
 the harmony of their lives. If one suffer, all suffer alike 
 with him, and if one rejoice, all are made happy. 
 
 Religion erects, too, in the pious household, an altar 
 around which all the members daily assemble with united 
 and joyful hearts. The priest of the household now opens 
 the Sacred Volume. The world for a little season is dis- 
 missed ; every passion is hushed, every bosom quieted, 
 every mind awake, and every thought is fixed. The words 
 of eternal life fall upon the ear as if from the lips of the 
 Almighty. The song of praise now unites every voice in 
 
206 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 sweet melody ; then all bow in solemn prayer, and offer 
 incense and a pure offering to their Maker. Here, around 
 this altar, their union and love are most perfect and 
 endearing. 
 
 " Their souls, by love together knit, 
 Cemented, mixed in one, 
 One hope, one heart, one mind, one voice, 
 'T is heaven on earth begun." 
 
 If there is here below an emblem of the household of 
 the blest, it surely is the united, affectionate, Christian 
 family. What power there is in that religion that can 
 make such a scene in such a sin-blighted world as this ! 
 
 And there is efficacy in this religion, could it pervade 
 every heart, to convert every family into such a scene ; to 
 sweeten all the relations of kindred and friendship, and to 
 change earth into heaven. God speed the day when all 
 our homes shall be Christian homes. 
 
 Cambridge Reserve Guard. 
 
 Early in the late civil war in our country some of the 
 leading citizens in Cambridge were led to organize a mili- 
 tary company for the protection of our public institutions, 
 buildings, etc. The company consisted mostly of men 
 who on account of their age were not liable to be called 
 into the service. The late George Livermore, Esq., one 
 of the most highly respected men in the city, met me one 
 day, mentioned the subject of this company and its special 
 object, and inquired if I would be willing to unite with it. 
 I at once replied " Certainly." 
 
 The thought that there might by-and-by be a draft, and 
 that some might be inclined to resist and excite mobs, and 
 the exposure of our arsenal and all our public buildings, as 
 
INCIDENTS IN HOME LIFE. 207 
 
 well as our private dwellings and personal safety, seemed 
 a good reason for every loyal citizen to be ready to organ- 
 ize for protection. 
 
 At first about one hundred united with the company ; 
 but when we came to organize regularly and to obtain the 
 uniform and other equipments, the number was reduced to 
 about sixty. 
 
 After meeting a few weeks under a drill-master, the 
 company organized by choice of officers. Very much to 
 my surprise I was chosen first lieutenant. I at once 
 obtained Casey's volumes of infantry tactics, and in my 
 spare moments gave myself to an earnest study. In a 
 short time I was elected captain, and for twenty-two 
 months did not fail to meet my company every Monday 
 evening and drill them for an hour or more. 
 
 This company was composed of clergymen, lawyers, 
 physicians, merchants, teachers, presidents and cashiers of 
 banks, and of the leading citizens of our part of the city. 
 We aided in recruiting one or two companies and in 
 awakening a general spirit of loyalty to our government 
 and active sympathy with the north. 
 
 There were several events of interest that may be men- 
 tioned. The most important is that connected with the 
 Cooper Street riot in Boston. Governor Andrew, Adju- 
 tant-general Schouler, and Mayor Richardson of our city 
 one time called upon our company just at night to escort 
 several loads of ammunition from the Cambridge arsenal 
 into Boston, for a regiment just home from the war that 
 was called upon to aid in protecting the city. Our com- 
 pany was under arms fifteen hours and marched ten miles, 
 and we received the hearty thanks of the officials who 
 called for our service. 
 
 We had a public parade and supper at the end of one 
 year, which was an occasion of great interest. 
 
208 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 The company at another time had a drill in the City 
 Hall, at which there was a large gathering of citizens,, 
 including our lady friends. At this gathering Mayor 
 Raymond, in behalf of the ladies of Cambridgeport, pre- 
 sented to the company a superb silk flag. This was prop- 
 erly acknowledged by an address from the captain, and 
 afterwards suitable resolutions of acknowledgment were 
 passed by the company and sent to the ladies. 
 
 At the close of the war the company disbanded. Some, 
 months afterwards the mayor of the city requested us to 
 re-organize and aid in receiving two Cambridge companies, 
 which we had helped to recruit. Permission was obtained 
 from the adjutant-general, and the company met a few 
 times to prepare themselves for the service ; and never 
 was there a company of boys that seemed more happy to 
 meet than were the members of the Cambridge Reserve 
 Guard. 
 
 Four or five years after this, so many of the company 
 had expressed a wish that there could be a reunion, I 
 invited the members to an entertainment at my residence. 
 About forty were present ; and after they had participated 
 in the refreshments provided, they greatly surprised their 
 commander by presenting him, in connection with a neat 
 and felicitous address by the president of the civil organi- 
 zation of the company, with an elegant Waltham watch 
 appropriately inscribed. 
 
 Thus ended all public gatherings of our company. Some 
 of our most intelligent and worthy citizens have said that 
 there has been no organization in our city,, outside of the 
 church, that did more to promote kind and neighborly 
 feelings among its members than the Cambridge Reserve 
 Guard. No persons in the city meet me more cordially 
 than the members of this company. Some of them, even 
 
INCIDENTS IN HOME LIFE. 
 
 209 
 
 after these years, always address me as "captain," with 
 the military salute. 
 
 Cambridge Horticultural Society. 
 
 For several years we had a large and efficient horticul- 
 tural society. There were many very excellent pear- 
 orchards, especially in Cambridgeport. A large portion 
 of the prizes given by the Massachusetts Horticultural 
 Society were obtained by the citizens of Cambridge. 
 
 This society, some portions of the year, held monthly- 
 exhibitions, which were largely attended. The displays, 
 of fruits and flowers and vegetables were extensive and 
 very fine. Many small prizes were given. One year a. 
 citizen offered prizes to the ladies of the city for the best 
 specimens of bread. One hundred and sixty competitors 
 exhibited two hundred loaves. The committee of two 
 gentlemen and three ladies spent five hours in their exam- 
 ination. A loaf, to receive a prize, must be of good color, 
 well shaped, of fine appearance, without external defect, 
 sweet to the smell and taste, well raised, delicate, tender, 
 and handsome. Outwardly and inwardly each loaf must 
 not only satisfy but please sight, touch, smell, and taste, 
 every sense but hearing, and must be of a specified weight. 
 It was to me a matter of no small satisfaction that the 
 second prize for " fine flour wheaten bread " was awarded 
 to Mrs. Bullard. 
 
