Ecclesiastical History. 29 



he would bring down his fist upon the desk, with the exclamation, 

 " This is the gospel ! " First, total depravity was depicted, with 

 the emphatic endorsement, iC This is the gospel ! " Then election 

 and reprobation, then irresistible grace, then effectual calling, and 

 so on to the end ; and under each a tremendous sledge blow on 

 the pulpit, with " This is the gospel ! ' : After service the minis- 

 ters met, and each in turn was asked by the moderator to give 

 his views of the sermon. Dr. Gay had a sly, genial humor, 

 which diffused good-nature through the clerical body he belonged 

 to, and kept out of it the theological odium. His turn came to 

 criticise the sermon, and he delivered himself in this way : — 



"The sermon reminded me of the earliest efforts at painting. 

 When the art was in its infancy, and the first rude drawings were 

 made, they wrote the name of an animal under the figure which 

 was drawn, so that the people could be sure to identify it. Under 

 one rude figure you would see written, ' This is a horse ; ' under 

 another, ' This is an ox ; ' and so on. When the art is perfected 

 a little, this becomes unnecessary, and the animal is recognized 

 without the underscript, I am greatly obliged to my brother 

 Dunbar, in this infancy of the art, that he helped me in this way 

 to identify the gospel. As I followed him through the five fig- 

 ures which he sketched for us, I must confess that unless he had 

 written under each one of them, in large letters, ' This is the gos- 

 pel ! ' I never should have known it." 



The following is from an article in the Massachusetts Gazette, 

 shortly after his decease : — 



" His prudent and obliging conduct rendered him amiable and beloved 

 as a neighbour. His tender feelings for the distressed induced him to 

 afford relief to the poor, according to his ability. His beneficent actions 

 indicated the practical sense he had of the Lord's own words, ' It is more 

 blessed to give than to receive.' The serenity of his mind and even- 

 ness of his temper, under the infirmities of advanced years, made him 

 agreeable to his friends, and continued to the last the happiness which 

 had so long subsisted in his family; in which he always presided with 

 great tenderness and dignity." 



Dr. Gay retained his mental faculties in a remarkable degree 

 of vis;or to the very close of his life. In his celebrated sermon, 

 entitled " The Old Man's Calendar," delivered Aug. 26, 1781, 

 from the text, " And now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five 

 years old" (Joshua xiv. 10), in speaking of his parishioners he 

 says, " I retain a grateful sense of the kindness (injuries I re- 

 member none) which I have received from them." This ser- 

 mon was reprinted in England, translated into the Dutch language 

 and published in Holland, and several editions were published 

 in this country. 



In a note attached to Rev. Peter Hobart's Diary, written by 

 Nehemiah Hobart, we read : — 



