The Noyes family, if tradition is correct, descends from William Des Noyers, mentioned in "Domesday Book" as one of the barons who accompanied William the Conqueror to England in 1066 A. D.

The first ancestor in modern times of whom we have definite information was William Noyes, who was rector of Choulderton, Wiltshire, England, from 1585 to 1616. The struggle between the Stuarts and the Puritans was then in progress, and William Noyes on account of dissenting religious views was at one time deprived of his lands. In the following generation the struggle became more acute, and his two sons, Nicholas and James, finally decided to emigrate to New England. Taking passage in the Mary and John, which sailed from England March 24, 1633, they arrived at the banks of the Mystic River in Massachusetts. They settled first at Medford, and in 1635 moved to Newbury, Massachusetts. From this center their descendants spread over the northern and western parts of the United States and into Canada.

In 1740 Joseph Noyes, grandson of Nicholas and a

shipbuilder by trade, moved to Atkinson, Massachusetts, a small town fifteen miles west of Newbury. Here Joseph and his son Humphrey led the life of plain, hard-working pioneers.

John Noyes, son of Humphrey, and father of the subject of this history, was born at Atkinson in 1764. Making the most of his small opportunities for education, he fitted himself for the teaching profession. The ten years following his seventeenth birthday he spent in teaching village schools, and meanwhile he prepared himself for college. At twenty-seven he entered Dartmouth College, graduating with honor in the class of 1795. After graduation he taught for two years in an academy. Then for two years he was a tutor at Dartmouth, where he numhered among his pupils Daniel Webster.* After a brief trial of the ministry, for which he had prepared himself while tutor, his health failing he decided to go into active business. He therefore engaged as clerk in the store of a Mr. Hale in Brattleboro, Vermont. This was in April 1800, when Mr. Noyes was thirty-six years old.

At this point the thread of his life began to interweave with that of Polly Hayes. She was descended from George Hayes, who came to America from Scotland in 1682, and settled first at Windsor and afterward at Simsbury, Connecticut. Her father Rutherford Hayes was born at New Haven, Connecticut, but went to -

[* J.H. Noyes recalls that, when he was a student at Dartmouth, he was once introduced to Mr. Webster, who had returned to visit the college. As Mr. Wehster grasped his hand, he said earnestly: "Young man, I wish I could do as much for you as your father did for me."]

- Vermont in the early settlement of the State, and established a home at Brattleboro. Polly was the oldest of his eleven children, one of her brothers, Rutherford Hayes 2d, being the father of Rutherford B. Hayes, President of the United States 1877-81.

Polly's mother was Chloe Smith, a woman of signal energy and strength of character, of whom William Dean Howells in his Life of Rutherford B. Hayes says:

"Above all and first of all she was deeply religious, after the fashion of the days that we now think so grim. With a devotion almost as deep she dedicated her days to incessant work, and her toil often saved the spirit that faltered in its religious gloom. . . . The reminiscence of a granddaughter, at once touching and amusing, gives the color of the Puritanism which steeped in fear and misgiving the indulgence of such love of beauty as she permitted herself. 'I spoke of her passion for worsted work. I have beard her say that Saturday afternoon she put it all into her work-basket, and pushed it under the bed as far as she could: then taking out her prosy knitting-work, she tried to get it all out of her mind for Sunday!' Yet she was a true artist in this passion her devices in worsted were her greatest delight, and she studied them from nature, going into her garden and copying the leaf or flower she meant to embroider. She had an almost equal passion for flowers . . . In a sketch of family history with which she prefaces her journals. she laments with a simple pathos her possible error in setting work and duty before some other things. 'My husband . . . would sometimes say, The horse is standing in the barn, doing nothing. We will go and

ride. But I would say, I can't leave my work. So he would not go, or go alone. Oh, now I would say to every woman that has a good husband, Enjoy them while they are spared to you, or it will grieve you to the heart when it is too late-when all is over! ... The faded pages, recording so vividly a type of high character which has passed away with the changing order of things, are of almost unique interest...Work, faith, duty, self-sacrifice, continual self-abasement in the presence of the divine perfection, are the ideal of life which they embody-the old New England ideal. It was a stern and unlovely thing often in its realization; it must have made gloomy weeks and terrible sabbaths; but out of the true stuff it shaped character of unsurpassable uprightness and strength."

Polly, the oldest daughter of Rutherford Hayes and Chloe Smith, a girl of nineteen, after spending the winter with her relatives in New Haven returned in May i8oo to her home in Brattleboro. At this time Mr. Noyes had just gone into business, and Polly found him boarding with her father. Soon an intimacy sprang up between them, which Polly thus describes: "He was nearly twice as old as I. He had always been devoted to study, and had acquired a vast amount of information on almost all subjects - morality, philosophy and science. He was so familiar with these high matters, and so fond of communicating, that I was delighted to hear him talk; and he found in me just that kind of attention that would make us never tired of being together."

"It was in fact," says J. H. Noyes, "the courtship of Othello and Desdemona over again. But the course

of true love, as usual, did not run smooth. Polly was entangled in another engagement, from which her conscience refused to set her free; and Mr. Noyes, though forward in learned discourse, was extremely shy in all matters of the heart. Indeed he was nearly as attentive to Polly's mother, who was only one year older than he, as to Polly herself. So the courtship languished for three years. At last Polly's other suitor adjusted his mind to the change in her feelings, and Mr. Noyes's prudential hesitation was overcome by Polly's youthful buoyancy and irrepressibility. When they were married in 1804 he had reached the ripe age of forty, while she was only twenty-three."

Meanwhile Mr. Noyes's business venture was highly successful. Before the end of the year 1800 he was head of the firm of "Noyes & Mann," which soon had branches in four different towns with Brattleboro as headquarters. The country about Brattleboro was new, and the farmers in clearing their lands made vast quantities of wood ashes. Noyes & Mann gave goods in exchange for ashes, which they made into pot and pearl ashes, and sold at a large profit. Eventually Rutherford Hayes became a partner, and the firm name was changed to "Noyes, Mann & Hayes."

As a result of his business activities Mr. Noyes formed a wide acquaintance in southern Vermont, and his personal qualities brought him popularity. This led him into the field of politics. In 1811 he was elected Representative of Brattleboro in the Vermont Legislature; and in 1815, at the close of the war with England, be was sent to Washington for two years as a member of the House of Representatives.

During a mercantile career of twenty years Mr. Noyes acquired what he considered a competence; and in pursuance of a long-cherished plan he retired from business, and devoted the remainder of his life to the education of his eight children.

In a memoir written in 1877 J. H. Noyes describes his father as primarily a teacher throughout his career. When at the age of thirty-six he went into business, it might be thought that his teaching days were over. "But," says J. H. Noyes, "my opinion is that his teaching days just commenced when he descended from the pulpit and went into social and commercial life, because there he found his natural sphere. He was too bashful for the pulpit, and I cannot think that lie was at ease as a teacher in the school. the academy or the college; but in the family circle and in the highways and by-ways of business he was a born Solomon with a modern college education superadded. I have never seen his equal in conversational teaching. lie charmed everybody with his practical wisdom and his genial stories. I can truly say that friendly discussions with him did more to make me a thinker than all the discipline of the schools and colleges."

Mr. Noyes, despite his year in the pulpit, was not in later life a professor of religion. He understood Hebrew, felt great respect for the Bible and Christianity, and was a vigorous moralist but his philosophical cast of mind held him back from committing himself to any particular religious dogma or organization.

Mrs. Noyes, on the other hand, from early childhood manifested a high degree of religious sensibility. She was religiously brought up, and soon after her

marriage joined the Congregational Church. Vital, inquisitive, imaginative, she no sooner saw a principle than she must attempt to realize it in practice. The short-comings revealed by introspection were always a cause of suffering to her, yet religious assurance was a prominent characteristic. Though a member of the church, her intelligence and independence of mind kept her always in advance of strict orthodoxy. She was passionately solicitous about the religious education of her children, and with Mr. Noyes's consent constantly maintained family worship In the selection of their permanent home, in the choice of schools, and in other important family moves her eve was always on the religions bearing, and her judgment had great weight in deciding the issue.