 After some years many of the fruit orchards had given 
 place to house-lots, and as most of the members were 
 connected with the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, 
 it was deemed best to disband the Cambridge society ; 
 and this was done, to my no small regret, when I was its 
 last president. On closing up the institution, a large 
 number of the volumes in the library were given to the 
 
2 I O INCIDENTS IN A BUSY LIFE. 
 
 Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and the rest were 
 purchased by the individual members of the Cambridge 
 society. We also made a donation of about $500 of the 
 balance on hand to the Avon Street Home in our city. 
 Thus closed an organization which had been quite popular 
 in the city and which had been the means of awakening 
 no small interest in beautifying the grounds of many a 
 home. 
 
 Sociai Relations in Cambridge. 
 
 My social relations to the people in Cambridge, of all 
 religious denominations, have ever been pleasant. I have 
 preached in all the evangelical pulpits and addressed the 
 Sabbath-schools. Our military organization, spoken of 
 elsewhere, helped not a little in promoting social inter- 
 course. 
 
 For fifteen or twenty years we have had a book club of 
 twenty-one families, of which, most of the time, I have 
 been the librarian. For some years we had monthly meet- 
 ings at each other's houses, with a simple entertainment. 
 This, of course, brought all the members of these families 
 together in the most pleasant social intercourse. 
 
 I have often been brought into a more tender connec- 
 tion with not a few families in their bereavements. In 
 the time of the ministerial vacations, I am often called 
 upon in the absence of the pastors to conduct funeral ser- 
 vices. One vacation, in twelve days I was called upon 
 seven times to perform such services. 
 
 The First Baptist Church, Cambridgeport, lost two 
 houses of worship by fire within a few years of each 
 other. At' the laying of the corner-stone and at the dedi- 
 cation of each, the society very courteously invited me to 
 be present. 
 
INCIDENTS IN HOME LIFE. 2 11 
 
 Church Relations in Cambridge. 
 
 When we took up our residence in Cambridge, about 
 forty years ago, Mrs. Bullard and myself moved our church 
 relations to the Shepard Church, then under the pastoral 
 care of the late Rev. J. A. Albro, d.d. For many years 
 Dr. Albro was an active member of the Board of Mana- 
 gers of our Sabbath-School Society, and one of my tried 
 friends and counselors in my work. 
 
 For several years Mrs. Bullard was an invalid and unable 
 to attend church, and I was seldom at home on the Sab- 
 bath. Our children were then quite young, and were 
 obliged to go to church and Sunday-school alone. 
 
 It was not long before it was found that the connections 
 of most of our neighbors were with Cambridgeport rather 
 than with Old Cambridge. All the school children were 
 also in that ward ; with them were all the associates of our 
 own children. They soon found this out, and that they 
 were every Sabbath day sent away from all their associ- 
 ates on the week-days and in the public schools. This they 
 soon took very sorely to heart. They said : " The church 
 and the Sabbath-school were especially for them, and not 
 for their parents, who seldom were with them." This plea 
 we could not long resist. Their application to go to the 
 Prospect Street Church and Sabbath-school — then under 
 the pastoral care of the late Rev. William A. Stearns, d.d., 
 soon after president of Amherst College — seemed to us 
 reasonable, and so we removed our church relations to the 
 Prospect Street, or the " First Evangelical Church of Cam- 
 bridgeport," in November, 1857, where we have since had 
 our church home. 
 
 A few years ago our church voted to have six instead of 
 four deacons, to hold office three years. They could be 
 
2 I 2 INCIDENTS IN A BUSY II FE. 
 
 reelected once, but must then be out of office one year 
 before they were again eligible. At the first election two 
 were chosen for three years, two for two years, and two 
 for one year. I was first elected to this office for one year, 
 and then reelected for three. As for a few years at that 
 time I was relieved from my labors on the Sabbath for the 
 Sabbath-School Society, I could perform the duties of the 
 diaconate. Although some thought it hardly appropriate 
 for one of the clerical profession to accept the office of a 
 deacon, it seemed to me proper to accept any position in 
 the church where I could be useful ; and while in that 
 office there was the most fraternal sympathy and coopera- 
 tion among these officers of the church. Our prayer- 
 meeting every Saturday evening before the communion 
 was to us all a hallowed season. 
 
 I have tried to take my place in all our church work, 
 much of the time serving on some of the committees. 
 
DIED 
 APRIL 5, ii 
 
 <Ee&- Stea Btiilartr, 
 
 At " Sunnybank," Cambridgeport, Mass. 
 JET. 84 YEARS, 10 DAYS. 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 BY M. C. HAZARD. 
 
 We speak and write of ourselves in the present tense, 
 and soon others speak and write of us in the past ; we 
 tell now what we have done and what we are doing, and 
 in a short time others will tell only of what we have 
 done ; autobiographies quickly give place to epitaphs. 
 
 Thoughts like these will occur to those who, in reading 
 this volume, turn from the pages in which the author 
 personally addresses them, to these in which another 
 speaks for him. In the preceding pages he is the ani- 
 mated, vivacious friend, telling his life-story to a circle 
 of friends ; in these his voice is hushed, and he himself 
 here lives only in hearts and memories. The change as 
 it appears in this volume is not more sudden and startling 
 than was the fact it represents. Mr. Bullard passed away 
 soon after completing his autobiography. After submit- 
 ting it to the writer he never saw it again. On the 
 Monday appointed for a conference concerning all the 
 items pertaining to its publication, Mr. Bullard failed to 
 appear, and the writer heard that he was prostrated with 
 pneumonia, the result of a severe cold taken in the 
 prosecution of the work to which he had given his whole 
 heart and life. A few days more and he had entered 
 into rest. 
 
