sedateness detracted from his effectiveness as a pleader at the bar.

During his Congressional term he formed the acquaintance of Anne B., daughter of Captain John McKnight, of Alexandria, Virginia, and they were married at Washington, D. C., June 23d, 1840. The offspring of this union were the following: Joseph, who studied law, and for several years successfully practiced in our courts, occupying the office late of his father, but who is now recently removed and engaged in his profession at St. Louis, Missouri; John, whose melancholy death is recorded below; James, Lieutenant in Thirteenth Infantry, now stationed at Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Thomas, a machinist, residing at Merillan, Wisconsin; Elizabeth, intermarried with Edward Price Jones, son of Davis Jones, Esq., of Lower Merion, Pennsylvania; Catharine, intermarried with Frank H. Edmunds, Lieutenant of First Infantry, U. S. A., and son of Newton Edmunds, Esq., ex-Governor of Dakota Territory. Lieutenant Edmunds is now stationed at Fort Sully, Dakota. Mary resides with her widowed mother in Norristown, in the same mansion where the husband and father died.

All the children of the family just enumerated are living except the second, John, who graduated with high honors in 1861 at the Philadelphia Polytechnic College as a civil engineer. He chose, however, mechanical engineering in the navy the latter part of that year, and was for three years in service in the blockading squadron in the Gulf of Mexico. The remainder of the war he served on the Atlantic coast. He was in a number of skirmishes, and in the attack on Fort Fisher in January, 1865. In 1867 he was ordered to the United States steamer Oneida, one of the Asiatic fleet which represented our country at the opening of the ports of Japan to the commerce of the world. After a cruise of three years the Oneida was ordered home, and left Yokohama at noon on January 24th, 1871, and six hours later, while still in the Bay of Yokohama, was run into by the large British iron steamship Bombay, and so badly crushed that she began to fill rapidly, sinking within ten minutes, and carrying down with her one hundred and twelve officers and men, who perished almost in a moment. This terri

ble event produced a shocking sensation all over the country, but caused a still more melancholy sympathy in our community, who knew of the gallant services of young John Fornance through the war and the flattering promise of his future. He was a young man of high moral character. Through the entire war he was distinguished for courage and devotion to duty. When last seen by the few who survived the disaster, he was, like Casabianca, at his post of duty in the engine room. He was born October 18th, 1844, and perished January 24th, 1871, aged 26 years, 3 months, and 6 days.

In person Hon. Joseph Fornance was tall and well formed, over six feet in height, with dark, ruddy complexion, dark hair and eyes, and rather handsome features overspread with an expression of habitual gravity and dignity.

REV. ROBERT STEEL, D. D.

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.Timothy II, 7.

Perhaps there has been no Presbyterian minister in Pennsylvania, not attaining extraordinary fame as a great preacher, who has been so justly distinguished for all the qualities that make up an under-shepherd as Rev. Dr. Steel. In view of the results of a continuous ministry to one people of just fortythree years, we would characterize the man by three wordskindliness, gentleness, and fidelity to divine truth. His heart was in his calling from the first; so years only added to his fervor and usefulness. This was doubtless the main source of the "imperdible toughness" of the cords that bound him and his congregation together. But we must trace his life in narrative form.

Robert Steel was born January 9th, 1794, near Londonderry, Ireland, and while a small boy came to the United States in charge of an elder brother. Having well grown, doubtless as most emigrant boys, with some experience in earning his own

living, and only such chances of early education as common schools of that period afforded, he then entered the celebrated academy of Gray and Wiley, and was prepared for Princeton College, where in due time he graduated. Having finished his college course, without delay he entered the Theological Seminary of New York, which was famous for being presided over at that time by the celebrated Dr. Mason. Finishing his studies there, and having received a call from Abington Presbyterian Church, he was ordained and installed by the Philadelphia Presbytery on November 9th, 1819. This covenant, as the elder theologians called it, was never broken-perhaps no more in thought than in deed. That inkling for the high places in the church, so characteristic of some ministers, never seems to have seized the humble, godly man we are describing; nor did his congregation, that had laid the bones of three previous life-long pastors to sleep in their cemetery, ever become afflicted with "itching ears," as is so common in our days. So the quiet, simple work of preaching the gospel went on from year to year, the good man teaching the living, burying the dead, and nursing as a father the children of the flock and “dedicating them to the Lord in baptism," according to the teachings of his church. Apart from the round of ministerial duties which are a portion of a pastor's life, the biographer finds a lack of stirring incidents such as make up ordinary public lives. When there is strife, division, or great moral lapses among the people, a church is often made painfully conspicuous, and the minister also. But here it was not so. Results in Dr. Steel's case were finely stated by Rev. L. W. Eckard, the present pastor of the church, in a historical discourse delivered at Abington August 30th, 1876, of the eminent men and women who have gone out from that church to bless other localities. He says:

