in Phoenixville. There he built the old railroad depot, and coalhouses for the first smelting furnace, as also an addition to Kimberton boarding school.

While yet working in Phoenixville he made the acquaintance of Isaac Price, Elijah F. Pennypacker, and others of like spirit, and at Friends' meeting house formed the Schuylkill Anti-Slavery Society. Ever since, till slavery was abolished by proclamation, he has been an unsleeping Abolitionist, loving and advocating the cause of the slave when it could only bring him reproach and contumely. Being in the line of the famous "underground railroad,” he helped many a fleeing fugitive to Canada. This was subsequent to 1840, when he had moved to a farm originally owned by his father-in-law, a mile east of Providence Friends' meeting house, on which place he continued to farm and attend Philadelphia markets till 1870, when he rented the place and quit business. Finally, owing to ill health of himself and wife, he sold the farm and removed to Freeland, where he now resides.

He gives the following among many incidents connected with his obedience to the higher instead of the lower law while he was a conductor on the "underground": Once a young slave and his wife, who had fled the "patriarchal institution" down South, were sent to his care. Seeing at a glance that it was a case that required prompt action, he conveyed them without delay to the next station, and they to a third, when the woman declared her inability to go further. Here she was provided with a bed and other comforts in the loft of a spring-house, where a male child was born, and which the parents insisted on naming for their benefactor. After a short stay they passed on to Canada. "Another party I parted with at break of day," said he, "after a long drive, when the poor slave grasped me with his horny hand, and while tears ran down his furrowed cheeks, exclaimed, 'God bless you, massa!' At a moment like this," he adds, "gold and silver seem but dross compared with such gratitude."

William W. and Sarah Taylor have had three children, Mary, Harriet, and Clarkson. The first and last died in childhood. Harriet is intermarried with Marcellus Rambo, and lives in Schuylkill,

Chester county.

Mr. Taylor was bred among Friends, but recently joined the Mennonite or Trinity Christian Church of Freeland, of which Mr. Hendricks is pastor. He has been a life-long abstainer from tobacco, and also regarded as a man of public spirit and good business

qualifications. Accordingly he was actively instrumental in founding the Phoenixville Bank, and was a director therein for one term. On the organization of the First National Bank of Norristown, in which he assisted, he was made one of its first directors, and so continued till his resignation in 1878 on account of ill health.

Of William W. Taylor as a business man it is proper to remark further that he drove with indomitable will and sound judgment whatever he undertook. He has no patience with careless, moping

He was eminently When he took pos

people, who live in idleness, filth, and disorder. an improvement man while in active business. session of the farm of his father-in-law the buildings were those of the first settlers. These he replaced by both dwelling and barn of the largest size, with all the improvements. He further renovated by the removal of all trashy vegetation, and after liming heavily left it one of the best improved farms in the county. He also built the cottage he occupies at Freeland, and upon a half acre of land attached has planted some small fruits, which are very productive. He inherited not beyond the merest pittance, yet he has retired on a fair competence.

REV. SAMUEL M. GOULD.

He which converteth the sinner from the error of his ways shall save a soul from death and hide a multitude of sins.-James V, 20.

Samuel McLellan Gould, who for more than thirteen years, or from January, 1838, to April, 1851, preached successfully as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Norristown, deserves a place among the eminent men who have lived and labored in Montgomery county. Mr. Gould was born in the town of Gorham, Maine, on the 24th of January, 1809, of Scotch-Irish and Puritanic stock. His father, Nathaniel Gould, was descended from an English family of that surname who settled in Ipswich, Massachusetts, about the commencement of the last century. His mother, Elizabeth McLellan, was descended from Bryce McLellan, a strict Presbyterian from the north of Ireland, who settled in Portland, Maine, in the year 1730.

Mr. Gould's patronymic and maternal grandfather was Samuel McLellan, a sea captain, who was taken prisoner by the British, and

died on board the prison ship Jersey, in New York harbor, in 1778, at the age of thirty. He had also an uncle Samuel McLellan, who was likewise a sea captain, and with whom the subject of our notice had some experience of seafaring life in his early years. From this knowledge of the ocean many of the most forcible illustrations and imagery of his sermons were drawn.

While attending store in Portland, during his eighteenth year, his mind was especially drawn to the subject of religion. He joined one of the Congregational churches of that city, and in the spring of 1828 began to prepare himself for college with a view to the ministry. In 1830 he entered Bowdoin College in an advanced class, but not long after, being obliged to leave it from decline of health, he spent a year or two in teaching. In 1833 he was entered a student of theology under Drs. Beman and Kirk, at Troy and Albany Seminary, and graduated with honor. In the fall of 1835 he went to Berkshire county, Massachusetts, where he was licensed to preach the gospel by the Congregational Association. After this, for the period of two years, he preached as an evangelist or supply at Spencertown and Stephentown in New York, Hartford, Connecticut, and finally at the Central Presbyterian Church, Coates street, Philadelphia, where he was elected pastor in October, 1837. At the close of this year, while preaching there, the Rev. Robert Adair having resigned his charge of the Norristown Presbyterian church, Mr. Gould was invited to preach before the people, which he did the last Sabbath in December, and continued to labor with them a few weeks. In January, 1838, he was tendered a unanimous call by the congregation to settle among them.