 Concerning his sickness and death there is but little 
 to say. There was little that was striking or dramatic 
 about the manner of his passing away. After coming 
 
2 1 6 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 under the power of the disease which overmastered him, 
 he was delirious to the end, and hence there were no 
 touching conferences with children and friends, such as 
 would have been pleasant to relate and a comfort to them 
 to have in memory. Before his illness Mr. Bullard had 
 said his last words. His autobiography may be said to 
 contain them. That now has somewhat of that sacred 
 character which we attach to parting words. 
 
 Monday, March 19, Mr. Bullard returned home from 
 one of his appointments with a cold which soon settled 
 upon his chest, and which caused him to suffer somewhat 
 from rheumatism. The rheumatic pains soon passed 
 away, but the soreness in his chest continued. Mr. 
 Bullard was not a man to give up readily to sickness. 
 He was engaged to present the cause of the Society on 
 the next Sunday in New Haven at Dr. Twitchell's church. 
 Having disappointed Dr. Twitchell once before, his .heart 
 was the more set upon fulfilling his engagement then. 
 As the end of the week drew near it was evident to every 
 one in the family but himself that he could not go. 
 Friday his daughters urged him to write at once reporting 
 his condition, but he refused. On Saturday morning his 
 son-in-law, Mr. C. F. Wyman, found him sitting up in bed 
 eating his breakfast, bright and cheerful, but clearly too 
 weak for any such exertion as he contemplated. Asking 
 if he could do any thing for him, Mr. Wyman received 
 for a reply : " Nothing, unless you can contrive to give me 
 a better appetite!" When Mr. Wyman remarked, "Of 
 course you have given up all hope of going to New Haven 
 to-day," very emphatically Mr. Bullard answered: "Of 
 course not ! I feel that I must go. I have thought over 
 it, and prayed over it, and it seems clear to me that I 
 must go. Besides, I can not bear to disappoint Dr. 
 Twitchell a second time." 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 217 
 
 Further remonstrances proved unavailing. It was 
 suggested to him that he was like a boy who insisted 
 upon skating upon ice only an inch thick, and, with the 
 old-time twinkle in his eye, he replied : " Oh, ice an inch 
 thick will bear quite a weight ! " His son-in-law bade 
 him good-by, saying that if he made the attempt to go, 
 he should expect never again to see him alive. The 
 warning was received with a hearty laugh and a cheerful 
 " Good-by ! " 
 
 On rising to dress, however, Mr. Bullard found himself 
 weaker than he had supposed. He did dress, though, in 
 spite of his weakness, and even went so far as to shave 
 himself. But then it was apparent even to himself that 
 he could not go. Giving permission to send a telegram 
 announcing his inability to fulfill his appointment, he 
 turned to the window, and — do you wonder at it ? — tears 
 coursed down his cheeks. It was hard for him to sur- 
 render his work, perhaps forever. " Now,'' said he, turn- 
 ing sadly to his daughter, " I am afraid that I shall give 
 up to it." 
 
 It was impossible for him not to give up to it. The 
 disease very soon developed into typhoid pneumonia. 
 Delirium almost immediately set in. The incoherent 
 words which dropped from his lips showed that all the 
 while he was engaged in his work. His lips moved with- 
 out cessation, and from the broken fragments of speech 
 it was easily gathered that he was imagining himself 
 preaching a sermon, or speaking to children, or offering 
 prayer. It touched the hearts of his daughters to hear 
 once from him the petition : " If it be Thy pleasure, 
 continue us in our labors." His work — how precious 
 it was to him ! Again, they heard a portion of the 
 prayer which is the first to be learned and the last to be 
 forgotten : — 
 
2 1 8 IN MEMORIAM 
 
 " Now I lay me down to sleep, 
 I pray the Lord my soul to keep. 1 ' 
 
 No devout soul will ever grow too old to say that. The 
 last intelligible words were heard from him on the day 
 of his departure. In the forenoon he was observed to 
 fold his hands in prayer, and distinctly was given the 
 supplication : " God bless us all ! " And with that the 
 feeble hands fell, and soon this father in Israel fell on 
 sleep. It was as if in entering the unseen chariot which 
 waited for him he had in that last prayer left a benedic- 
 tion behind him. 
 
 The funeral took place on Monday, April 9, at the 
 First Church of Cambridgeport, Rev. D. N. Beach 
 pastor. As noted in his autobiography, here for over 
 thirty years he had had his church home. The services 
 were peculiarly fitting both in character and in spirit. 
 All those things which make such occasions sorrowful 
 and depressing in this case were lacking. There was, on 
 the contrary, a solemn and joyous uplift which was very 
 noticeable. The simple ceremonies at the house were 
 pervaded with the spirit of thanksgiving and praise 
 instead of grief and anguish. At the church this frame 
 of mind was even more marked. The bell was not tolled, 
 for a sound so doleful did not seem appropriate under the 
 circumstances. Ringing rather than tolling would have 
 been more in consonance with the feelings of those who 
 gathered there to do him honor. The flowers which filled 
 the platform even to the hiding of the pulpit expressed 
 the feelings of all better than the black drapings. The 
 profusion of floral offerings was an indication of the 
 affection in which Mr. Bullard has been held, and of the 
 many hearts which had been touched by the news of his 
 death. From his associates in the Congregational Sun- 
 
IN MEMOKIAM. 
 
 219 
 
 day-School and Publishing Society there was a floral 
 book, all the leaves of which, significantly, were turned, 
 and on the final leaf, the words : " In Labors Abun- 
 dant." Very truly did those words characterize the 
 long life just closed. A superb cross of Easter lilies from 
 the Congregational Superintendents' Union was a re- 
 minder of the Easter message to the Saviour's sorrowing 
 disciples: "He is not here; for he is risen." Another 
 open book from the Sunday-school of the church had 
 upon its pages the appropriate words : " The Lord is 
 my Shepherd," and " Feed my Lambs." From the 
 church with which he was connected was a cross and 
 crown, suggesting the cross now forever laid down and 
 the crown in joyful possession. Besides these there 
 were many bouquets and smaller designs ; but, after all, 
 no offerings were quite so touching as the tiny bunches 
 of flowers dropped into the coffin from the hands of little 
 children as they passed by. Children had ever been his 
 care, and he had ever been held by them in warmest 
 esteem. There should have been more children present. 
 Had the invitation been widely given, as would have 
 been appropriate, they would have filed by the coffin 
 in a long procession, eager to take a last look at their 
 white-haired friend. They should have been there. 
 
