ter informing him that an official communication had been received from the Turkish Government, giving full permission to proceed with the erection of the college! Why the order was now issued, or why it was so long delayed, it was impossible to surmise. In a few days the imperial Irade, or supreme volition, an irrevocable permit, was in solemn form communicated. The work was again begun, pushed on with intense vigor to a grand completion: and the noble college now stands resplendent on the heights, the brightest lighthouse in all the waters of the Levant. Its doors were opened. The seventy students became two hundred; and the institution was recognized as a power and a benediction.

One day a Turkish gentleman, of elegant manners and distinguished bearing, called at the college and requested permission to survey its appointments and work. Dr. Hamlin conducted him into all the apartments and departments. He heard the exercises of the classes. He was full of admiration. Dr. Hamlin led him to the tower, from which he looked out on one of the most glorious panoramas of land and water the human eye will ever look on. The gentleman, in his enthusiasm extolling the magnificence of the view, exclaimed:

"We would never have permitted this college to be erected had it not been for that insurrection in Crete."

Dr. Hamlin now perceived that his guest was an officer of the government, and at once asked:

"And why not? What had that to do with it?"

"Oh, we understood it. The Greeks wanted that Admiral Farragoot to help them, and when he was here he asked every one of the pashas with whom he dined what objections they had to the college being built. We saw what he was at— that your government was holding this college question over us; and it was better to have a hundred colleges built than to have one American monitor here; so we smoothed the matter all over by just issuing the permission. That is the way you got it."

Dr. Hamlin saw, as every believer in divine Providence must see, the hand of God in this matter. The British and

the American governments had interposed in vain. Admiral Farragut, on a voyage of pleasure, is prompted to ask a simple question that rouses the apprehensions of the Mahometan oppressor. His sleep flies from him. Visions of

American monitors in the Golden Horn disturb his dreams. He takes counsel of his chief men, and they advise him to restore to that Christian missionary what belongs to him and let him do as he will with his own. Thus he was without any human intervention or pressure or constraint impelled to do justly lest some great evil should come upon his kingdom. Admiral Farragut was the unconscious instrument in the accomplishment of a work which through seven long years had baffled the wisdom of the two greatest powers of the earth. And the Admiral had done it without knowing it. The story reads like a chapter out of the chronicles of the Old Testament, and nothing more evidently providential is recorded in the history of Nineveh or Babylon.

THE BURIAL OF DR. ROGERS.

IN forty years and more of life in New York City, I have never seen so many clergymen assembled at the funeral of one of their number as were present Thursday (October 27, 1881), at the services in memory of the late Ebenezer Platt Rogers, D.D. They were held in the South Reformed Church, of which he was, through eighteen happy years, the honored and beloved pastor.

An hour before the public services his brethren of the clergy met in the chapel. The assembly was very remarkable for numbers and character, all the evangelical denominations being largely represented by many of the most distinguished ministers. The Rev. Dr. Hitchcock, President of the Theological Seminary, was called to the chair, and the Rev. Dr. Armitage led in a tender and appropriate prayer. When a committee had been appointed to embody the sentiment of

the brethren in resolutions of respect and affection, they went on to speak freely of him, one after another, in terms of admiration and love. It was not surprising that all loved him, but it was strange to hear that all loved him so much. And their memories of him were the pleasantest. His warm, genial nature, his welcome to those who sought him in his home and in his study, his readiness to deny himself to do a favor, his deep personal piety impressing every one with a sense of his nearness to God, and longing for the souls of men-these features of his character were dwelt upon by several speakers with fondness. Others delighted to recur to his playful humor, his flashing wit, so bright and yet always so kind, never wounding, always pleasing, making him the life of every social circle, the light and joy of every house which enjoyed his presence.

At this point one of the ministers produced a letter received that day from a distant friend, relating an incident in the city life of Dr. Rogers which was recognized as exceedingly characteristic.