Into this home, unusually compounded of intellect and heart, nine children were born: Mary, who married Larkin G. Mead, an attorney of Brattleboro, and became the mother of Larkin G. Mead, the sculptor, William R. Mead, member of the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White, and Elinor Mead, wife of William Dean Howells; Elizabeth, who married Dr. F. A. Ransom, and settled in Michigan, where she died young; Joanna, who married Samuel Hayes of New Haven, went with him to Trinidad, and died of a tropical fever; John Humphrey, founder of the Oneida Community, and the subject of this biography; Horatio, who became a successful business man and banker; Harriet, Charlotte, and George, all of whom devoted their lives to the Oneida Community; and another George, who died at ten years of age.

John Humphrey Noyes was born at Brattleboro, Vermont, September 3, 1811. The day was "Freeman's Meeting-Day," a holiday, which at that time was annually celebrated in the New England States. It was also the day on which his father was elected Representative of Brattleboro in the Vermont Legislature. His father was called from the election meeting to attend at the birth.

When his mother saw that she had given birth, as she expressed it, to a "proper child," she characteristically devoted him to the Lord, and prayed that he might become a "minister of the everlasting gospel."

When John was three years old, to use his mother's expression, "the devil all but killed him." A servant girl took him for a walk down to his grandmother Hayes's, and John running around fell into a tub of clothes just emptied from the boiler. The burn was deep. The skin came off with his clothes from a place as wide as his mother's hand, and around his body lacking two inches. During the first dressing the child's breath seemed all gone, but while his mother knelt in prayer it came again. It was twelve days before he stood on his feet, and four months before the wound was healed.

He was a little boy when he had the measles. He sat in the house all one day in a dumpy, stupid state until about four o'clock, when all at once lie jumped up, and said: "The measles have turned," and went off out-doors. That was the last that was heard of his measles.

He was always fond of thinking. As a little boy he used to say that he would go to bed early, because he wanted to think. He was apt to be passionate and violent when provoked. Even as a boy he was a natural leader. His mother writes: "I can see him now marching off up the hill at the head of a company of his playmates, all armed with mullein-stalks."

In 1817 the family moved to Dummerston, Vermont, a small village near Brattleboro, and here John received his early schooling.

His first serious religious impressions were received when he was only eight years old. He was converted then in a revival at Putney, a neighboring town, and for a time was enthusiastic for serving the Lord and saving his soul; but he was sent away to school at Amherst, Massachusetts, and apparently lost the whole impression.

While attending school at Amherst at the age of nine, he wrote to his mother the following letter, which is the earliest of his writings that has been preserved:

you told me that I must write long letters to you, and as I am not very quick of intellect, I thought it best to begin soon enough.

I have been pretty contented since you left me, except last evening I was rather inclined to lie home-sick. I sat in my chamber alone, the wind whistled around the house. I began to think of home. and I became sad. I took my book, and looked over my lesson, then went to the hook-store, and got me ink and paper. and begun me a journal, which I intend to write in every day. I like my hoarding-place, and have but one or two objections. namely, there is no looking-glass in my room, nor drawers to put my clothes in, which is very unhandy, as every time I go to my trunk I have to haul my things all over; and lastly, my room is in the northwest corner of the house, so that I cannot tell when it is time to get up in the morning.

Sunday evening. - I did not go to meeting this fore-noon, because I did not hear the bell till late, and I went down and all were gone to meeting. I went in the afternoon. A Mr. Dickinson preached. A Testament, which was in the list of my books, was forgotten in packing up my things to bring down here. I missed it very much today. Mamma, I must say that when I am not reading, or writing, or studying, I am homesick. Yes, I am homesick. I can't imagine why Kidder does not come. I believe I should feel better, if there were somebody here whom I know, and by whom I am known. How heavily the hours pass. What leisure moments I have I am obliged to spend in solitude. No companion, no bed-fellow, nothing new.

This ain't happiness. But away with all this! I fear I have distressed you already.

Monday night.-Again alone and disconsolate, I take my pen to write a few words to you. I expected Kidder here tonight, and have been down to the tavern to see if he was there; but no smiling countenance met mine. When I am writing to you, or studying, or reading, I feel tolerably cheerful: but just at dusk, to sit in my room alone and think of home, I soon begin to feel my heart rising into my mouth ; then a flood of tears is my only relief.

Tell Papa that I am studying Cicero, and that I have got to the fourth book of Virgil.

I must leave a little space for the news that the girls told me I must write. So adieu.

Putney, Vermont, a town on the Connecticut River, convenient to Brattleboro, and the home of several educated families of high social standing with whom the Noyeses were already acquainted, but more than all the scene of recent fervent religious revivals, she felt assured that the decision had been determined by an all-wise Providence. A dignified, commodious mansion with farm adjoining was purchased from Captain Benjamin Smith, a merchant and leading man of the town, and in December 1822 the family moved into their new home.

Soon after this John was sent to the Brattleboro Academy to complete his preparation for college.

In April 1823 the first George W., John's younger brother and nearest mate, was taken seriously ill. When it appeared as if George could not live, John was sent for. His sister Mary remembered seeing him coming up the walk crying. The crisis passed, however, and John went back to school. A few days later John, now eleven years old, wrote to his mother:

day, because it is Sunday, and I have more time than any other day. I have written but little in my diary, and want to have you write to me about George, so that I can write in it. . . . We play here considerably; I don't know but more than would be for our advantage."

About the first of June 1823 George died; and the name of the youngest son of the family, then a baby six months old, who had been christened "William," was changed to "George W."

One Saturday afternoon, when John was twelve

years old, he was walking home to Putney from Brattleboro with another boy of his age. By wading West River, which empties into the Connecticut, they could considerably shorten the distance. But when they got into the current, it was deeper than they expected, and they had all they could do to keep on their feet and pull safe across. They were frightened, and on reaching the opposite shore John told his companion, he thought they ought to kneel down and thank God that they were safe.

From an early age John was an ardent lover of sport. A letter from his sister Joanna, written during a vacation when he was thirteen years old, alludes to him as "hunting, fishing and riding all the time."

Almost the only other glimpse we have of him during his grammar school days is in a letter from his "chum" Kidder Green, in which he is referred to as a "moving skeleton," and "inclined to give way a little too much to the libido corporis."

In September 1826, a few days after he passed his fifteenth birthday, John entered Dartmouth College. He was destined at first for Yale, and even went so far as to provide himself with a standing collar of peculiar cut, which at that time was worn by all Yale students. But Mrs. Noyes came to the conclusion that Dartmouth would be better for his morals, so to Dartmouth he was sent; and he says that all through his freshman year his Yale standing collar was a "standing joke."

On arriving at Hanover John was taken ill; and his father, who had accompanied him, to allay the anxiety of the folks at home wrote thus:

 "You and the children have no occasion to be alarmed by my tarrying here after Capt. Green's return. John has entered college, and is very agreeably located at Madam Brown's, a widow of the former President. Dr. Muzzy says there is no reason for my staying here at all, but as John has had some febrile symptoms, and my leaving him in a strange place might depress his spirits, which are pretty good now, I thought I might as well remain a little longer. I find so much pleasure in seeing the place, and renewing old acquaintances, that I might remain here for some time yet without any other inducement.''

Within a few days John recovered sufficiently to take up his college work. From a letter written home a little later, it is evident that the Dartmouth curriculum in 1826 left little time for boys to misuse. He writes

 "Up at five. Go to prayers at a quarter after. Then immediately go to recitation. Then have breakfast. Then study till eleven, when we recite in Graeca Majora, which takes up an hour. Then until one we employ ourselves as we please. At one we take dinner, then study till four, when we recite in the grammar, which takes an hour also. At a quarter before six we go to prayers, which with supper takes up the time till dark, leaving us only three-fourths of an hour in the evening to get our lesson in Ivy for the next morning."