 The church was well filled by those who had known 
 and loved Mr. Bullard as a neighbor, associate, and Chris- 
 tian worker. The Board of Directors of the Society with 
 which he had been so long connected was present ; the 
 Congregational Superintendents' Union was represented 
 by many of its members ; the officials of many of the 
 benevolent societies were among the audience ; Boston and 
 Cambridge and the adjoining suburban towns sent goodly 
 delegations of clergymen and prominent lay workers. 
 
220 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 Of course the church and neighborhood did not miss the 
 opportunity to show their love and respect for their 
 neighbor and friend. 
 
 The services varied from the usual form observed on 
 funeral occasions. Quite happily it was planned that, 
 instead of the customary sermon, there should be several 
 informal addresses, which should draw their inspiration 
 from Mr. Bullard's life, and which should be delivered 
 by those who, in a manner, could represent the Society 
 which he had served ; the Superintendents' Union, of 
 which he had been chaplain ; the pastors of Boston and 
 vicinity, among whom he had been a well-beloved brother, 
 and the neighborhood in which he had so long dwelt. 
 In accordance with this thought, Rev. A. E. Dunning, 
 d.d., was asked, as its Secretary, to speak for the Con- 
 gregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society ; Mr. 
 Charles W. Hill for the Congregational Superintendents' 
 Union ; Rev. A. H. Plumb, d.d., for the pastors of 
 Boston and vicinity; Rev. Alexander McKenzie, d.d., for 
 the friends and neighbors. 
 
 The following selections of Scripture were read by 
 Rev. George A. Tewksbury, of the Pilgrim Church of 
 Cambridgeport : — 
 
 I. 
 
 So Abijah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of 
 David : and Asa his son reigned in his stead. . . . 
 
 And Asa did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord 
 his God : 
 
 For he . . . commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their 
 fathers, and to do the law and the commandment. — 2 Chron. 14: 
 1-4. 
 
 Hear, O Israel : the Lord our God is one Lord : 
 
 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with 
 all thy soul, and with all thy might. 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 2 21 
 
 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine 
 heart : 
 
 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt 
 talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest 
 by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. 
 
 And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall 
 be as frontlets between thine eyes. 
 
 And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy 
 gates. — Deut. 6: 4-9. 
 
 Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy 
 stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they 
 may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words 
 of this law. — Deut. 31 : 12. 
 
 Train up a child in the way he should go : and when he is old, he will 
 not depart from it. — Prov. 22 : 6. 
 
 Children, obey your parents in the Lord : for this is right. 
 
 Honour thy father and mother ; which is the first commandment with 
 promise ; 
 
 That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the 
 earth. 
 
 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath : but bring them 
 up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. — Eph. 6: 1-4. 
 
 II. 
 
 And Asa . . . built fenced cities in Judah: for the land had rest, 
 and he had no war in those years ; because the Lord had given him rest. 
 
 Therefore he said unto Judah, Let us build these cities, and make 
 about them walls, and towers, gates and bars, while the land is yet before 
 us ; because we have sought the Lord our God, we have sought him, 
 and he hath given us rest on every side. So they built and prospered. 
 
 And Asa had an army of men that bare targets and spears, out of 
 Judah three hundred thousand ; and out of Benjamin, that bare shields 
 and drew bows, two hundred and fourscore thousand : all of these were 
 mighty men of valour. 
 
 And there came out against them Zerah the Ethiopian with an host 
 of a thousand thousand, and three hundred chariots. . . . 
 
 And Asa cried unto the Lord his God, and said, Lord, it is nothing 
 with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power : 
 help us, O Lord our God ; for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go 
 
2 22 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 against this multitude. O Lord, thou art our God ; let not man pre- 
 vail against thee. 
 
 So the Lord smote the Ethiopians before Asa, and before Judah ; and 
 the Ethiopians fled. — 2 Chron. 14: 2-12. 
 
 And when Asa heard . . . the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he 
 took courage, and put away the abominable idols out of all the land of 
 Judah and Benjamin, and out of the cities which he had taken from 
 Mount Ephraim, and renewed the altar of the Lord that was before the 
 porch of the Lord. 
 
 And he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, and the strangers with 
 them out of Ephraim and Manasseh, and out of Simeon : for they fell 
 to him out of Israel in abundance, when they saw that the Lord his God 
 was with him. — 2 Chron. 15 : 8, 9. 
 
 III. 
 
 He shall feed his flock like a shepherd : he shall gather the lambs 
 with his arm, and carry them in his bosom. — Isa. 40 : 11. 
 
 And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst 
 of them, 
 
 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and 
 become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven. 
 
 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the 
 same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth 
 me. — Matt. 18 : 2-5. 
 
 Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put 
 his hands on them, and pray : and the disciples rebuked them. 
 
 But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come 
 unto me : for of such is the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 And he laid his hands on them, and departed thence. — Matt. 19: 
 
 I3-I5- 
 
 So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of 
 Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, 
 Lord ; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Faed my 
 lambs. — John 21: 15. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal : and Caleb 
 the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite said unto him, Thou knowest the 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 223 
 
 thing that the Lord said unto Moses the man of God concerning me 
 and thee in Kadesh-barnea. 
 
 Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me 
 from Kadesh-barnea to espy out the land ; and I brought him word 
 again as it was in mine heart. 
 
 Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of 
 the people melt : but I wholly followed the Lord my God. 
 
 And Moses sware on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy 
 feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance, and thy children's for ever, 
 because thou hast wholly followed the Lord my God. 
 
 And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as he said, these 
 forty and five years, even since the Lord spake this word unto Moses, 
 while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness : and now, lo, 
 I am this day fourscore and five years old. 
 
 As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent 
 me : as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, 
 both to go out, and to come in. 
 
 Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the Lord spake in 
 that day. — Josh. 14: 6-12. 
 
 And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with 
 him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name 
 written in their foreheads. 
 
 And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and 
 as the voice of a great thunder : and I heard the voice of harpers harp- 
 ing with their harps : 
 
 And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before 
 the four living creatures, and the elders : and no man could learn that 
 song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were 
 redeemed from the earth. 
 
