Agnew.l -^^O [Feb. 6, 



time we find him acting as assistant to his uncle, Judge Foote, in the office 

 of Surrogate. It was no doubt while discharging the duties of this posi- 

 tion that Dr. Beadle acquired his characteristic, clear, bold, running style 

 of penmanship. In the position of the letters one might readily divine the 

 character of the man ; each one inclining strongly forwards in close 

 pursuit of its predecessor, and all pressing onwards like a racer in the 

 home-stretch towards the desired goal. It was while engaged with his 

 uncle, and at the early age of seventeen, that conviction of duty led him 

 to make a public profession of religion. The manly decision of the son, 

 decided a similar course on the part of the mother whom he tenderly 

 cherished, and both, at the same lime, connected themselves with the 

 Presbyterian Church of their native town. 



How often do we attribute to chance or accident what is really the 

 orderly prearranged plan of a divine force. Here is a young man, richly 

 endowed by God with all the natural gifts of a great preacher, but he is 

 poor, and without the influence of powerful friends, through whose assist- 

 ance the cultivation and training of these native capacities might be ren- 

 dered 'possible. But mark ! how human extremity is linked with divine^ 

 opportunity. A stranger, while attending Court at Cooperstown, leaves 

 his lodgings on a pleasant evening for an aimless stroll. He passes the 

 lecture-room of a church in which a prayer meeting is being held. He is 

 induced to enter. A youth of seventeen is praying. Earnest, tender, im- 

 portunate, he is pressing his suit with a grace of diction, and an affluence 

 of Scripture thought far bej'pnd his years. The surprise and interest of 

 the stranger increase ; he remains until the meeting is dismissed, and then 

 seeks an introduction to the youthful speaker. That youth was Beadle, 

 and the stranger. Judge Allan Stewart, who, fascinated by the extraordi- 

 nary gifts of the young man, at once tenders the means for a theological 

 education. Scarcely had the student entered upon his labors, when he 

 was overtaken by a sudden and dangerous illness, and from which he only 

 recovered after a tedious and prolonged convalescence. After regaining 

 his health, young Beadle removed to Albany in order to continue his 

 theological studies under the instruction of the Rev. E. W. Kirk, who, at 

 that time, was pastor of the South Presbyterian Church, and a man of con- 

 siderable distinction, both as a scholar and as a preacher. During the two 

 years in which he remained in Albany, Mr. Beadle was obliged to contend 

 with the discouragements of feeble health, the confinement from close 

 application to study telling severely on a constitution naturally delicate. 

 At twenty years of age he removed to Utica, New York, and believing 

 that an active outdoor life would conduce to the improvement of his 

 general health, he accepted an agency in the interest of the American 

 Sunday School Union, the territory of the itinerancy extending over seven- 

 teen counties of Central New York. Brought from the nature of this 

 work into contact with the multiform sides of human character, it was 

 doubtless now that Dr. Beadle acquired, in some measure at least, that 

 marvelous adaptability to place and circumstance, and that deep insight 



