old memories long thought dead, but now fresh as yesterday as we passed the places that gave them birth.

I met many gentlemen in the midst of business, and some who are now old men, who were the companions of my youth, now the pillars of the congregation, men and women who knew and honored my father as the pastor of their childhood: their fathers and mothers are all dead and gone, but I lived among them as friends of my early days. At a little teaparty in the evening we met the Rev. Mr. Teller, the recently settled pastor, and his young wife, with both of whom we were greatly pleased, and we came away assured that the good people of the new White Meeting-house have a man eminently fitted to be a rich blessing to that important and most interesting congregation. "For them our prayers ascend." Very full of interest was this visit, and yet it is true that none can enter into its secret who have not known what it is to revisit the scenes of one's childhood after a lapse of many, many years.

DR. GRIFFIN'S COLLEGE BOYS.

A VERY few weeks after entering Williams College, I was invited by the President, Rev. Dr. Griffin, to come to his study at eight o'clock in the evening. Conscious of no specific wrong-doing, and scarcely known to him individually, I was at a loss to know why I had been asked to what seemed a private interview. But when the time came to put in an appearance, one and another of the students joined me, having had similar summons. As we reached the door, the company was increased to about a round dozen, and we entered with a feeling of apprehension, if not of positive fear.

The President was the most majestic man I ever saw, and he then appeared more majestic than he would now. He received us with great kindness of manner, but with dignity

that filled us with veneration and awe. He was more than six feet high, and of such proportions as to make him a giant among men. There is no man in the American pulpit of this day of his commanding presence, of whom I have knowledge. His pulpit eloquence was then so remarkable that he was called the Prince of Preachers. His stature was so great, his walk so like that of a military commander,— proud of his position and anxious to appear great,—that we who were very young felt the mighty distance between us and him. With this sense of his greatness and our littleness, we entered his study. A bright wood-fire burned on the brass andirons. His study-lamp was too much for his eyes, which were protected with a green shade. This he removed as he turned toward us, seated in a half-circle around the room. As he wheeled about in his chair, he sat in the midst of us, as a father surrounded by his children. And then he spoke. With exceeding tenderness in his tones, and words of loving-kindness on his lips, he said he had invited us, out of all the students who had recently entered college, because our parents were his personal friends. As many of us had not recovered from the first attack of homesickness, this allusion to the old folks at home took us where we were tender. In an instant he had not our ear only, but our hearts. He then went on to say that all our parents were praying for us, and anxious lest in the new life we had begun we should be led away from the lessons and the loves of our childhood, and be tempted into evil ways. He set before us in eloquent and impressive words the importance of seeking earnestly the Lord, giving our hearts and lives to him now at the very outset of our college career; the danger of delay; and then he unfolded with great clearness the way of life by Jesus Christ. He conversed with each one of the twelve in the hearing of the rest, inquiring minutely into our plans and purposes with reference to religious duties, and gave such instruction as each case required. Then he prayed with us,-fervid, importunate, mighty with God; wrestling as Jacob with the angel; and so full of love and pity, himself in tears, and moving us to tears in sympathy,

as he prayed for those we loved at home, and for us who felt as orphans or as exiles,-who were now finding a father and friend. Then he told us to come to him at any hour of the day or night with whatever trouble or care we had, and his door and heart would be always open for us to enter.

That was the beginning of what in those days was called a revival of religion. Not one of the dozen boys (men they are called now-college men) had a serious thought about "getting religion" when we went to the President's study. But we all came away under the deep conviction that the one thing needful for us was to have religion. And of that number several were hopefully converted during the winter, and a general seriousness pervaded the college. The most of those who professed to be saved at that time were the children of pious parents. They had been well taught at home, and now parental prayers were answered, the seed planted in much tearfulness springing up to eternal life.