 . . . These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he 
 goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits 
 unto God and to the Lamb. 
 
 And in their mouth was found no guile : for they are without fault 
 before the throne of God. — Rev. 14: 1-5. 
 
 VI. 
 
 And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the one and fortieth year 
 .of his reign. 
 
224 IN MEM OR I AM. 
 
 And they buried him in his own sepulchres, which he had made for 
 himself in the city of David, and laid him in the bed which was filled 
 with sweet odours and divers kinds of spices prepared by the apotheca- 
 ries 1 art: and they made a very great burning for him. — 2 Chron. 16: 
 
 13. 14- 
 
 Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn 
 cometh in in his season. — Job 5 : 26. 
 
 The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of 
 righteousness. — Prov. 16 : 31 . 
 
 And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed 
 are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth : Yea, saith the 
 Spirit, that they may rest from their labours ; and their works do follow 
 them. — Rev. 14: 13. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. — Rev. 
 22: 21. 
 
 The following extracts from the addresses given, appro- 
 priately find place here : — 
 
 From the address of Rev. A. E. Dunning, d.d., repre- 
 senting the Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing 
 Society : — 
 
 The heathen proverb, "Whom the gods love die young," has been 
 Christianized and transfigured by our father and brother. After eighty- 
 four years he died young, and during his life had peculiar evidences 
 that he was beloved of God. To the last he enjoyed his life. His 
 thoughts were as vigorous and his step as elastic as when he was a boy, 
 and to the last his trust in God was as simple and serene and happy as 
 that of a child. 
 
 Fifty-four years ago last month he was chosen General Agent of the 
 Massachusetts Sabbath-School Society. At that time he already was 
 an experienced Sabbath-school worker. A few months before that 
 Society was organized he was ordained to the ministry of the gospel. 
 His public life has more than covered the history of the Society, and, 
 excepting for the first two years, he has been identified with it during 
 the whole time until now, and much of that time as one of its chief 
 executive officers. The Society has changed its name again and again 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 2 25 
 
 to accommodate itself to its increasing responsibilities, but his name 
 has remained associated with it from the first to the last. 
 
 During his long life the most wonderful advances in history in the 
 most wonderful country of the world have taken place, and he has been 
 associated with them in their broadest and highest relations. In the 
 interest of his Society he traversed the west when railroads had not 
 penetrated it, and when the regions beyond were still unexplored and 
 unknown. He has seen the silent prairies that he crossed teem with 
 busy life, and upon them he has beheld cities spring up peopled by 
 generations of men and women whom he has helped to teach, to 
 make brave defenders of their country, and to be faithful citizens of 
 the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 He has continually associated himself with children. Two themes 
 have been on his mind for many, many years : First, The Bible 
 and Its Study ; and how naturally do the sentences from the Holy Word,, 
 as they have been read, associate themselves with his name and life, 
 as a sweet and solemn anthem where words are set to music, filling us 
 all with a grateful sense of worship ! And next, Children and their 
 Religious Training. He talked with children continually. He founded 
 The Well-Spring, and for forty years was its editor, much of the time 
 with a regular audience of 60,000 children. He never was installed 
 over a local parish, but perhaps there is not a minister living who has 
 spoken to so many people at such impressible periods in their lives 
 as he. Think of it ! a whole generation has grown up to maturity 
 who can remember him in their childhood as the tall man with the 
 kindly countenance crowned with snow-white hair. 
 
 His love for his work did not wane with age. Four years ago, when 
 he had reached the fiftieth anniversary of his association with this 
 Society, its Board of Managers voted to relieve him of further labor, to 
 continue his salary, and to ask him to address churches and Sunday- 
 schools and other assemblies only as his strength and leisure should 
 allow. Yet he would not give up his work. It was to him what play 
 is to a boy. He loved it with all his heart. There are thousands and 
 thousands of people, all the way from ocean to ocean, who will re- 
 member him with pious enthusiasm, love, and esteem, and a multitude 
 more in that country to which he has departed, where there is no more 
 sea. I think that the boys and girls of three weeks ago listened to 
 him as eagerly as did those other boys and girls of half a century 
 since, most of whom have vanished from the earth. 
 
 Only a few weeks ago I said to him: "You ought to rest. These 
 
226 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 are cold winter days ; wait till spring/' And with a twinkle in his eye 
 he told me that every Sunday was engaged away into June. So I 
 repeat that he has transfigured the proverb, " Whom the gods love die 
 young." After such a rarely long and useful life, closed with a sickness 
 so brief that it seemed no more than the summons from the chariot in 
 waiting to bear him to his permanent home, may we not look up into 
 the skies admiringly and gratefully, and say, as children and brethren 
 of him who has been so long amongst us, " We give thee joy, our father 
 and our brother ! " 
 
 From the address of Mr. Charles W. Hill, representing 
 the Congregational Superintendents' Union : — 
 
 We are drawing near to the end of a very remarkable century, remark- 
 able in material and in spiritual things, but for nothing to be remem- 
 bered more than for the systematic study of the Bible, which has been 
 its crowning glory. In this great work our revered friend, whose name 
 we take upon our lips with loving affection, was a pioneer. Born in the 
 very dawn of the century, entering upon this great work while it was 
 .still young, he has spent the strength of his manhood in it. 
 
 Mr. Bullard was eminently fitted for the work to which he was called. 
 There was about him a gentle sprightliness which always attracts chil- 
 dren ; there was at his command a wealth of illustration which very 
 few have equaled and none surpassed. There was in him a youthful- 
 ness of spirit which never grew old ; there was a buoyant hopefulness 
 which boys and girls always love to meet. He was loved by more who 
 are and have been children than any other man of our times. 
 