 Replying October second his mother says:

 "I have felt a good deal of anxiety about your health, and do still. You must not indulge yourself in anything that will injure you. Be careful, and your early rising will, I hope, be a benefit to you ... We

all hope you will endeavor to improve your advantages. You know how solicitous your father is that you should be diligent in your studies. I am no less solicitous that you should adopt such a course in everything as shall terminate well in the end of all.''

 And Mary, John's oldest sister, adds on the same sheet:

 "Do not forget to attend to your personal appearance, your manners, your studies, etc. Write a list of your clothes in your memorandum book, and do not let them get scattered. Papa wishes you to have a letter always ready to send by private conveyance, as you may have opportunity. We will do the same."

 There is one letter at this period in which John's mother expresses the earnest hope that he will become a minister: and one to which his father appends this brief hut characteristic note:

 "Your studies previous to this year were like laying the foundations of a building. The languages, grammar, logic and rhetoric will be helps in selecting proper materials, fitting them into shapes, putting them together with close and compact joints, and embellishing the whole with painting and ornaments. Mathematics, chemistry, philosophy and astronomy are calculated to teach you the just proportions of the edifice - how to divide it into appropriate apartments, and give to the whole loftiness and grandeur. I trust that what I have written may serve to elevate your ideas of education, and admonish yon that your aim must be at a lofty mark; and it is to be hoped that you will divest yourself of every notion and habit which will retard your flight."

Notwithstanding a wealth of exhortation and advice in letters from home, few details of John's life during his first two and a half years in college can be gleaned from extant records. His own letters were infrequent, and not especially remarkable. On one occasion a favorable report of his scholarship and behavior from an indirect source brought cheer to his parents' hearts; and a letter from Dean Shurtleff dated August 20, 1827, pictures him from the standpoint of the faculty in the following terms:

"I am happy to inform you that your son has been steady, and so far as I know studious. At my recitations he acquitted himself well, and I am informed by his Tutor that he does so in other branches. He certainly has a sound and discriminating mind, and with such habits of study as I trust he will cultivate, there is little danger but he will graduate a respectable scholar, and with the blessing of God become a pillar in society."

In the latter part of 1827, when sixteen years of age, John came under a religious influence more powerful than any he had yet experienced. It will be recalled that the Noyes mansion at Putney was purchased from a Captain Benjamin Smith. Shortly after selling out at Putney, Captain Smith moved to Gouverneur, New York, taking with him two nephews, Henry and Hervey Smith, who had been known at Putney as rough, bad boys. About two years later Charles G. Finney, the revivalist, then at the beginning of his career, spent six months at Gouverneur, and the town was shaken by a notable revival. Among the converts were Henry

and Hervey Smith. In June 1827 Henry Smith returned to Putney on a visit, and Mrs. Noyes, writing to John, said that she had seldom seen a young man more improved by religion than he. Afterward while John was at home on a vacation the Smiths came to Putney again and commenced a revival campaign. With the zeal and audacity which they had learned from Finney they put religion foremost, not only in meeting but on every occasion, and would not hesitate to stop a stranger in the street with the question, Do you know that you are on the road to hell? The sensation produced in the town was tremendous. John did not yield to their direct assaults, but he always recognized this revival as one of the prime causes of his subsequent conversion.

From the above description and such additional hints as we are able to glean from the contemporary records, we may conclude that until the middle of his junior year in college John's mind and heart were unawakened and gave little promise of the man that was to be.

In January 1 1829 John commenced a journal. It is headed: "Fugitive Pieces, By the author of etc., etc.," and the introductory paragraph is as follows: "The commencement of a work so important as the above title denotes would seem to require not only an extraordinary effort in the author, but an occasion considerably elevated above the common incidents of human life. In short, as the saying is, I must put my best foot forward, ahem twice, and proceed."

 Jan. 9, 1829.-Riches, fame, and pleasure are the three great objects of pursuit in life, and many and various are the ways in which they are sought; but if a few simple maxims were attended to, and in all cases made the guidance of men's conduct, they would be oftener attained. "Look well to your pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves," is a rule of universal application in the pursuit of wealth, and is not incompatible with true liberality and nobleness of soul. "Study human nature, and govern yourself accordingly," is a maxim equally comprehensive with regard to fame, and without which in the common walks of life no man can rise to distinction. And here

I speak not with regard to those professions which do not require, but rather exclude intercourse with mankind, for in such cases it is plain that but little knowledge of human nature will suffice. Although those who seek for riches aid fame think they shall thereby enhance their own happiness, there is still another maxim which must guide those who would lead a happy life: "Whatever may be your lot, strive to be content," is the only solid basis of real happiness and applies equally well to men in every situation and condition.

Jan. 10, 1829.-My classmate W-- is one of your real pompous boobies. Without talents, learning or wit, he assumes all the dignity of manner, and affects all the superiority, and as I may say magnanimity of aspect, which we naturally attribute to those who really possess the above qualities. He is unsocial and misanthropic without possessing a single one of those better qualities which usually palliate and remove the curse from misanthropy. He is niggardly of his own, but liberal of other people's money, and in proof of this I may truly say that I have frequently seen him engage heart and hand in a jolly scrape, but never knew him to have his wallet about him when the bills were to be paid.

The same description will nearly apply to L--, but it needs to be extended. He is more of a pedant; possesses more self-conceit; is far less liberal in his views of men and things. His whole soul seems to be devoted to his own advancement. If he undertake to converse with you, it is obvious to the most careless observer that his whole object is to display his

conversational powers and his learning. Now, I love to see a person occasionally cast off the dignity and ceremony, and give himself up to the entertainment of his fellows.

I can feel my cheek burn with shame frequently when I ruminate upon occurrences occasioned by this plague of my life. For example, at a late wedding party I was commissioned to introduce a number of gentlemen to a number of ladies, and I performed the ceremony with decent grace until I came to Mrs. David Crawford, and then I was nonplussed. I could not recollect her name upon the instant, and knowing her to be a Campbell by her look, I introduced her as such. I saw a scornful smile pass over the countenance of a certain lady who sat near, and I immediately perceived my mistake; and so great was my mortification that I could not behave afterwards with tolerable politeness. Perhaps I shall not be credited when I say, I wished myself a hermit or a savage.

I believe that in the contest between the mind and the body the same thing happens which we observe in every other conflict, viz., the conqueror is animated by the victory and thenceforward gains more and more strength and more and more relative superiority, while the conquered, dispirited by defeat, declines a second strife and gradually dwindles away. Of this I have a daily example before my eyes in the case of a person who has been my playmate, schoolmate and boon companion from my childhood. He was once as lively, as sensitive, and as intelligent as any of his youthful contemporaries; but the transition from boyhood to manhood, which usually determines the bent of future life, was a miserable though imperceptible change. Sense gained the mastery over intellect, and has since been gradually limiting and contracting its sphere until it would almost seem the Promethean

Spark was in peril of being actually extinguished. When the mouth is sluggish in utterance, but active and noisy in eating, you may write its owner a fool.

Feb. 15, 1830. - It must be confessed that I have access to a sufficient diversity of company to enable me to pass my leisure hours with profit and pleasure. If I am in a merry, indolent mood, I have only to descend the stairs and throw myself upon P--'s bed, and enjoy merriment and indolence to my heart's content. With L-- I can converse upon philosophical subjects; with E-- upon literary and sentimental topics; wih N-- I can dispute upon religion. I can talk politics, and enjoy the pleasure of secretly laughing at egotism with M--; and with S-- (by the way, the cleverest fellow in my class), I can enjoy a really comfortable, sociable conversation upon any subject.

