Then in no long time, to my still greater wonder, a "call" came from the society to come down and be their minister. It was a strong and urgent invitation, signed by Mr. Emerson, Wendell Phillips, and other men of note, with a letter also of sixteen pages from Wendell Phillips, setting forth the reasons why I should come and must come. But I may say in all sincerity that, so far as I remember, the day never came when I was tempted to hear that call. I knew in some way what I could do, but beyond all dubitation what I could not do. No light shone for me on Music Hall: it lay on my church in Chicago. I must stay right there, and the wisest of all my counsellors said I must not go. So I said, "I cannot come," and this was final. This was forty years ago, and there has been no moment when I have felt I was mistaken; but, if I should say I was not moved, that would not be true, or the church was not glad when I told them about my conclusion. They gave us a reception and a feast of fat things, but not "with wine on the lees well refined."

Another call came presently that searched me through and through, from the Second Church in Brooklyn. Their minister, Nahor A.

Staples, a man of brilliant and most beautiful promise, was dead. He was dear to me as Jonathan was to David, was the minister of our church in Milwaukee when we went West; and it was on my part certainly a case of love at first sight. We would write to each other once a week about the Sunday's sermons, to find usually how nearly we had touched the same thought and theme, and (tease each other now and then as lovers will I mean men of course. One week I wrote to him in great glee. A man of eminence in the city, who had come to our church, was taken insane, and would not have any man save myself in his room. And so I was with him about two weeks, until the proper arrangements were made to care for and keep him. The family was grateful for such service as I could give, and made me a handsome present; for they were very rich. I needed a good watch. The children had mauled the old one until it was no good. So we agreed, in the living-room, that I should have a good one of gold with part of the money. It is beating over my heart as I write. Then I must needs tell my dear friend all about it; and, in his answer to my letter, he said: "I am glad you have got the gold watch, but I think my preach

ing will never drive any man out of his mind. So I shall have to wear my old silver machine to the end of time." He resigned his charge in Milwaukee early in the war, to be chaplain of the Seventh Wisconsin Regiment; but his health broke, and after some months he found he must resign. Rev. Samuel Longfellow had been the minister, and the first, if I remember well, of the Second Church in Brooklyn through some years, and had done a right good work there, but had resigned. Then Mr. Staples was called to the church, and it was a memorable ministry; but the seeds of consumption, which had been furthered, if not sown, when he was chaplain, began presently to germinate. We had kept in close touch with each other and had been much together in one or more summer vacations. He was still the friend dearest to me in the brotherhood; and, when I found the end was near, I came down to his home and was with him in the last moments. Went with the dust to the burial at Mendon, Mass., his native place; and on the next Sunday preached some sort of memorial sermon to his people.

He had said he would love to have them call me; but to this, so far as I remember, I made I think he had also suggested this

no answer.

to some members of the church, but am not sure, only that a call came presently; and now I do remember the pain it gave me to say I could not come. The light lay on the church I loved.

I could not leave them even for his sake and theirs who I was sure would fain have me come. This was forty years ago, if I am right in the memory. And now I can truly say that through all the years I have felt only and always the same deep satisfaction that I could not hear the call, as I am prone to think they have also; for they found the one man, as I love to believe, in the whole brotherhood of our ministers who could fill the chasm made by my brother's death

my son as I have loved and love still to call him- John White Chadwick, whose praise is in all our churches, our noble minister in holy things, and sweet singer whose hymn, “It singeth low in every heart," will still be sung when he and we are all a handful of dust.

XXII

The time came, before the war was ended, when we began to talk about a new church. We were still growing; and, when a young church has no room to grow, it will begin to grow stunted. Our audience-room had to serve all purposes. We had no Sunday-school room, lecture-room, or place for social gatherings, and were cramped at every turn. So early in 1865 some of the leading men in the church secured a lot, as the first step to be taken in the new enterprise; and in June there was another, and this time a most pleasant surprise sprung on me.

I was tired with the long strain of such service as I could render in the war and the church and parish, but did not tell the people or indeed quite know myself; but the truth is I was preaching tired sermons, some of them so poor and fatuous that they made me sick, and I burnt them off-hand. The wise heads in the church knew what was the matter; and on a Saturday evening one of them came to see me and said,