"Rev. Joseph Travilli, for some time Superintendent of the Sunday school, went to Singapore as a missionary. Rev. Alfred Ryors studied with Dr. Steel, went to Cannonsburg, became tutor in Lafayette College, and died a professor at Danville, Kentucky. Dr. Joseph Stevens, one of the Abington Sunday school scholars, became the esteemed pastor of the

church at Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania. Rev. Stephen Yerkes occupies a professorship in the Danville Seminary, and has long been distinguished for learning, talent, and piety. Rev. John Johnson became a minister of the Reformed church, New York. Rev. Dr. George Stewart graduated from Lafayette College in 1845, Princeton Theological School in 1848, and was pastor of churches at Bath, New York, and West Point, Iowa, and still more recently of a church in Omaha, Nebraska. The brother of the last, Rev. Dr. Stewart, graduated from Princeton in 1859, preached at Greenwich, New Jersey, and is now pastor of a church at Towanda, Pennsylvania. Rev. John Chester, M. D., was a member of the church and a practicing physician; he studied for the ministry under Dr. Steel, and was pastor of a church at Burlington, New Jersey, and since of a flourishing congregation in Washington city. Rev. Hugh Craven, who was a graduate, went north, where he became very useful in furthering the interests of the home mission work. Rev. Jacob Krewson graduated at Nassau Hall in 1866, and has since been successfully preaching at Forrestville, Bucks county, Pennsylvania. Rev. John Newton, M. D., missionary to India, is also claimed by Abington as one of her sons. Rev. Charles Beatty Newton, an evangelist in India, is identified with this place; here he received his education in part under the care of Dr. Steel. Three lady missionaries to the foreign field, Mrs. Jane Vansant Martin, Mrs. Mary Parvin Janvier, and Mrs. Sarah Wigfall Newton, were sent out by Abington."

Many, if not nearly all these "lights of the world," without doubt, received much of their training from the godly man whose life we are writing.

Abington is one of the first organized Presbyterian churches in Pennsylvania, Rev. Malachai Jones, a Welshman, being constituted first pastor in 1714, a hundred and sixty-four years ago. He continued to minister to them till his death, which occurred in 1729. On December 30th, 1731, Rev. Richard Treat was next installed pastor, and continued till 1778, a period of forty-nine years. In 1781, after an interregnum of three years, Rev. Dr. William Mackey Tennent was placed over the church by the Presbytery. While here he gave part

of his time to the congregations of Norriton and Providence. During Tennent's pastorate the log house of worship was torn down and a stone building erected in its place. Dr. Tennent died December 2d, 1810, after an incumbency of twenty-nine years. In 1812 Rev. William Dunlap, a son of the President of Jefferson College, was next called. He died in 1818, after laboring six years, and was buried in the same yard with other pastors.

On September 9th, 1819, the pastorate of Rev. Robert Steel began, which was terminated by his death on September 2d, 1862, lacking only a week of forty-three years. Thus, after a life-time (between the young man of 24 and the old one of 68) spent with one people, his remains, as those of his predecessors, lie in charge of the people to whom he ministered so long and well. To a friend, a short time before his demise, he made the following solemn and remarkable declaration concerning the church and himself: “There is an interesting fact in the history of this church worthy of note. It is this: all the ministers who have preceded me for the space of more than one hundred years are but four in number, and have lived and died among you; and they all sleep in yonder grave-yard, waiting in hope until the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised. There, too, I hope to be laid when I put off this tabernacle." "And it is even so now," says his eulogist.* It is certainly a wonderful if not unprecedented fact in congregational records, deducting the brief pastorate of Rev. Mr. Dunlap, Dr. Steel's immediate predecessor, and including the subject of our notice, that these four men who spent their ministry there aggregate a period of one hundred and fortytwo years, or an average for each minister of thirty-five and a half years.

But it becomes us to speak of his general work. That he took a deep interest in every spiritual and worldly need of his people and of the community at large, is but telling how he felt instead of what he accomplished. A warm, sympathetic heart is but characteristic of the Celtic race; but when a gener

*Rev. John Gray, D. D., of Easton, Pennsylvania, who preached his commemorative sermon.