by a deep bass ground-swell of chorus fairly rumbling the final words of each line and almost seeming to jar the fragile little school house with "title clear" and the other penultimates, was again not in our accustomed "use." The congregation though it apparently had never taken part in a “set service” and had never seen a surplice before, endeavored to follow every ritual posture, keeping their eyes glued upon one devout white parishioner to do as she did. It at least demonstrated to the congregation that the Church cared for them but beyond that there was little opportunity to "follow up" owing to my transfer to another field not long afterward.

This experiment, however, and other school house services, held around in various districts of my field, had their decided value in "breaking me in" to a sense of the readiness of people to respond to earnest efforts to reach them. All that was practicable in the way of preparedness for those school house visitations was to post and send around simple notices that the services were to be held and yet there was seldom an evening, weather permitting, that the attendance did not fill the little buildings. And the "breaking in” was a wholesome experience in many useful lessons of being obliged to reduce theory to practice and carrying Divinity School assets into a capitalization current for human nature as the "parson in circuit" finds it, not only in his parishioners but in his very human self. The latter is apt to be the real "rub" after all, and very early Keble's revealing insight in his lines about the Christian Pastor especially impressed me:

"Steadfast set to do his part,

And fearing most his own vain heart."

The Parish of St. James, West Hartford, had been organized in 1843 and as something over a generation had passed I was interested to try to write up in the Parish Record something of its beginnings. While of course the result was all of simple local interest it furnished a sort of laboratory work in understanding the

difficulties even on a small scale of reaching accuracy of historical data. The finding memories and documents which bore upon it, the reconciling diverse recollections of “old inhabitants," the verifying exactitude of names and dates gave a zest, and at the same time an insight, into what historians on a larger scale encounter. This has ever since proved valuable in giving some idea of the way, in the greater areas of historical study, the apparatus must work.

Monday evening, March 26, 1877, the members of Christ Church Parish, Hartford, unanimously called me to the Rectorship of that Parish and the next day, Dr. Gurdon W. Russell and Messrs. Lanman and Matson brought me the formal notification. April 11th I sent my letter of acceptance having, in the meantime as confirmatory of the result of my own searchings of heart, Bishop Williams' letter as follows:

MY DEAREST WILL:

I am very happy this A. M. The call has come to you so utterly unsought that your way is entirely clear. And I believe it is a providential opening. So I beg you say "Yes" and the good Lord bless you in it.

March 27th, '77.

Yr. ever loving,

J. W.

I

CHAPTER V

CHRIST CHURCH, HARTFORD, DAYS

ENTERED upon the rectorship of Christ Church, Hartford, the V. Sunday after Easter, May 6, 1877. In

my letter of acceptance I had tried to express, in

view of the estimate of the responsibility coming to young shoulders and what that honestly involved of self-questioning, my bracing for it in these words: "Suffice to say that I shall, God helping me bring to the work the fullness of a belief that the Holy Spirit blesses an honest purpose to be faithful and that if the people and pastor cling to such a purpose and patiently bide the Lord's good time, looking for no gourd-like growths, but for sureness and slowness of 'the blade, the ear, the full corn in the ear, God will surely give the increase.'

The Parish had been without a Rector for two years though faithfully served by the Rev. Dr. John T. Huntington as locum tenens. As the old mother parish of the city, its origins going back to 1761 and 1762 and traditionally associated with names of distinction both in pew and pulpit, while the city had grown and other parishes had been formed, the "down-town" position of the Church had left its decided mark upon the size and prosperity of the congregation, though it still retained a good nucleus of leading families and descendants of earlier worshipers. The personnel of the Vestry in 1880 significantly shows the survival of families, viz: Dr. Gurdon W. Russell, Lorenzo B. Goodman, Wardens; Benjamin F. Ellis, Charles J. Hoadly, Dr. George C. Jarvis, George W. Hubbard, John C. Palmer, Sidney B. Curtis, John F. Tracy, William L. Matson, William H. Dodd, Vestrymen. Consequently there was the usual undercurrent of suggestion, both without and within the congregation, as to whether it would not be well to sell the valuable business corner on the Main street and move elsewhere. This was well illustrated by a remark made