Never perhaps were two persons, pastor and deacon, more closely associated in all their inner religious life and experiences, than were Mr. Andrew and his deacon, Matthew Minor. It was the latter who was able to turn the scale in the perplexed young preacher's mind, as to the question whether he should accept the call to settle over this church, or not. Mr. Andrew wrote an article for the Christian Parlor Magazine, in 1845, which relates this fact, in the chaste, beautiful and eloquent style so peculiarly his own. It is thought well to give this article entire, it is so strongly characteristic, and is withal so fine a specimen of his style of thought and diction :

"There is, oftentimes, a real and most delightful poetry in many of the incidents of one's life. specially so, when these incidents are looked back upon, over the space of intervening years that have since flown away. Here and there at least, in one's life, select passages will be met with, of surpassing beauty and interest, as one thus turns back and reads over again the variously colored pages of that curious and wonderful book. Even in the case of those persons whose days are spent in the most retired, and quiet, and rural walks of life, many of these charming incidents are to be found. Ought such incidents to be lost and forgotten? Those what shall we call them? little episodes of God's peculiar love and mercy to us, which seem to shed so many a bright and joyous a gleam over the path, shall they be suffered to fade away from our minds and be forgotten? They seem too valuable, too precious, to be thus suffered to pass away into oblivion, without some pains being taken to arrest and fix the fugitive impressions which they produce on the mind, before these impressions and scenes which produced them shall thus be forever lost together.

"The writer's lot has been cast in one of the loveliest and most picturesque and pleasant of New England's many charming valleys. On either side of this pleasant valley, stretching from north to south, on two opposite ranges of hills, of considerable height, approaching somewhat near to each other towards the south, and thrs forming, in the interval between them, is a kind of basin, covered in the summer season with a carpet of the richest, deepest verdure. Through this valley, and about midway from either side of it, a small stream of water is seen, like a thread of silver, winding along, in graceful meanders, and every now and then covered from view by the fringes of trees, and wild shrubbery which grow on its banks. The valley seems like a place formed for med

itation and repose; for thoughts of God, and thoughts of Heaven. This peaceful retreat, away from the great, and noisy, and jarring world, has also some historical associations connected with it, in what may be called, in our young country, the olden times, which seem to add to it a still higher and more romantic interest. This valley was once the favorite abode of a tribe, or the fragment of a tribe, of the red sons of the forest; a race of men deeply wronged and injured, and now almost extinct on the soil, and by the streams where they formerly exercised their own unquestioned rights of sovereignty. And a particular spot is shown to the curious in such matters, where (as tradition says) the remains of one of their chiefs is now reposing, under a rude heap of stones. The name of that chief has been rendered more imperishable than his decaying race, by its having been given to some portion of the natural scenery of the place where he and his tribe once enjoyed their own wild freedom. The river and a neighboring mountain will be his monument to the end of time. Associations also of yet deeper, stranger interest, more hallowed, more touching, and scarcely less romantic, press around the good man's heart as he enters the smiling valley, and becomes acquainted with the history of its early settlement. Its first white settlers were men of faith and men of prayer. They were eminently men of this character. In the eastern range of hills, skirting the village, as you approach it from the south, and a short distance back from the summit of those hills, there is a very singular and almost sacred locality. It is a place of prayer- secluded, wild, and awe-inspiring, to which the early fathers of the village were accustomed to resort, to hold seasons of retired communion with God, and sometimes to spend together there, entire days of fasting and prayer. And thus this spot, at that time especially, must have been well chosen for such a purpose; so far at least as the stillness and solitude, the seclusion and wildness of the place, are fitted to awaken devotional feeling, and to prepare the soul to commune with God. And to this day, that 'pillar of stones' in the mountain is occasionally visited, as a sort of sacred spot, both by the curious stranger from abroad, and by those of the villagers themselves, who love to hold retired communion with God among His works.