 The Superintendents 1 Union, which I have the privilege to-day of 
 representing, welcomed him in its very earliest years to an honored 
 and honorary place in its membership. His words voiced our thanks 
 during all the last years of our gatherings. I do not know how at first 
 he came to be called our chaplain, but it fell naturally to him to invoke 
 a blessing upon the food of which we were about to partake, and the 
 exercise was always an uplifting one ; we were always brought nearer to 
 the great Source of all good by his words, which always came from his 
 lieart. He was to us, I might say, both father and brother. Rarely is 
 it that one combines both relations so completely and fully as did he. 
 We looked up to him with veneration for what he had done and for 
 what he was ; and he sat down beside us as a brother sits by the side 
 of brother. There was no air of superiority about him ; there was 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 227 
 
 almost the opposite. It was an inspiration to meet him. It was an 
 attraction to the Union to know that Asa Bullard would be at its 
 meeting. 
 
 There was nothing about him of the pessimism of old age. He 
 looked about with a faithful Christian's hope. We would have detained 
 him a little longer if we could, but it would have been for our own 
 sakes and to his loss. Each of us, if we might, would have been 
 to him what Elisha was to the great prophet. We would have gone 
 over Jordan with him, and walked and talked with him until the chariot 
 should have descended ; and then we should have been constrained 
 to cry out, as did the younger prophet, "My father, my father, the 
 chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof! " And we would have 
 made of him Elisha's request, that a double portion of his spirit might 
 fall upon us. We do humbly wait upon God, beseeching him that the 
 mantle of our father may fall upon us, bringing with it that double por- 
 tion of his spirit that shall send us forth to our work equipped with 
 something of his Christian, hopeful zeal. 
 
 We shall go on no three days' journey, as did the foolish sons of the 
 prophets, upon the mountains and through the valleys looking for him. 
 He is not here; he is gone up on high. Wide have opened the 
 pearly gates to admit this conquering hero. Many and many are the 
 children who have welcomed him home. Loud, I believe, have the 
 hallelujahs rung through the heavenly arches as he has made his tri- 
 umphal way. And yet he has triumphed not in himself, but in Jesus 
 Christ his Lord and Master, and at the foot of his throne he has cast 
 all of his laurels down. This beloved form which has gone in and out 
 before us, imparting an inspiration to higher, nobler, and better things, 
 we shall see no more until the sea gives up its dead. But his spirit 
 remains, his work goes on, and through this and through all coming 
 ages there shall be an accumulation of influences set in motion by him 
 which shall bless this and all lands. 
 
 From the address of Rev. A. H. Plumb, d.d., represent- 
 ing the pastors of Boston and vicinity : — 
 
 In our father Bullard was illustrated in a remarkable manner the 
 beautiful simplicity of a truly religious character. He was a perfect 
 child to the last in the utter guilelessness of his spirit. Personal 
 ambition, self-seeking, a desire to shine among men, were motives 
 unknown to him. He sought to win the hearts of children ; he sought 
 
2 28 IN MEMO RI AM. 
 
 to win souls to Christ ; he sought to unfold the riches of God's Word. 
 In this, doubtless, he was assisted largely by those for whom he labored. 
 The children did a great deal for Mr. Bullard. It is a great privilege 
 for a Christian worker to be especially associated with the young, for 
 it keeps one young. It kept him so. There was great native simpli- 
 city in his character, and being with children so much kept him always 
 guileless and childlike. Having the children before him continuously, 
 Mr. Bullard more and more assimilated to them, and in that period 
 of life when many are apt to grow bitter in their feelings and to wear 
 a sad countenance, the sunny faces of the children illuminated his own, 
 and his spirit responded. 
 
 Then, too, it gives a man directness and efficiency in speech to be 
 dealing always with children. For their attention can not be held and 
 permanent and effective impressions be made unless these qualities 
 reign in speech. Consequently, our brother, as many of us pastors 
 had occasion to see of late years, was constantly improving in the 
 directness and efficiency of his speech. There are few men who can 
 give a better address upon the Bible than he could, and largely because 
 his address was marked with these qualities. The children did a good 
 deal for him, and he did a great deal for the children. 
 
 What a magnificent thing it is to stand for over half a century, as he 
 stood, at the fountains of religious character, turning the streams at the 
 fountain head in the right way ! There are multitudes every-where who 
 remember and cherish the little things that he has said. Here is 
 a letter written years ago by him, a few lines of which I will read. 
 It was written on a Christmas morning here at Cambridgeport to 
 a family of children : — 
 
 " I remember, my dear boys, with much interest, the perfect manner 
 in which you recited the catechism to your mother, at the time of my 
 visit a few years ago. I trust you will ever find those important truths 
 you so thoroughly stored in your minds in early life a great help and 
 blessing to you. Your dear parents have this morning presented you 
 with a book far more valuable than that excellent catechism. It is the 
 sacred Book, which, through faith in Jesus Christ, made young Timo- 
 thy wise unto salvation. It is the best book in the world. You will 
 find it the most attractive book you ever possessed." 
 
 Then he gives directions very fully as to reading it, advising them to 
 read a portion at a time, quite a large portion, and then he says : " You 
 take the history of Joseph and read it, and if you can go through it 
 without the tears starting, you will do better than I can." And then 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 229 
 
 he exhorts them to make it ** the lamp to their feet and the light of 
 their path." Now, for a man to be remembered all over the country by 
 thousands of men upon whom in their youth he has thus laid his hand 
 is a very great privilege ; it is a very high service. 
 
 His life was successful, also, because it was a very long one. The 
 Duke of Wellington's life was called very successful, because he had 
 opportunities that fall to few men. God kept this man in such serenity 
 of spirit, such equable temper, and such firm religious health that the 
 years passed him lightly by, so that wherever he went of late years 
 there were strong men rising up and greeting him, and recalling the 
 time when he was speaking to them in their youth of Christ and the 
 Bible. I am called upon to speak here as one of the older ministers 
 in this region, but Mr. Bullard was making public addresses before 
 I was born. Think of the privilege of standing for so many years in 
 Christ's name ! Think of the host of his spiritual children he has met 
 in the world to which he has gone ! 
 