Feb. 18, 1830. - As a proof that I am noted for cheerfulness, it is sufficient to adduce the fact that two patients sorely afflicted with the hypo have applied to me today for consolation. I advised them never to read Byron, never to think of suicide, and above all to repeat every five minutes: "Faint heart never won fair lady."

Feb. 24, 1830. - I play checkers with everybody, and everybody beats me. Well, we'll see what perseverence will do.

Feb. 28, 1830. -W-- and I have been on remarkably good terms of late, and as he goes by extremes both in affability and haughtiness, we have had a wonderfully jolly, sociable time of it. This "cheek by jowl" excitement has somewhat subsided today, and

the consequence is that I am inclined to be home-sick. This circumstance has impressed me very strongly with the necessity of a person's having resources of enjoyment within himself, and with the misery of those who depend wholly upon social excitement for the pleasures of life.

Mar. 19, 1830. - I begin to consider myself a man of fashion since I purchased my bell-bottomed pantaloons, square-toed boots, patent leather stock, and pyramid-formed hat. I imagine that handsome dress actually has some tendency to elevate the mind.

April 1, 1830. - I used to be vexed with my father for confining me so rigidly to my studies, but now I feel nothing by gratitude.

April 13, 1830. - I am afraid, when I shall "no longer bask i the bright sunbeams of literary glory," I shall find no one to supply W--'s place. He is a philosopher, and as I am of a stoical cast of mind we are to each other congenial spirits. We walk together, lounge together, sleep together; and are constantly discussing with philosophical coolness, and I must say acuteness, the subjects which chance to catch our attention, and these I can assure the reader are not few. Our walk of three miles after breakfast gives occasion for the scintillation of numerous sapient ideas, and considering all things I deem it by far the most pleasant and profitable exercise of the day.

In a letter to his father dated March 31, 1829, John reported that he stood eighth in the list of "Junior Appointees," and added: "I intend to have an Oration when I graduate, that is, if study will effect anything." He made good in this resolve. His oration,

however, was in English, not in Latin or Greek-which means that he fell short of the highest honors.

In a journal entry dated October 1830 about two months after his graduation he thus reviews the latter part of his college career:

"The changes which the external world is constantly undergoing have been descanted on from time immemorial by all classes of writers, from the philosopher to the school-boy. But my own experience convinces me that the changes which are wrought upon the mind of every individual as he passes through the stages of childhood, youth, manhood, maturity and age are incomparably worthier of attention. The number of these changes deserves notice. It may be that I have less stability of character than most men; but I must confess that my views of men and things change so often and so essentially even in the course of a single year, that I almost lose all acquaintance with myself. I will endeavor for experiment's sake to trace these changes for the last year.

First, I was simple and credulous; averse to all society, especially that of the opposite sex; consequently unpopular I studied because it was my duty, and not from any fondness for the employment. Fishing and hunting and ease were the summa bona of my existence.

Suddenly the stamp of my character was completely changed. I became ambitious of popularity. I studied human nature and learned to live with men.

I looked deeply and eagerly into the secrets of phi-
Now science began to have attractions in herself. (sic)
losophy. My views embraced a wider scope than hith-

erto; and I panted after eminence in learning as the height of human felicity.

Another change came over my spirit. Its details would be tedious. It is sufficient to say that I sought happiness and distinction in philosophic stoicism. The fit lasted but a brief space, and next I found myself seeking the bright phantom in the mazes of dissipation. Another revolution placed me on far higher ground. Virtue, honor, and the dictates of conscience stood preeminent in my estimation as the guarantee of happiness."
 

 
The year following his graduation from college John spent at Chesterfield, New Hampshire, studying law in the office of his brother-in-law, Larkin G. Mead. There was in the village an academy attended by eighty or ninety boys and girls, around which a succession of halls and parties naturally centered. As John and his classmate Putnam (who was also studying in Mr. Mead's office) were college graduates, they were looked upon as leaders, and had frequent opportunities to join in the se gayeties.

 October 8, 1830.-"Cousin Oliver" informed Put and me that he and his fair cousins had received an invitation to spend the evening and eat some peaches at Mr. Pierce's. "And shall we spend this evening in the solitude and smoke of Esquire Mead's office?" said Put. "Cursed be the thought!" was the response. We each made a paddle, and bent our course for the lake. Put, being acquainted with the family, unceremoniously entered the house. "Esquire Pierce, how did matters go with you at Keene?" "Oh, nicely, nicely." "I knew 'twould be so. Nobody undertakes to overreach you without faring the worse for it. But,

Esquire Pierce, I was coming up with Mr. Noyes to take a ride on the lake, and I thought I would call to see if Larkin sent any word by you." "Why, no, he didn't." "Well, I thought I would just inquire. Good day." "Stop a minute, Mr. Putnam. We are going to have a little party here tonight to eat peaches, and I should be glad to have you spend the evening with us; also Mr. Noyes." "Well, I'll endeavor to come with Mr. Noyes." And so indeed we did. We had a delightful walk to Mr. Pierce's, a delightful evening, and a delightful walk home-all in the company of the ladies boarding at Dr. Baker's.

An Original.-Ephraim Crouch was a man of few words and many smiles. It will be long ere I forget the soft simper and the noiseless tread with which he was wont to enter the office. He would reply to our salutations in a voice subdued and scarcely audible, and as he skulked into the darkest corner of the room I never could help thinking of the applicability of his name. Yes, "crouch" was the word of all others most expressive of his character. Hour after hour he would sit silent and simpering behind the door, and all the while, so great was his bashfulness, the utmost stretch of his audacity never extended farther than to a transfer of his legs from one to the other of the usual Yankee positions.

We often amused ourselves with his conversation, and our merriment frequently ran so high that in order to disguise its object we were obliged to have recourse to sundry ingenious devices, often leading him to think by some incoherent talk that we were laughing at certain ludicrous allusions unknown to him, and some-

times flattering him with the idea that our excessive mirth was caused by the pungency of his wit....

To do Crouch justice, he was minutely versed in all the common branches of schoolmaster learning. Besides he was a man of unbounded good-humor, ever ready to accommodate his neighbor, never known to harbor malice, free from fickleness, vanity and envy; in short according to the abilities which nature had bestowed upon him he was without spot or blemish.

Nov. 19, 1830.-Three months of mingled mirth and misery are gone, and with them are gone-various things-no matter what. I came here expecting to enjoy everything that society could furnish, and (thanks to the depravity of human nature) society has been a constant source of misery to me. I found here Smith and his cousins, and my first acquaintance with them surely did not in any measure dissipate the illusive expectations which I had formed. Their beauty and their vivacity equally conspired to elicit admiration. I was delighted-bewitched. In short my fancy was wrought up to such a pitch that I imagined I had at length found that perfection for which I had hitherto sought in vain. Put and I were among the gods for a week. I pretended to study Blackstone, but my thoughts and eyes held no communion. Any one considering the subjects of my meditations by day and my dreams by night might reasonably conclude that I was happy; but the true state of the case was far different. If excitement is the essence of happiness, I was superlatively happy; but impatience of absence from those seraphs, jealousy of my competitors in gallantry, and the dolorous reflection that the school would

close in thirteen weeks were constantly dragging me down from the pinnacle of felicity which seemed to be almost within my reach....

Upon a review of the preceding campaign I discern many points in which I have erred, and I therefore commit it to paper, that by occasionally refreshing my mind with its events I may be furnished with examples for correction and reproof in future scenes.

