188 A HALF CENTURY. 



son. Tliis hero, to my childish mind, was Hubert North, who, with 

 his gentle, high-born courtesy, which never forgot even a child, won a 

 love and remembrance as fresh to-day as it was forty years ago. 



"There is a parable in these things, though I may not dwell upon 

 it here. About the time my connection with the ' old South ' ceased, 

 the new day began to dawn — the child's day, I may call it — and 

 Sunday-school reform came in ; songs and lessons adapted to infant 

 needs, books that would attract the immature mind. We were no 

 longer expected to enjoy Alleine's Alarm or d'Aubigne's History of the 

 Reformation, or memoirs of suffering missionaries. The forcing of 

 old ideas upon young minds wasiseen to be valueless, if not pernicious. 

 The child's nature was consulted in his education ; a new era had 

 begun. But I must not reminisce further or you will find out that I 

 have passed my own half-century mile-stone, and become garrulous 

 and prosy. 



" I wish the good old church (born the same year as myself) God 

 speed, and may the richest blessings, spiritual and temporal, rest ever 

 upon her." 



In somewhat the same strain Mrs. Abbie Peck Lee, now of 

 Denver, Colorado, writes: 



"The early, and some of the sweetest recollections of my life, are 

 associated with this church in the first period of its history, when the 

 days and years were much longer to me than now. I was for a time a 

 member of the choir and took great delight in the service. I well re- 

 member my place in the Sabbath-school, when it was held in the damp 

 and cheerless basement of the old frame building where worship was 

 conducted; also the kind teachers, w^ho strove so patiently to guide my 

 wandering thoughts to what seemed the mysterious teachings of the 

 Bible. 



"lean think of so many who were then active members of the 

 church, for whom I had a reverent regard, who have been long on the 

 other side. One, the dear pastor (Rev. Samuel Rockwell), under 

 whose teachings I was led with many others to take upon myself the 

 vows of church membership, having perhaps feeble ideas of what 

 I was doing, though I am convinced that it was the threshold of an 

 experience which has been growing ever since. I love to think of 

 those days, and the dear faces I was accustomed to see every Sabbath, 

 when it seemed as if everything was always to be the same. 



"How I should love to be with you. But a distance of two thou- 

 sand miles is too great an obstacle to be overcome. " 



