Sun

hood was not spent in the Church of his after choice. Many a long Sunday hour he spent in one of the old time square pews sitting through the old time discourse before which it was feared sometimes the hour glass had about the only sign of real following.' It so happened that directly in front of the boy, John Williams, sat a worthy magnate of that congregation whose queue so adjusted itself to that gentleman's habitual slumbers in sermon time that as his head slipped down on the back of his pew, the queue took an angle upward and projected over into the pew of the Williams family with a sort of weekly challenge to that boy, not so absorbed in the current sermon as to be oblivious of the fact. day after Sunday the temptation came, and was resisted; but it finally became too much for the boy nature, and in a moment when, both in his own and the adjoining pew, somnolence seemed to reign, the challenge was met; the queue was firmly clutched and tweaked with an instantaneous effect upon several staid family pews in that immediate vicinity; and the boy never forgot it." And it was like a "whiff" of the early air of New England to have him recount scenes and fireside tales and readings of his boyhood including stirring narration of Indian incursions upon homes of his ancestors. How he enjoyed such a book as Mrs. Stowe's Old Town Stories, with its Parson Lothrop and Sam Lawson. He would never have any new-fangled electricity about him if he could help it—how much that Deerfield boyhood explains it all. And like the late Bishop Huntington of Central New York, there was never any country to him quite equal to the New England hills and vales. There was a weird singing of the wind about that Library fireplace, a musical accompaniment to the cheering wintry hearth glow as the Bishop led in our readings, cleared up questions old and new, commented with crystal insight upon passing issues, shaped convictions, gave confidences of the outlines of works to come from his masterly pen, drew upon the rich vein of his learning and leadership and made the shelves of his books

speak in his loving voice. After his death I once heard the same singing around the chimney and hearthstone— it seemed like a requiem.

"O Time and Change! with hair as gray

As was my sire's that wintry day

How strange it seems, with so much gone

Of life and love, to still live on."

CHAPTER IV

DIACONATE AND EARLY PRIESTHOOD DAYS

W

HILE A Divinity Student I had acted from March, 1871, to July, 1872, as Lay Reader for two missions of Trinity Parish, Hartford, the Rev. Prof. E. E. Johnson Rector, one at Blue Hills and the other at Grace Chapel, Parkville, going up from Middletown for the week end. Then the Rector of Holy Trinity Church, Middletown, the Rev. Walter Mitchell, asked me to help him as a Lay Reader at the two missions of his parish, Pameacha and Staddle Hill. I began at those latter points in September, 1872, continuing with him after my ordination to the Diaconate, June 4, 1873, in rendering such service as Assistant Minister in the Parish as time allowed after my duties as Secretary to the Bishop. Whatever may have been the effect upon outlying missions of the LayReading assignments of the Divinity Students and one frank farmer handed down his opinion "they send them out here to practice on us"-there can be no doubt that those early contacts with human nature had their effects upon the Lay Readers themselves. And there was no lack of sampling sentiment, as well as presentiment for the parson, for such a feeling theme as "The Lay of a Lay Reader," grave and gay. One earnest colored father, upon whom I called, for example, showed me an old fashioned foolscap sheet of paper copiously covered over with texts which he had written out for his boy one day to preach upon, the said boy at that stage of his father's expectations being about four years old. And a question of higher criticism which the father laid before me was, "what happened to Paul and Barnabas when they parted asunder'? Was it any such bad thing as when Judas burst asunder in the midst?" But there was many a lesson learned when it was least expected of family joys and sorrows and real hunger for religion and the baptism and confirmation of the Church.

And so when ordination to the Diaconate came June 4, 1873, I became Assistant Minister to continue the work in the two Middletown Missions and serve in the Parish Church as Superintendent of the Sunday School and otherwise as my duties to the Bishop permitted. That naturally carried me into closer relations with Middletown life. In a limited extent I had known something of the rare standing and cultivation of its social circles while a Divinity Student. Admitted to the staff of the historic Parish, my acquaintance with the people, as well as with the parishioners, in the city was much widened and my active ministry began under happy conditions. My Rector, Mr. Mitchell, with his fine literary accomplishments and cordial encouragement to his curate, was ever considerate and helpful and made the relationship one of a cherished friendship for life. Coworkers in Sunday school and missions gave me an ideal of harmony and fidelity assuring for meeting later responsibilities. It so happened that I began my duties in the summer holiday weeks of the Rector and other clergy of Middletown and for the time was left pretty much to my own callowness. In that interim the change was made from the old Church building to the Sunday school room of the new Church, its nave not yet completed. The Deacon Assistant accordingly was the only one to hold the first services on the new site and later to have there the first wedding and burial service. Dear old Dr. Thomas W. Coit, then a resident professor of the Divinity School, with his play of humor was led to remark, “Things have come to a pretty pass when Deacons go around consecrating Churches."

Exactly one year in the Diaconate I was ordained to the Priesthood by Bishop Williams June 4, 1874, in Holy Trinity Church, Middletown, that being the first Priest ordination in the new Church. At intervals during my association with the Parish I acted as Chaplain to the Bishop on his visitations and so saw much of the clergy and laity of the Diocese in their respective rectories and homes and became familiar with all parts

of the Diocese. With the Bishop, out of his Church lore and personal reminiscence as a preceptor, I had a rich fund of its history and identifications opened up to me, among them the modest farm house where he once helped prepare the breakfast in order that the good housewife might get ready for the church service. There were then many of the "old school" clergy alive and I was well atmosphered in their type of "Connecticut Churchmanship." Delightful memories I have too of homes of the laity with whom we were guests. The Bishop taught me to love the Litchfield Hills, with their autumnal golden rod and fringed gentian and glory of changing foliage, the hills and valleys of the other counties with their scattered churches and home folk and earnest worshippers and hearers of the Bishop's lifeshaping sermons-how well I remember many of them to this day. And those journeyings did not lack for their local tales nor differ from all his other visitations which contributed to the vast resource of the Bishop's memoranda not included in his official reports. I have reason to remember one somewhat exacting duty that fell to me. As we reached one village the aged rector was agitated with an emergency call which had just come to him to visit a factory girl whose hair had been caught in the machinery and whose scalp had been torn almost completely from her head. The Rector, in the feebleness and nervousness of his advanced years felt he could not possibly afford the ministration needed. Whereupon the Bishop in his kindly way looked toward me and I saw it my call to go. It was only by the help that comes to one that I ever went to that darkened room of excruciating suffering and was enabled to carry the soothing power of the Church, even to the point of singing her favorite hymn asked for a thing, which in my ineptitude "to raise a tune," I have never otherwise ventured upon before or since. And there were humors of the campaign abundant, as when riding between two rural parishes the clergyman in charge found comfort on the way in unburdening to the Bishop his woes over