222 



AMERICAN JOURNEY. 



[Chap. V. 



thought that those only should hold the office of a minister 

 who believed in its recognized functions ; and that I was not 

 fitted to t build up a congregation/ being destitute of that kind 

 of faith. I do not regard it as wrong for a man, at the request 

 of the congregation, to utter such and such things, Sunday 

 after Sunday ; else I would at once resign my office. Still, if 

 I am again to be elevated every Sunday morning into a narrow 

 pulpit, to go through a set form of uttering my own prayers 

 aloud, and preaching to people shut up in square pews in an 

 atmosphere whose physical emanations from the dead below 

 always appeared to me typical of the effect of the system on 

 the living worshippers, I wish to be fully assured that to do so 

 is my real duty. I fear that if I were to follow my own 

 inclinations, it would be to seek a new sphere of labour on 

 this continent, where the principles I have so long taught 

 among you are less understood, and where I should be freed 

 from constant collision with those who think I ought long 

 since to have resigned a position for which I confessed myself 

 unfitted. [He reminds them that the experience of the past 

 year removes the plea that they could not do without him j 

 and while thanking them for their affection and confidence, 

 and recognizing ties which were not lightly to be put aside, he 

 concludes] : — But it is true that ' one soweth and another 

 reapeth : ' and it may be that now is the time for the sower to 

 go elsewhere, and for another, as reaper, to come in. Who- 

 ever be the instrument, it is the Lord alone who can work in 

 our hearts ; and to His grace and love, and the truth that is 

 in Christ Jesus, I commend you all. Your faithful and 

 affectionate servant," etc. This letter did not deter his friends 

 from desiring his return to them ; and on hearing from them, 

 he wrote, October 22, that he did not feel at liberty to 

 hesitate any longer in again placing his services at their dis- 

 posal, after completing the work at Washington, for which they 

 were ready to spare him. 



Before receiving their reply, he had resolved to pay another 

 visit to Canada, partly with a view of learning where there 

 would be the best opening for him in case he settled there. 



