The Days that are Past. 347 



In youth and inexperience, I be^un my early 

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

 probability, terminate. I came among you with a 

 constitution unacclimated, and remained with you 

 through seasons when the pestilence w^as 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 you. 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 agani ; 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- 