 I must not close without a word as to the manner in which he has 
 borne the ministerial character. We have never had to blush for this 
 man as a member of our association and as a representative minister 
 going through the country. No minister has ever felt any thing but hon- 
 ored that he belonged to a profession which this man so illustrated and 
 adorned. A man once showed me an infidel paper, in which the his- 
 tories of all the wicked things that ministers had ever done, so far as 
 they could be obtained, were displayed and detailed. They were raked 
 together from all over the country, and I suppose that there may have 
 been fifty men who were thus exposed, and perhaps more. But say there 
 were ten times fifty, five hundred, or eight hundred, what would that 
 amount to? Who can judge of ministers by that? Dr. Dorchester's 
 recent book tells us that there are 83,854 evangelical Protestant min- 
 isters in the United States. Suppose you show that fifty or a hundred 
 of them go astray, what has that to do with ministerial character? 
 That is to be determined by the unsullied lives of the great majority. 
 The great mass of ministers are noble and good men. And this man 
 has worn the ministerial character and name and reputation, and not 
 only has kept them unsullied, but has adorned them. As we think 
 of the long fellowship we have had together, and of renewing that 
 fellowship in the bright world to come, we say, Farewell for a season, 
 benignant, blessed, godly man ! 
 
23O IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 From the address of Rev. Alexander McKenzie, d.d., 
 representing neighbors and friends : — 
 
 It seems fitting that a moment should be taken at the close of these 
 services in which the neighbors and friends of our father who has 
 "fallen upon sleep" should add their word of respect and affection. 
 Yet our thoughts are so much quicken and so much better than our 
 words, that the longer we wait the more impossible it seems to say any 
 thing that shall add to the thought and feelings which are in our hearts. 
 I am sure that we who stood very near to him as his fellow-citizens in 
 this town appreciate these tributes of respect which are brought to him 
 from without, 
 
 His was a remarkably favored life, a remarkably successful life. It 
 had in it certain elements that are not altogether common, that are far 
 from universal, and which, when you find them together, will always 
 make up a life of honor and of usefulness and of happiness. He was ex- 
 tremely favored in this, that he was in the right place. Of all the callings 
 which it is possible for a man to enter, he had the one to which he was 
 precisely fitted. He had, again, this qualification for his office, that 
 he could enjoy it because he was fitted for it, and because it was a life 
 that brought him continually new life and new thought from the new, 
 fresh life which he was touching ; for if it be true that to-day is as 
 yesterday, and that which has been is that which is to be, still nothing 
 ever becomes old to one who lives with children, and life never becomes 
 monotonous to one who walks among the flowers. Every day is a 
 new day, as if there never had been a day before it, and this was 
 enough to keep his life fresh. Then the wonderful privilege of being 
 able to speak to the children, to teach them what had been taught 
 him in his childhood, what he had learned in his youth, what he 
 had gained for himself in his manhood ; to look into their bright faces ; 
 to put the impress of his fatherly hand and to breathe the breath of his 
 fatherly wisdom upon their young lives, — this wonderful privilege was 
 his. 
 
 God gave him another trait which is rare. I wish it were not so rare ; 
 the lack of it makes so many men unhappy in their last years. He had 
 the remarkable gift that he could consent to the changes of life. A 
 man who can see another take his place has learned the hardest lesson 
 of life ; has shown his fitness for his work when he can give it over into 
 the hands of others. I do not think that our dear friend always 
 approved every thing which is done in these new days. I think that 
 
IN MEM OR I AM. 23 I 
 
 there was many a sigh for the old Society, which he had known from its 
 infancy. I think he always loved that long name, which be pronounced 
 as though it were one syllable. I think that he saw with something of 
 dismay the turning away from its simple methods into the broader work 
 which opened before it. I think that he saw with delight the going 
 back to the methods of his youth — the Sunday-school, and the children 
 taking the places which they had in some measure yielded to the new 
 interests. But he consented to changes. He saw somebody else edit 
 The Well-Spring, the hardest trial of his life, I suppose. But he saw 
 it, and yet kept his hand and his heart in The Well-Spring still. He 
 saw new secretaries take up his work ; he kept his place as Secretary 
 still. He saw other men speaking for the Society here and there ; he 
 kept speaking for the Society still. You might call him Honorary 
 Secretary, or what you would, his salary might be more or less, he was 
 still true through all changes to the work of his youth, to the work of 
 his life. That marvelously strange lesson which so few of us can learn, 
 to grow old gracefully, and to bless the man that takes our place, he 
 had learned, and, as we look upon it, it is almost the proudest honor of 
 his life. 
 
 While he kept very closely to his work all his life, he had side 
 interests which were of concern to him. He was extremely fond of 
 flowers. He lived in the garden and forest. He loved the flowers and 
 he loved the trees. He followed into nature the great Teacher, who 
 was its Creator, and he considered the lily, not alone how beautiful it 
 is, but how it speaks to us of its Creator. He saw in it the Saviour's 
 care and the Saviour's love, and the perfume that was exhaled from it 
 was to him but the breath of the loving providence in which he trusted. 
 I never can forget, it comes back to me now, what I heard him say 
 once when I was a little boy : " Children," said he, " if you were going 
 to make a present of a flower to your father, you would not bring him 
 a rose full-blown and perfect, whose leaves would presently drop off, 
 but you would bring him a bud. Children, don't think that by-and-by, 
 when you are men, you will give your hearts to God, but give them in 
 the bud, and let them open before him." That was one way in which 
 he used the flowers, making his garden a parable from which he could 
 teach those divine lessons of love, which considers the lily and the 
 child who loves the lily. 
 
 There is one thing more which comes to me as characterizing him, 
 and that is the marvelous enjoyment he had of every thing. He had 
 open eyes, seeing every thing, hearing every thing. I scarcely ever met 
 
232 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 him, when he did not tell me something he had seen the day before, or 
 heard the last Sunday. When he went away it was to bring home 
 something. It was a wonderful trip he made to Europe a few years 
 ago, wonderful in its beginning through the shipwreck, and then in the 
 great convention he attended in England. Then the strange things he 
 saw, the interesting sights and great men he looked upon ; how over 
 and over again he told us about things that you and I, perhaps, might 
 never have seen. He seemed to have walked the world with his eyes 
 open to every thing, gathering up and remembering, with that genius for 
 seeing things that ought to be seen, and with that greater genius for 
 remembering what ought to be told. 
 
