The Days that are Past 347 



In youth and inexperience, I begun my early 

 labors in the South, and here they will, in all human 

 probability, terminate. I came among you with a 

 constitution unaccli mated, and remained with you 

 through seasons when the pestilence was making 

 fearful devastation among our people, especially 

 among the poor strangers that were within our gates. 

 In my performance of duty to them during these 

 seasons of suffering, of sorrow, and of death, you 

 will, I am convinced, exempt me- from the charge 

 of unfaithfulness. 



I have been so fully identified with my people, 

 that my mind recognizes no other home but this ; 

 for the home of my youth has become to me the 

 house of the stranger. 



I have spent with yo"u, a long life of anxious labor 

 and of pleasant duty. My people, now to the fourth 

 generation, have ever lived with me in peace and 

 love ; they have confided in me as a friend, a Pastor, 

 and a father and so may it be until this connec- 

 tion is severed by the hand of death and not even 

 then severed forever. There is a chain which 

 reaches from earth to heaven, and is fastened to the 

 throne of God. Our holy religion gives to the 

 Christian heart assurances of recognition, of re- 

 union, of immortality, and of bliss at God's right hand 

 forever, where all we have lost on earth, will be re- 

 stored to us again ; where the mind will be enlarged, 

 the heart purified, and our capacity for enjoyment 

 adapted to the angelic state. * 



The sermon closed with an earnest appeal to his 

 beloved flock. 



could my voice only penetrate the hearts of all 

 my hearers could they be induced with prayer 

 and labor to aid me in all the benevolent institu- 