 It must not be supposed that John, while at Chesterfield, gave himself up wholly to amusement. On the contrary Mr. Mead in a letter dated Nov. 9, 1830, says: "John and Putnam study as for their lives, and are great in the Law." Three weeks later John writes in his diary: "Yesterday I made my debut as an advocate, and a most shabby performance it was. I was frightened beyond all reasonable bounds. I stammered and trembled, and for a few minutes was utterly unable to fabricate a decent concatenation of words. It is true, before I had finished I had disfurnished myself of a portion of my trepidation; but still the conclusion of the whole matter is, that (in the taunting words of 'Squire Spaulding) I 'did not plead worth a damn!' However, when I consider the disadvantage under which I labored, my speech being wholly unpremeditated, although I must bear the curse of other people's contempt, still my opinion of myself has suffered no incurable deterioration."

Throughout his boyhood John had been held in check socially not merely by his inveterate bashfulness, but by the conviction that he was personally unattractive. He had red hair and freckles, and thought of

himself as like the "Black Dwarf" in the story-so ugly that no one would ever care for him. Consequently lie had resigned himself to the fate of remaining unmarried, and had made up his mind to be a philosopher. But during his residence at Chesterfield he acquired greater social freedom, and presently he was thrilled by the discovery that be was not like the "Black Dwarf" after all. Among the students in the academy was a young woman named Caroline M--, toward whom he was strongly attracted. The friendship which sprang up between them is reflected in the following stanzas copied from his diary:
 
                        An Invitation to an Evening Walk
 

After some hard thinking, however, he made up his mind that she was not the woman he would choose for a life companion. Realizing that her departure would be a highly emotional occasion, he doubted himself and the consequences of a parting interview. He cut the Gordian knot by taking his cane and running away home to Putney. Caroline soon left the village, and he never saw her again.

 
A momentous change! John had marveled at the changes through which he passed during his senior year in college. Now comes another change so revolutionary that it made September 1831 seem ever afterward the beginning of the life that really counted.

The year 1831 is known in the religious annals of America as the year of "the great awakening." There had been religious revivals before, but none so great as the one that shook the country in the years 1831 to 1834.

The first noteworthy revival in America took place in about 1740 under the leadership of Jonathan Edwards. Though limited in the area directly affected, it struck deeply into American life for an entire generation. During the American and French revolutions, however, the new religious life was temporarily overshadowed by European deism. When Lyman Beecher was at Yale in 1794, Voltaire, Rosseau and Paine were the idols of the students.

But Lyman Beecher himself started a reaction toward religion, which carried the church to a higher level than ever before. Graduating from the Yale Theological Seminary in 1798, intellectual, earnest, enthusiastic, masterful, his long career as preacher

and teacher was an almost unbroken trail of brilliant revivals. The most important of these were at East Hampton, Long Island, in the years 1807-1810, at Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1813-1825, and at Boston, Massachusetts, in 1826-1831.

The next noted revivalist was Dr. Asahel Nettleton. Like Beecher he was a graduate of the Yale Theological Seminary, but unlike him he was lacking in physical vigor, and his disposition was of the gentle, persuasive type. Nevertheless his success as a revivalist was phenomenal. During the fourteen years from 1812 to 1826 his preaching was attended by fervent revivals in upwards of thirty cities and towns in Connecticut, besides a dozen or more places in the vicinity of Albany, New York, and the adjacent parts of Massachusetts, and in several towns in Virginia.

In 1824 cames Charles C. Finney, the greatest revivalist of the period. He commenced his career at Adams, New York. Trained as a lawyer, eloquent, passionate, magnetic, he swept all before him. Jefferson, Oneida, and Herkimer Counties were soon aflame, and came to be known as "the burnt district." At Rome, New York, nearly the entire adult population were converted in a campaign of twenty days. At Rochester in 1830 a great majority of the leading men and women were converted, and the character of the city was permanently changed. Similar revivals took place at Gouverneur, Utica, Auburn, Troy, Buffalo, Wilmington. Providence, Boston and New York.

Inspired by the example of Beecher, Nettleton and Finney a host of workers entered the field. More effective measures for reaching the irreligious were intro-

duced, such as protracted meetings, cooperation of lay-men, and urgent personal appeals and prayers. These forces resulted in spreading the enthusiasm over a constantly widening area. Lawyers, physicians, merchants, and young men just out of college were foremost among the converts. It was estimated that in the year 1830 alone one hundred thousand persons joined the church. Multitudes believed that the millennium was about to commence.

In September 1831 John had completed a year of law study in the office of his brother-in-law, Larkin G. Mead, and was looking forward eagerly to a year of study and practice with his uncle at Brattleboro. He had deliberately resolved, he says, "to indulge the lust of the eye and the pride of life for the present, and risk the consequences; in short, to jump the life to come. Within a week he was completely transformed; and within six weeks he was at Andover as ardent in the study of theology as he had been in that of the law. His own account of this change written in his diary is as follows:*

 
[* Noyes was a man whom psychologists would call a "religious genius." His religious experience was fervent and original, like that of Martin Luther, John Bunyan, George Fox. No better analysis of it can be given than that contained in the following paragraphs from William James's Varieties of Religious Experience:

"There can he no doubt that as a matter of fact a religious life, exclusively pursued, does tend to make the person exceptional and eccentric. I speak not now of your ordinary religious believer, who follows the conventional observances of his country, whether it be Buddhist, Christian or Mohammedan. His religion has been made for him by others, communicated to him by tradition, determined to fixed forms by imitation, and retained by habit. It would profit us little to study this second-hand religious life. We must make search rather for]

 I was at Glens Falls on a visit when I first began to ascertain the determination of my own mind as to the impropriety of a four-days meeting. I knew that such a meeting was to commence in Putney on the 13th, and I felt a dread of being present at it. I looked upon religion, at least I endeavored to do so, as a sort

[the original experiences which were the pattern-setters to all this mass of suggested feeling and imitated conduct. These experiences we can only find in individuals for whom religion exists not as a dull habit, but as an acute fever rather. But such individuals are 'geniuses' in the religious line; and like many other geniuses who have brought forth fruits effective enough for commemoration in the pages of biography, such religious geniuses have often shown symptoms of nervous instability. Even more perhaps than other kinds of genius, religious leaders have been subject to abnormal psychical visitations. Invariably they have been creatures of exalted emotional sensibility. Often they have led a discordant inner life, and had melancholy during a part of their career. They have known no measure, been liable to obsessions and fixed ideas; and frequently they have fallen into trances, heard voices, seen visions, and presented all sorts of peculiarities which are ordinarily classed as pathological. Often, moreover, these pathological features in their career have helped to give them their religious authority and influence ....

"When a superior intellect and a psychopathic temperament coalesce in the same individual, we have the best possible condition for effective genius. Such men do not remain mere critics and understanders with their intellect. Their ideas possess them, they inflict them, for better or worse, upon their companions or their age....

"In the psychopathic temperament we have the emotionality which is the sine qua non of moral perception; we have the intensity and tendency to emphasis which are the essence of practical moral vigor: and we have the love of metaphysics and mysticism which carry one's interests beyond the surface of the sensible world. What then is more natural than that this temperament should introduce one to regions of religious truth which your robust, Philistine type of nervous system ... would be sure to hide forever from its self-satisfied possessors? If there were such a thing as inspiration from a higher realm, it might well be that the neurotic temperament would furnish the chief condition of the requisite receptivity." Pp. 6-7, 23-25.]

of phrenzy to which all were liable, and feared lest I should be caught in the snare. However, my aversion to it was such, and my love of the pleasures of the world so strong, that I concluded to yield to the force of circumstances which seemed to summon me to the spot; and trusting in my own strength to resist the assaults of the Lord I attended the meeting on the 14th. I knew that Mother was exceedingly anxious that I should receive the word, but I told her plainly that she would be disappointed. She asked me why I went, and I replied, to please her. However, I think that curiosity and perhaps a twinge of my own conscience were among the motives which led me thither.

My recollections of the impressions produced on me the first day are indistinct; they were probably similar to those produced by ordinary sabbath exercises. The second day passed off in a like manner, until those who desired the prayers of God's people were called out. The thought occasioned by the scene gave me much uneasiness, and I was prevented from presenting myself only by the thought that, when the excitement had subsided, I should throw off my impressions, and should thus expose myself to ridicule.