At this time the question of "new school" and "old school" began to be a serious matter in the Presbyterian church, growing out of the recent trial of Rev. Albert Barnes for "departure from the standards," and every man who came from New York and New England was suspected of heresy. The Norristown church at this time belonged to the Second Presbytery of Philadelphia, which was very strongly old school, or of the Scotch type, while the Third Presbytery of Philadelphia, of which Rev. Albert Barnes was a distinguished member, was as decidedly new school. This being the state of parties and things when the Norristown church made application for the reception and installation of Mr. Gould, the Second Presbytery rejected him on the ground of "unsoundness in christian doctrine." The Norristown church, however, having full confidence in his orthodoxy, and believing that his rejection was owing

to the party spirit before mentioned, at once took measures to withdraw from the Second Presbytery and join itself to the Third. This it did after the great division in the church at large had taken place, which occurred in the month of May of that year. In July following, the church having been transferred by Synod, according to the discipline, from the Second Presbytery to the Third, Mr. Gould was examined before the latter body, now connected with the Synod of Pennsylvania, and admitted a member. On the 25th of September he was ordained and installed pastor of the Norristown church, which was united and harmonious, there being but one man who withdrew from it because of the change of Presbyterial relation. Mr. G. continued to preach to increasing congregations till February, 1839, when an unusual interest began to manifest itself, and a very sudden and powerful revival sprang up, multitudes seeking religion as for their lives. The work went on by occasional help of other ministers till the 10th of March, when sixty or more persons were added to the church, most of them on profession of faith, and a goodly number at the following communion.

During the remainder of this year he continued to preach earnestly to full houses. Becoming straitened for room and Sabbath school accommodations, measures were taken the following spring to enlarge and improve the house of worship, which up to that time had stood many feet above the street upon a high bank. An addition of twenty-five feet to the front was made, a basement story or lecture-room added, and everything modernized and made couvenient.

During the years 1840-41 seventy-five persons were added to the communion, mostly on profession of faith. The year 1842 Mr. G. notes in his diary "a great deal of temperance, but no special interest in religion." The next year was noted for the most powerful ingathering ever known in that church, there being in the month of March a hundred and ten persons, most of them new converts, standing about the pulpit and aisles at one time in order to make a profession of religion. Forty of them were baptized.

From this time till 1848, Mr. Gould preached faithfully on general subjects, but with no special results in the way of conversions, though the congregation was large, flourishing, and harmonious. In February of the latter year he added about forty persons at one time, and additions continued till early in 1849, when troubles and divisions began to arise in the church, which the pastor attributed. to "Satanic influence." At this point the author, as cognizant of

all the circumstances of the church, ventures to quote the fifteenth verse of the twenty-second chapter of Deuteronomy as applicable to both pastor and people at that time: "But Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked; thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God who made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation."

Mr. Gould, however, continued to minister the word as usual till January, 1851, when he gave a written notice to the congregation that he intended to resign the charge after the first of April, stating fully his reasons for the step he proposed to take. The congregation was much divided in sentiment, and though a large majority of the church protested against his withdrawal in a written communi-cation signed by them, it had no effect in changing the result. This was an unfortunate event for both pastor and people, and in due time both parties repented it bitterly.

For some weeks before his resignation was to take effect, owing to failing health, nervous prostration, and mental suffering, he was: altogether unfitted for any public service, and left soon after to visit among friends in Maine, where he remained most of the summer. By the month of October he had so far regained health and spirits as to accept an engagement to minister six months to a small congregation worshiping in a hall on Parrish street, Philadelphia, where quite a number of conversions occurred. The following spring he spent some time with the church of Marple, in Delawarecounty, and was cordially invited to settle there. But leaving Philadelphia for the East, he preached his first sermon on the 15th of August, 1852, before the Second Congregational Church of Biddeford, Maine, and shortly after was called to the pastorate of the same. He entered upon his labors here in October, and was installed on the 6th of January, 1853, over a congregation worship-ing in a large, commodious church building-a scattered though united congregation, where, as the phrase is, "religion was greatly run down." Worldliness and vanity, according to the new pastor's. view, prevailed to an alarming extent. He continued preaching: in his plain, pointed way, the necessity of conversion and salvation through Christ, when "light broke in." The result was a great awakening, and more than one hundred persons professed to have experienced a change of heart. The house of God at once became. filled with attentive hearers. Nor did the work cease with this beginning, but continued for three successive years, during which the