hours of painful thought — and, may we not conjec- ture, earnest prayer? — he came to my room to read to me the message he had indited. His very soul seemed on fire as he began to read. As he pro- ceeded, the emotions that struggled in his bosom were with difficulty suppressed. At first, his great heart seemed to burst as he read in broken, choking accents: "Can't something be done to save the United Presbyterian church; the church of my birth and love; the church to which I have given the energies of my life; the church by which I have stood when greater emoluments than she could give were offering; the church in which I shall live and die?" Having reached this point, his pent-up tears, the indices of a struggling soul within, burst forth, and his very frame shook Avith emotions, as that grand hero of many a well-fought battle sat and sobbed and wept copious, scalding tears over the church of his love and choice. Whatever the effect of these communications may have been, it was writ- ten by an honest hand, indited by a master mind, 74 A Busy Life. and inspired by a love of liis denomination, which challenofes the emulation of those whom he has left behind. In the fall of the year 1883, having decided to accept the position to which he had been elected in