During the last day there was a solemnity on my spirit. It seemed to me that I must make up my mind whom I would serve, and I determined to brace myself for the conflict. The consideration which weighed most with me was that religion would make it necessary for me to quit the law and take to divinity; and for that time this consideration prevailed. I concluded to wait. Satan frequently suggested to me that I should live to see the millennium, and be brought in

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of course. As the repetition of the ceremony of calling out the anxious had destroyed its novelty, its effect on the last day was not sufficient to humble my proud heart.

On Saturday, the day succeeding the meeting, there remained a sort of solemnity upon my mind; but I was calm-calm as a soldier in the day of battle. I had deliberately made up my mind to continue at war with God. On Sunday I went to meeting in the morning, and heard a sermon directed particularly to the church, little calculated to stir up the tumult of mind which was fast subsiding.

In the afternoon I was almost sick with a cold, and stayed at home. I took medicine and went to bed, and when the house was empty and all was still, the thought came suddenly and forcibly into my mind that I never should have a more favorable time for submitting to God. The severity of my cold suggested to me the idea of the uncertainty of life, and also seemed to be sent for the purpose of keeping me at home for a few days till I could humble myself. These thoughts pressed so hard upon me that I felt as if the crisis had come, and my destiny was to be decided. I then, after some hard thinking, determined to obtain religion, and immediately set about conquering my pride. The first duty which presented itself was that of overcoming my fear of mail, and though it was like cutting off a right hand God enabled me to resolve and to execute the resolution of communicating to Mother my determination.

After resolving to relate to my mother my feelings, I pondered in my mind as to what would probably be

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her advice, and from former experience I knew that she would bid me resort to prayer. I then determined to anticipate her, and actually bent my knees and offered up an incoherent, heartless petition. I laid before her my case and the steps I had taken, and she seemed disposed to leave me entirely to myself.

From this time the means which I used were simply to go by myself at stated seasons, and force myself to meditate on the character of God, his goodness, his holiness, the requirements of his word, my own heathenish neglect of them, and the absolute necessity of seeking his favor. At times it seemed to me that I had lost the ground I had gained, and I felt indifferent and disposed to give up the matter; but the thought, that truth was entirely independent of my vacillating feelings and that the things of God were still as true and momentous as ever, continually drove me back to the conflict which I had begun. Several times in the course of the following day I read the Bible, prayed and meditated, until I actually sweat; and still I was calm and dispassionate. I shed no tears; I felt no disposition to mourn on account of sin; and this lack of usual sensibility troubled me exceedingly.

In the course of the afternoon of Monday I read the Bible to Mother. The passage was Rom. 10:6-10,* and while I read it I made an effort to apply it to myself. From that time my anxiety diminished. Before night I had become so far tranquil that I began se-

 
[* - "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."]

riously to fear the return of my former stupidity. Accordingly the next day I set about my old work of forcing myself into convictions with renewed vigor; but I could not succeed in producing that feeling of despair which I had felt before, though my fears still prevented me from enjoying myself. When I surveyed and compared my spiritual views, I found to my surprise an entire reversal of my tastes and affections. The Bible seemed a new treasure of precious thought; Christians seemed kindred spirits; the matters of God and of eternity seemed alone worth attention. When at last I was told by an experienced Christian that these were evidences of conversion, I was enabled to lay hold on the promises. Light gleamed upon my soul in a different way from what I expected. It was dim and almost imperceptible at first, but in the course of the day it attained meridian splendor. Ere the day was done I had concluded to devote myself to the service and ministry of God. It were an endless task to enumerate the thoughts which passed through my mind during several succeeding days. They were, as usual in such cases, ecstatic. I had abundance of good counsel, and from it by the blessing of God received an impetus in the Christian race which I trust I shall never lose.

John, like his mother, could do nothing by halves. When his mother was urging him to attend the meeting, his reply was: "No, I do not wish to be hurried. When I get religion it will not be in a hurry." But having once yielded to religion, he threw his whole soul into it. With much joy and zeal he took up the

study of the Bible. That he must abandon the law and become a minister he assumed as a matter of course, and at once commenced the preparatory Hebrew studies required for entrance in the Andover Theological Seminary. He entered fully into the expectation of the times that the reign of Christ on earth was at hand, and resolved to live or die for it. Seeing no reason why there should be any diminution in the vividness and ardor of his religious feelings, he vowed with all his inward strength that he would be a "young convert" forever. Meanwhile to his friends in private and to all who would hear him in public meetings he declared his new-found faith.

The change wrought by his conversion is indicated by a number of interpolations in his diary. After an entry which savored of the world he writes: "Sic quondam, aliter nunc!" Again: "Hitherto the world, henceforth God!" In another place: "Vanity of vanity!" At the end of the poem An Invitation to an Evening Walk, quoted in the last chapter, he writes "These three verses cost me an hour of labor. How much better would that hour have been spent in framing a hymn of praise to God! How much nobler a theme! What an abundance of ideas! What will be the happiness of heaven, when we shall be able to express our gratitude to God without the painful efforts which a trivial song costs us in this grovelling world! Deo volente, henceforth I will employ my poetic abilities in his praise." Below the description of his debut as an advocate he interpolates: "This was the first, and probably will be the last of my labors in the law. I shall never again enter into the feelings which

accompanied this first effort. I look back to them as a man, who has done with this world and is preparing to die, looks back to the worldly pursuits to which he has given his heart. They seem like the senseless eagerness of children for the toys and trifles of an hour. May I ever despise them as I do now!"

July I, 1832.-On the 18th of September 1831 I hope I gave my heart to God. There was much of delight and, as I view the case now, much of sin in my first spiritual exercises. I became so much absorbed in meditation on the goodness of God and on the novelty of my situation, that my mind seemed to lose its faculty of self-control, and I was for several days at the mercy of my imagination. My physical system sank under the intensity and protraction of the discipline, and I was forced to divert my mind by every means in my power from reflection on religious subjects. In this fact I can see a reason for the spiritual declension which succeeded, and which maintained its dominion over me during the following winter.

I determined from the first to become by the permission of Providence a minister of the gospel, and commenced soon the study of Hebrew. My health was such as forbade much application or much effort of any kind, and accordingly I came to Andover on the first of November unprepared to enter the Seminary, and in a state of spiritual desolation. However my health improved by the diet and exercise of the Seminary, and in four weeks I was admitted to the class

and began to feel somewhat encouraged in regard to religions matters. My habits of devotion were irregular, and I just contrived to live along, as I may say, from hand to mouth, with my understanding convinced but my heart and practical principles at variance with it. I meditated much on divine things, but to little profit.

On the 25th of December, while on my knees in prayer, I devoted myself to the missionary cause, and then after a long interval of darkness once more held sweet communion with God. From this time my standard of Christian duty and responsibility began to rise, and the thought for the first time began to develop itself that I must habitually live entirely for the service of God.

After a season of considerable spiritual enjoyment I began again to sink. There seemed to be a general declension in the Seminary. Disputes, excitements, levity, and trifling with Scripture and sacred things became exceedingly prevalent amongst us, and the Holy Spirit was grieved away. I seemed under a constraint to float with the current, and lost much of my spirituality and love of prayer and meditation.

About the last of April, after a tedious session of six months, I returned home. There I had leisure and solitude, and in view of my backslidden state and as a preparation for uniting with the church I gave myself up very much to devotional exercises. I found much enjoyment in this, and I trust my views were profitably enlarged.

On the 13th of May I made a public profession of religion. With the new responsibilities of my situa-

tion I made new resolutions of devotedness to God, and determined no longer to live at the low-rate piety which is so common in the Christian church.