At that time there were in college several very wild young men, whose parents, as a forlorn hope, sent them there that they might be brought under the power of religion. They were not touched by the Spirit. They scoffed at those who were serious. They blasphemed openly, and many other dear youth were seduced by them into sin and shame. These profligates went on from bad to worse, became hardened in iniquity, and tenfold more the children of the devil than they were before. As if God had said of them: "Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone." And all of them went to the bad. On that set of dissipated, profane and rowdy fellows, the discipline, instruction and influence of college life were powerless for good. them died early. Some lived to bring their parents with sorrow to the grave, and then perished.

Most of

A college in which religion is a living force is a good place for Christian parents to send their children. The temptations to evil are not greater than they are in any city or village, nor in most rural parishes. The restraints are greater. The hourly influences of good are strong. Prayer at home is a power in the college. The sweet associations of the family

circle and altar are not lost from memory in the midst of study or play. The probabilities are all in favor of a young man who goes to college with good principles. He will probably come out with firmer convictions of truth and duty, perhaps with new purposes and holier aims.

But it must be a college where evangelical religion is the supreme power. The spirit of unbelief, the scepticism of infidelity, I mean just that, the scepticism of infidelity: the religion of doubt—that agnosticism or know-nothingism now prevailing in circles where philosophy asserts itself against revelation,-is dangerous to the everlasting souls of young men. The atmosphere of such a college is foul. No system of ventilation will improve it. Send a son to the swamps to cure him of malarial fever; to jail to mend his morals; to the desert of Arabia to grow corn, before you send him to such a college to learn to do well. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And those colleges which ignore the gospel as the power and wisdom of God, are not the places where the sons of godly parents should go for knowledge of the Truth.

RETURNING AFTER FIFTY YEARS.

THE first Chief Justice of the United States was John Jay, of Bedford, Westchester County, N. Y. He was a large landed proprietor there, and on a height commanding one of the finest inland views in the country he built a spacious mansion, in which he died in 1829. He has a reputation as a patriot and statesman of the Revolution second only to that of Washington. His son William Jay, a distinguished Christian, philanthropist and jurist, succeeded his illustrious father in the enjoyment of this magnificent estate. I frequently met him in Bible and other meetings when I was a young man. He died in this ancestral house in 1858, and was succeeded by our honored fellow-citizen, John Jay,

recently Minister to Austria, and now President of the United States Evangelical Alliance.

In the year 1833, and in the month of October, I was licensed to preach the gospel, and was invited by the Rev. Jacob Green, pastor of the Bedford Church, to preach in his pulpit on the Sabbath following my licensure. This is one of the oldest Presbyterian churches in America. Two years ago we celebrated the two hundrcth anniversary of its birth. At that time it was arranged that I would come there on the completion of my fiftieth year in the ministry, and recount' the experiences of the half-century. It came around this month, and on Saturday afternoon I went up there. It is only about thirty miles from the city. Mr. John Jay met me at the station, and after a drive of three miles we entered the park, and through wooded lawns and wide and beautiful fields we reached the old mansion. Mr. Jay had kindly invited the ministers of the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches and their wives, and several other gentlemen and ladies, to meet there at dinner, and a delightful evening was passed, rendered perhaps the more enjoyable by the storm that was raging without. Everything in this venerable house is in the elegant style of the olden time, some of the furniture being presented to the first Chief Justice from the halls of the Continental Congress.

Sunday morning broke upon us with the light of a brilliant October Sabbath sun: as if heaven had come down to earth. As we drove through the maple-groves on our way to church the trees seemed clothed with golden leaves, and the ground covered with cloth of gold. The sadness of fall was chased away by the bright shining after the rain, and the holy Sabbath was "the bridal of the earth and sky."

As

The church in which I preached my first sermon had been removed, and a more spacious and beautiful house erected and freely given to the congregation by Francis A. Palmer, Esq., President of the Broadway Bank, New York. we approached it the people were coming in wagons, carriages, buggies and on foot from all directions. The house was filled with friends who had come from this and the sur