"It would not be strange if, under any ordinary circumstances the writer should feel some pleasant interest in such a spot as this, and in the character of the people who occupy the valley, that spreads along just beneath this interesting spot. A serious,

devout mind, always loves to dwell upon incidents, and objects which bring God into view, and which tend to impart a fresh impulse to its better, its holier aspirations and purposes. But in the case before us, there is more than the pleasantness of the natural scenery of the place, to awaken interest in the writer's mind. There is more than the first historical associations of the place; more than the wild Mountain Bethel, to which the patriarchal fathers of the place (of blessed memory) were once in the habit of resorting for prayer. There are, also, incidents and reminiscences connected with this place, of a more personal kind, to touch the writer's heart, and to call forth some of its sweetest and most delightful emotions. May he venture to allude to one or two of these 'Pleasant Remembrances' of the past? They seem obviously to bring into view, and to exhibit in a pleasing light the guiding, gracious hand of God, in an hour of some perplexity and doubt.

It was in the spring of the year 18-that the writer first entered this valley, without any view of spending much time there. He came by invitation; but in much weakness and fear, and not without some painful doubt and misgivings, as to the point whether, in coming thither, he was in the path of duty which God would have him pursue. Does the reader ask why? He came thither as a professional messenger of the Gospel of Peace. And he was afraid, lest in a place where contentions and divisions, heart-burnings and jealousies had for a time past existed, he might, possibly, through inexperience or inadvertency, injure a cause which he would gladly serve. On some accounts, therefore, he would have chosen to get away, as soon as possible, from a field of so much difficulty and so much responsibility. After presenting the messages of God's mercy to that people for a few Sabbaths, he became almost decided, in his own mind, to retire from the place, and to await the call of God's Providence to go to some other and more congenial field of labor. And yet it was true that, in many respects, his feelings were drawn towards that people. The determination which he had formed on his first going there, not to remain over a few weeks, he felt, after a while, to be giving way within him. And now the question which oppressed him, and which became the simple naked question before his mind, was the question of duty; not what he would like to do, or would not like to do; but what, before God, and all things considered, he ought to do. And when the matter came to this issue, the

question seemed as far from being decided as ever, and as difficult of decision as ever.

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Some other persons, possibly, who may read these remarks, may have revived in their minds, by means of them, the remembrance of similar struggles, which they themselves have experienced in like circumstances. If so, they will know something of that state of oppressive anxiety in this straight between two,' into which the writer's mind was thus thrown. He felt that the question before him was to be, in all probability, the turning point of his own future life. And in addition to this, that the spiritual interest of a respected and beloved people, in their critical position, might be scarcely less affected, the one way or the other, for good or for evil, by the manner in which that question should be disposed of by him.

"It was a pleasant afternoon of a pleasant summer's day, when a venerable elder of the church called at the writer's lodging, and proposed that they should make a visit together, to the hallowed spot already mentioned as a place of resort for prayer. It was the first time the writer had ever been there. And the avowed object of the elder in proposing to the writer to visit this resort was, that he might be his guide in showing him the way to the place. It was so secluded, and so embowered among the mountain shrubbery, that it could not well be found by a stranger, without a guide. They went together to the spot. At the foot of an overhanging rock, some thirty or forty feet high, on the brow of which stood an evergreen fir-tree, lay a rough pile of stone, exhibiting evident marks, by their being discolored with smoke and soot, that fires had often been kindled there. Some names also were rudely inscribed on the shelving side of the rock, though mostly effaced by the dripping of water down the rock. The whole scene, in its external aspect, was indescribably wild. At least, it seemed so then, to the eye and feelings of the writer. The air was breathlessly still; scarcely a leaf on the trees moved. The hum of the village, though not a half a mile off, perhaps, was not heard. The inspection of no human eye was feared, or thought of, in that lonely mountain retreat. To an oppressed and somewha saddened spirit, and to an imaginaion beginning to hold some not unwelcome sympathy with the wildness of the scene, it really did seem as if God was in some special sense present there, and as if he might be worshipped there, with a fullness and freeness of heart and soul, not always experienced elsewhere, in our