I returned to Andover on the 29th of May, resolved to commence a new and independent course of life-to set myself against the current of unhallowed levity, which during the previous term threatened to sweep away the last vestige of piety from among us. By the blessing of God I was enabled to begin, and I found a satisfaction in confessing my sins, and expressing to some of my classmates, especially my roommate, my determination in regard to my future course I found others who could sympathize with me in opposition to the prevailing sins of the Seminary, and a prayer meeting was established with a view to effecting our purpose. I have enjoyed much in those meetings, and we trust our prayers in some measure have been answered.

Having sounded the minds of my friends at home in regard to my becoming a missionary, and finding no formidable opposition, I no longer felt any hesitation about declaring my intentions, and I now feel that I am indeed set apart for that work. I have promised before God, angels and men that I will hold myself ready to go into the foreign service when and where I shall be called. May I never regret the promise, though it leads me to the stake!

July I, 1832, Sabbath.-My health is unexpectedly improved, and I was able to attend and enjoy the exercises of God's house, hut dared not exercise my mind much for fear of a return of my nervous difficulties. In this state of body it is almost impossible for a sin-

ner of my stamp to live near to God. Nevertheless I was enabled to watch my heart, and to feel a tenderness of conscience which is always refreshing.

July 4.- Was greatly troubled about my state by reading the account of Brainerd's conversion and President Edward's reflections upon it. My religion is of too dubious a character to afford me much comfort, and yet my health is so poor that I cannot conscientiously impose upon myself the effort which is necessary to faithful self-examination, though I would most gladly make it, if my body would bear it. 'low desperately miserable must be the state of those who postpone all consideration of the subject of religion till weakness and pain warn them of death!

July 8, Sabbath.-Read the Bible with unusual relish this morning, and could not refrain from blessing God for the gift of so precious a hook. Oh, that I might have more of its spirit! I do not love Christ with that sensible affection which I know ought to fill my soul to overflowing. I have not those desires for the salvation of souls which seem so reasonable. I have not that sense of my own sinfulness which the Bible commands, and that unbending abhorrence of everything opposed to holiness which God requires. I fear there is much hypocrisy in my conversation on these subjects. I express the dictates of conscience and understanding as the feelings of my heart. I pass off for zeal that which perhaps desire of applause produces. 0 God! Cleanse thou me from secret faults.

July 9-I remained in a tender and prayerful frame during the day, but in the evening engaged in unprofit-

able and wicked conversation, and thus fell back into a state of darkness said insensibility. Self-examination was a disagreeable task.

July 10.-Today I have groaned under the consequences of my sin of yesterday. Prayer was a burden, and additional sin brought additional darkness and trouble into my soul. In the afternoon I searched the Bible and the library in regard to a question of conscience, and found beyond a doubt that I had been committing a heinous sin. I was never more deeply convicted of my meanness, of my desperate wicked-ness before God, and of my utter impotence to resist temptation. I prayed, I wept; and I trust God gave me repentance. Oh, that I could set up a monument on this spot, which should evermore remind me of my promises before God!

July 12.-Had a miserable night. Dreamed incessantly of the cholera. and found myself in the morning in a state of body little better than might have been produced by an actual attack of that disease. My mind was gloomy at first, but soon assumed a worse position, that of forced, miserable merriment. An excessive dinner dreadfully increased my evils of body and mind. In the afternoon I consulted Edwards on the religious affections, and concluded from his marks of holiness that I must yet be in the gall of bitterness. And still after all, when again I gave myself away to Christ, I could not help trusting that God would yet work in me to will and to do his good pleasure. I groan under the bondage of old habits. I am now in my desires and propensities just what twenty years of wickedness have made me. And my wickedness was

of no ordinary dye. It was in some measure philosophical, calculating; and for that reason the more ruinous. It was spiritual wickedness, and it has interwoven itself with all the elements of my moral nature. I pried into the secrets and curious mysteries of historical and supposable guilt, and imbibed all the poisonous associations of such investigations with relish and delight; and now I reap the fruit, bitter indeed. I cannot send abroad my thoughts in any direction without crossing the track of some polluted image, and a thousand needless suggestions of impurity occur daily to blast my endeavors after holiness.

July 25.-I rejoiced in the blessed influences of the Holy Spirit in my morning devotions. I felt new joy in the thought that "the Lord reigneth," and that he knows all things, and will assuredly do all things right. If God did not know all things, I should be ruined, for I find my wickedness perpetually assuming some new and subtle form, and I must believe there is a labyrinth of iniquity in my heart which would baffle everything short of omniscience. But blessed be God, the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin, and the Holy Spirit will search out and slay every sin. I am un-profitable and barren from day to day, and I would fain impute it to my ill-health; but I fear the disease lies deeper than the body. I must try once more to combine spirituality with that cheerfulness which is necessary to health. I have been hearing some of Brother E--'s experience this evening. He says he sometimes feels as if he would prefer to sink into his grave rather than commit the least sin. He is entirely beyond my depth. He is despised even by "The

Brethren" for his recluse habits, but I wish I had more of his self-denial and spirituality.

July 26.-A new resolution is hardly worth mentioning, I have broken so many; but I put it down, that it may sometime administer reproof. I promised before God this night that I would institute a thorough reformation in my Christian practice. May his spirit assist!

July 28.-God granted me (I trust in mercy) a new view of the wickedness of my heart this morning. I had begun to imagine myself full of faith and wholly reconciled to the character and providence of God. I was meditating on the love of Christ expressed in the passage: "My mother and my brethren are these who hear the word of God, and do it." I was trying to measure Christ's affection by that which I know my mother bears towards me. The leaven of pride began to work, and the thought suggested itself to me that all my views are selfish. So I endeavored to try the virtue of my faith by placing some interest of mine in competition with the government of God. I asked myself, Can I consign a certain impenitent friend, for whom I nave long prayed, to eternal burnings without murmuring, if it be the will of God? Alas! How quickly was the whole aspect of my soul changed! The peace and blessedness which I had hoped would be perpetual were gone, and rebellion usurped their place. And yet it seemed involuntary rebellion. My wish was to feel a calm, holy, unreserved confidence in God; but I found within me seeds of mutiny which I had not suspected, and I felt that nothing but the spirit which first subdued my heart could overcome this newly dis-

covered enemy. I prayed with agony for deliverance, and finally, though peace was not wholly restored, I could say: "Lord, I will lay hold on Thy hand, and he guided by Thee, though our path shall lie through fire and blood. I will believe in Thy goodness at all events."

July 29, Sabbath.-My trouble for some days past has been this: I fear I think too much about the rewards of heaven. I seem to indulge an unhallowed ambition to stand eminent in the ranks of heaven, and I dislike the thought of death because it will cut me off from an opportunity of laying up a store of good works. This last feeling has given me especial trouble, because it is inconsistent with a perfect resignation to the will of God. I desire to feel, as I shall if I ever get to heaven, that it is a wonder if I escape hell. I shall think more of Christ then.

July 30. I have thought much of my sins today, especially the sins of my boyish days. When I look back and see what an ocean of impurity and vice I have waded through, I almost wonder I was not cut down, though the mercy of God is infinite. It makes me start and sweat with horror to remember crimes which I committed with exultation, for which the jail should have been my portion. Mischievous thefts and lying were among the most glorious of my boyish exploits, and because there was ludicrous roguery and wit in them, instead of being occasions of disgrace and remorse they were actually matters of boasting. And even my riper years have been marked not merely by general impiety but by positive and shameful crime, which reason as well as conscience condemn. But there

is still an account behind, blacker even than these. Since God has convinced me of his goodness, I have committed over and over again deliberate, flagrant wickedness, and scarcely a day escapes the stain of some heaven-daring sin. This very day, on which I resolved to "keep my heart with all diligence," has sent at least three special messages of wrath to the judgment record, besides the long list of common besetting and negative sins. Pride has been the warp of this day's web. I think I shall say with the martyrs in the day of my death: "None but Christ, none but Christ!"