66

'Through a delightful social intercourse of many years, I have had occasion again and again to mark his generous nature, as well as his genial soul. With a sparkling wit, accompanied always with the most benevolent purpose, and a desire both to amuse and instruct, his conversation de

lighted every circle in which he moved. One day he had an amusing interview with a friend whom he met in one of the public conveyances of the city. Dr. R. said to him:

"My friend, I am glad to meet you; I want to ask you to give three hundred dollars to an object in which I am much interested, and in which I hope you will be.'

'The Doctor then stated to his friend the object for which he was soliciting contributions. After first a refusal, and then a reconsideration of the sudden appeal, the gentleman replied:

“Dr. Rogers, I will give you the sum you ask on one condition, that you will allow me to put upon your tombstone this inscription: "And it came to pass that the beggar died."

"The Doctor, with his characteristic quickness in repartee, said at once: Certainly I will, if you will add the remainder of the verse, "and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom."

The speakers went back to their recollections of him when he was a boy at the village school, and freely said that many of the fine and beautiful traits of character that adorned his ministerial walk and conversation were visible in the days of his early youth. One venerable man said, "I have been in the ministry near him in every place but one in which he has been settled, and he has everywhere and always been the same delightful, charming friend, the same devout man of God, winning all hearts to himself and leading souls to Christ." The words love, lovely, loving, were more frequently than any others on the lips of the speakers. No other words seemed to meet the heart-wants of those who were trying to express their feelings now that he was gone.

There was no time to pursue these remarks, which followed one another in rapid succession, for the hour had come when we must take up the precious body of our brother and bear it into the house of God where the great congregation were waiting. Devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and a more goodly company than ours seldom, if ever, attended a saint on his way to the grave. The elders of his church, who had stood by him so long and so lovingly, and his people and friends from other churches, and men of business, senators and secretaries, learned and eloquent professors and presidents, pastors and authors of wide fame, and men of business and wealth, and the poor whom he had befriended, joined in the procession as we walked with the remains of our friend and laid them reverently in front of the pulpit which had been the throne and seat of his power. The house was heavily draped with the symbols of mourning, but there was no need of them, for sorrow sat on every face and pressed on every heart. We listened to the triumphant words of Paul, and rejoiced in the hope of that day when this mortal shall put on immortality. We sang hymns that the dead while yet living had been fond of

singing; for to all his other gifts he added yet this alsothat he could lead the songs of the saints in the sanctuary, and often did, to the praise of Christ and the joy of his people. Then we prayed for the stricken household and the smitten church, and tried to put our hands into those of Him whom we call our elder brother, one born for adversity, and who wept with them who mourned a brother dead.

The three addresses which were made were full of precious memories of the departed, warm eulogies that must have seemed extravagant to those (if any such were in the house) who did not know him of whom they were spoken. But when Dr. Taylor and Dr. Chambers declared there was no pastor in the city more nearly perfect as a model of all that is to be desired in a pastor, they were free to challenge denial and to assert it in the hearing of that great throng of men who held the same high office. I thought it the finest eulogy by one pastor of another when Dr. Chambers said: "I have often thought, if I were a layman coming into the city with a family of children, Dr. Rogers would be my choice for a pastor before all others." And when we had laid these honest words upon his memory, and shed warmer tears, the great assembly came forward and looked in sadness and silence upon the face of the dead. What a procession of mourners! It was a long procession of friends sorrowing that they should see his placid face no more.

Next morning we went with the remains to Fairfield, Conn., and laid him by the side of his parents in the rural cemetery there. His father was an old resident of New York. His mother was a daughter of Ebenezer Platt, of Huntington, Long Island. They lived in this city until the year 1830, when they removed with their five children to Fairfield; and there they were buried. It was a cool, cloudy October day when we went out of town into the country to find a grave for our friend. Autumn leaves were falling all about us. "The melancholy days, the saddest of the year,” have come. But beyond the autumn and the winter, beyond the coldness and the darkness of the tomb, the light of a brighter morn than this was breaking on our weeping eyes. And I heard