 When I think of him, as I have for these few last days, I have not 
 been able to think of him as gone. As he comes to my mind and I 
 try to think of him as beyond the stars somewhere, it always comes to 
 me in this way : I suppose we think of different people in heaven in 
 different relations, and think of them in different occupations. It 
 seems to me that Asa Bullard in heaven is seeing a great many new 
 things. Think how eager he is ! He has seen the amethyst and 
 chrysoprase and sardonyx that are in the jeweled walls. He has seen 
 the golden streets ; he knows how wide they are. He has heard the 
 harpers; he has listened to the angels. If it be possible, he has seen 
 Saint Paul ; he has seen Saint John ; he has looked up into that radiant 
 face which comes to us as the highest revelation of all imagined glory, 
 for we shall be like Him when we see him, because we shall see him as 
 he is. I like to think of this. My dear friend, I love to think how 
 you are enjoying heaven ! 
 
 I wish that he could come back some Sunday afternoon and say : 
 " Children, I want to tell you how those walls look ; I want to tell you 
 about the harps ; and I want to tell you about the dear Lord ! " I do 
 not know what change has come to him. He was the first man who 
 told me that when we die we do not become angels. I was brought 
 up to believe that every body who was good became an angel. He 
 said : " No, children, no, we do not become angels ; we are nothing but 
 men and women after we are gone.' 1 I think of him as being a man 
 still; I do not know what changes may come, but I hope they will 
 not change Asa Bullard very much. I want to see that tall form and 
 that kindly face. I think, if it were left to me, I should not change it 
 at all ; a little of the weariness might be taken off, perhaps, yet it was 
 that weariness that gave the glory to his spirit and life. I hope his 
 hair will be white there. I want to see the twinkle of his eyes. It 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 233 
 
 seems to me that when I see him, — I picture myself going towards 
 him, and he is waiting while I am talking with Saint Paul for a 
 moment, waiting quietly, and as soon as I turn he says : « ; Come with 
 me, and I will show you the Bride, the Lamb's wife." Then he will 
 show me the pure river of water of life proceeding out of the throne 
 of God, and the glory which is forever in that city, where they never 
 shut the gates, where the sun never goes down, where there is no night, 
 and where there is no sorrow forever and forever. O my dear friend, 
 how you are enjoying heaven ! God bless you in that glory ! Thou 
 art worthy ; thou art worthy of the light of eternal day, for thou wast a 
 disciple of Him who said, " Because I live, ye shall live also." 
 
 The services were closed with a touching prayer by the 
 pastor, and then the remains were taken to Mount Auburn 
 for interment. 
 
 To those who know the facts concerning Mr. Bullard 
 and his life-work, it is manifest that he has very inade- 
 quately represented them in his autobiography. He has 
 not written down that which was the most valuable and 
 for which he is the most honored. It is doubtful whether 
 he himself sufficiently realized what they were so that he 
 could have done so. It is difficult for any one to look at 
 himself and his acts in such a way as to get things in 
 right perspectives. But even if he rightly estimated his 
 relations to the work in which he was engaged, his deep 
 humility of character would have prevented him from put- 
 ting that estimate before others. Whenever he approached 
 any thing like a summary of what he had accomplished, 
 his pen sensitively was guided away from characterizing 
 it in any* way. The reports of some men are larger than 
 their deeds, but he was one who did more than he ever 
 told. He has left it to others to say what value shall be 
 placed upon his work. 
 
 Already others are appraising his labors at their true 
 
234 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 worth, and are rating them far higher than his own 
 modesty ever would have dreamed of placing them, While 
 he still was wavering between life and death, the Boston 
 Congregational Superintendents' Union passed the follow- 
 ing minute : — 
 
 " Voted, That an effort be made throughout the country to raise 
 a Trust Fund of One Hundred Thousand Dollars, to be known as the 
 Asa Bullard Memorial Fund, the income of which shall be used in 
 the missionary work of the Congregational Sunday-School and Publish- 
 ing Society." 
 
 It was thought that the communication to him of this 
 proposed effort would help Mr. Bullard to get well, or at 
 least to cheer his last hours. But he was beyond the 
 reception of any messages, no matter how full of affection 
 they might be. He died without knowing what was 
 intended by the Union. 
 
 A committee of seven was appointed to carry out the 
 purpose expressed in the resolution. Of that committee 
 Mr. C. W. Carter is chairman, Mr. F. P. Shumway, Jr., is 
 secretary, and Mr. W. H. Emerson, 40 Central Street, 
 Boston, is treasurer. 
 
 It is not the design of the Union that the raising of 
 this fund shall in any way interfere with the contributions 
 now coming into the Society, upon which it is depending 
 for the means necessary to carry on its missionary work. 
 Its members, indeed, earnestly deprecate any diversion of 
 those contributions to this object, for that would for the 
 present, at least, cripple the Society which they, in honor- 
 ing its departed servant, seek to help. They seek to make 
 the subscriptions to the fund individual rather than 
 to have them given collectively by Sunday-schools and 
 churches. 
 
 The committee is already vigorously at work. Circulars 
 
IN MEM0R1AM. 
 
 235 
 
 have been issued, and certificates of subscription have 
 been prepared. An engraved receipt is to be given to 
 every one contributing the sum of twenty-five cents, while 
 a card certificate bearing the autograph and an excellent 
 likeness of Mr. Bullard engraved from a recent photo- 
 graph will be sent to all of those who contribute one dollar 
 or more. It is expected that some will contribute as high 
 as a thousand dollars or even more. There will be many 
 whose warm affection will not allow themselves to be 
 limited to a small amount. Before the arrangements are 
 complete, the responses are beginning to come in. The 
 prospects for success seem hopeful. At a memorial meet- 
 ing of the Boston Superintendents' Union, eighteen hun- 
 dred dollars was subscribed by the members present toward 
 the fund. The children of fifty years ago, the children of 
 twenty-five years since, and the children of to-day will 
 raise the memorial. 
 
 And such a memorial will better fit the saint for whom 
 it is intended than a stately monument in Mount Auburn. 
 His work meant every thing to him, and by this memorial 
 the work will go on. It will be as if the folded hands 
 should again resume their labors, and his presence for 
 ages be felt in the homes that are yet to be. By this, he, 
 being dead, will yet speak, and speak most effectively, to 
 the oncoming generations of children. In this way shall 
 his last prayer be most fully answered : " God bless us 
 all ! "