July 31.-In the afternoon the sweet influences of the spirit of God seemed to be withdrawn in some measure, as if to convince me that I have no moral power of myself. I could remember the blessedness and peace of former seasons, when God seemed near to my soul. I could mourn their absence; I could desire and pray for their return; but my efforts to recover them-to feel right-were plainly impotent. I know that God must work iii me to will and to do of his good pleasure, or I shall sink forever.

August 5. Sabbath -"A day of darkness and of gloominess; a day of clouds and thick darkness." I have not despaired of heaven, but I have had fearful evidence that I must have help from omnipotence if I ever get there. My heart, even if it could be delivered from the curse of active malignity, must forever bear the coldness and insensibility of death without the spirit of God. I have passed through all the interesting exercises and privileges of this day without one feeling of love for Christ, gratitude to God, benevolence to man; and all the while I have been chas-

tising myself, in hopes of scourging myself into right feelings. I have known perhaps more clearly than ever before what ought to be the state of my affections, but my heart has exhibited all the barrenness, if not the enmity of impenitence.

I have been wishing today I could devise some new way of sanctification-some patent-some specific for sin, whereby the curse should be exterminated once for all. And in time past I have sometimes thought I had discovered this desirable catholicon; but I always found that just as I thought my disease was cured, it would break out like a cancer in some other spot. Lord, help me to be willing to be saved by Thee.

August 6.-Had a season of sorrow in my morning devotions. In view of the hardness of my heart, and the smallness of the evidence which I have of being regenerated, I could only lie at the foot of the cross, and beg for repentance, for faith, for love. I set apart this day for secret fasting and prayer, and God has blessed my soul. There was a time in the afternoon when I thought I could say, I love God. At any rate there was a tenderness of soul which I always hail as the effect of the Holy Spirit's influences. I had a spirit of prayer for the heathen such as has been a stranger to me for a long time. As I read the Missionary Herald I yearned for perishing souls, and longed to be in the field. In the evening I had a singular season of prayer. Being alone I paced the room, and as I meditated on divine things I began to address God, and found it pleasant to commune with him, I trust with reverence, yet in the manner rather of conversation than formal prayer. I talked over my want of

faith and feeling. I drew out and exposed freely all the deceitfulness of my heart which I could lay hands upon, such as humble pride, selfish benevolence, and love of holiness because it is necessary as an evidence of being in a state of justification. I appealed to the omniscience of God for my sincerity, whether my heart was renewed or not. In short I spent an hour as it were in immediate personal conversation with God, and I think I gained strength and encouragement.

August 7.-I have met with divers occasions of special gratitude to God today, but I fear their effect has been to minister to my pride. Any little attentions from those around me which indicate that I am held in favorable estimation among them light up in my bosom an unhallowed flame which hours of chastisement and sorrow cannot quench.

August 11.-Had more evidence today that I am backsliding, and made some struggles against the current. I intend to maintain this struggle till holiness shall become the element of my rational existence; and if I cannot hold a place near enough to Jesus to enable me to rejoice in the Lord, I desire I may have grace to plod on my way fighting and mourning.

August 14.-Nothing interesting in my feelings in the forenoon. I was entirely dissatisfied and disgusted with the worldly state of my soul. It is my misery to be able to conceive distinctly how a warm-hearted Christian, how Christ himself would act in my situation, and yet to find myself morally impotent in regard to attaining that ideal standard. Oh, how wretched is an unprayerful frame of mind joined with

a wakeful conscience! 0 Lord, if thou canst not draw, drive me to Thyself.

August 15.-A sore remembrance of our conversation last night [i.e., a heated discussion with one of the students] remained upon my mind this morning. I fought the battle over again, and saw with mortification how Satan had obtained an advantage over me at every turn. The consequence was humility, or its counterfeit, wounded pride; for I cannot answer for the genuineness of any of the exercises of my heart. I looked back with shame, and forward with gloom. I seemed to be shut up to the Christian path, for in every other direction hell yawns to devour; and yet I groaned at the thought of staggering along in the way I have done, and have the prospect of doing all my life.

August 16.-I was inclined to melancholy today, and my feelings sometimes assumed the posture of positive dissatisfaction with myself and all around me. If charity for the faults of Christians grows with growth in grace, I am backsliding. I cannot help wondering and grieving at the worldliness and pride and unholy ambition, which I see every hour in my brethren. I find too I grow eagle-eyed about such things-a bad sign I fear; so says Brother Nichols, so says President Edwards. I wonder what would become of me, if God were as uncharitable and impatient as I am. I must surely crucify this sin.

August 19, Sabbath.-In the afternoon I tried to repent and humble myself before God, but found again that without help from heaven I am impotent. I thought at one time I had given up everything, and

was willing to live only for God. But when I looked once more at my great pattern, and asked myself what he would do in my situation, I found I had not given up all. Though I might be willing to forego a thousand pleasures, to give up father and mother and brother and sister, to deny myself and crucify my lusts, to fast and pray and study even to the extent of human ability, yet I found myself shrinking back from undertaking that ceaseless activity of benevolence here on the spot, which I knew Christ would exhibit. I can vie with monks in passive piety, but to be an active Christian is another thing.

August 22.-Had a quarrel with myself this morning about an old affair of my imprudence and sin, which came tip to my mind in all its freshness and force. I found a proud, angry, self-justifying spirit drawn out by the mere operation of memory and imagination to a most alarming extent. The wickedness and hypocrisy and selfishness also of the motives which govern me in my best actions were set before me in frightful array. I sweat also several times in the course of the day at the remembrance of certain guilty passages in the history of my youth. If God should punish and humble me by divulging them to the world, my cup would be a bitter one indeed. But they will be disclosed to an assembled universe. 0 Savior of sinners! Canst thou stay the glittering sword of justice? Thou hast found a ransom -

Notwithstanding his seeming impotence in the struggle against sin, John is by no means a fatalist. He has clearly in mind the fact that, since God freely

offers his help to all, salvation can and must be won by individual initiative and effort. "There is nothing in my circumstances," be writes, "nor in the limitation of the grace of God, that would prevent my becoming as holy and devoted a man as St. Paul." Nor does he believe that salvation depends upon ability to grapple with psychological difficulties that are beyond the ken of the ordinary intellect. On the contrary he says "I cannot believe that the path, which God has declared is so plain that a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein, is beset on every hand with metaphysical traps and snares. I believe his grace is free, abundant, and accessible and self-deception is but insincerity or carelessness, not a calamity resulting from the mystery of God's grace." With these views John cannot give way to discouragement, nor relax his efforts. Though beaten down and almost destroyed time after time in his battle against sin, he nevertheless struggles again to his feet, and renews the fight.

In consequence of his missionary pledge John came into connection with a select society at Andover called "The Brethren," which was composed of students who had pledged themselves to go on foreign missions. One of the exercises of this society was that each member in turn should listen silently while the other members told him plainly his faults with a view to helping him improve. John submitted to this ordinance, and found it so helpful that he later introduced it in the Oneida Community. There under the name of "mutual criticism" the practice was greatly expanded and became one of the principal means of government.

As to the regular studies in the Andover Seminary,

the chief was biblical exegesis under Professor Moses Stuart, who was then regarded as the foremost exegetical teacher in America. As we shall see later, Professor Stuart's interpretation of two disputed passages of Scripture had a marked influence in determining John's theological opinions.

But the principal benefit which John derived while at Andover was from studying the Bible without note or commentary, according to a method of his own. His method was to select some trait in the character of Christ, or some spiritual truth, and with this in mind read the four gospels through at a sitting noting down every passage which bore on the subject. He would then read over his notes, reflect upon them, and endeavor to obtain a clear and comprehensive view of the trait or truth selected for study. In this manner he went through the four gospels almost daily for months. Then he applied the same method to the epistles. By this means he acquired an astonishing familiarity with the New Testament. If almost any passage were read, he could give the chapter and verse; or if chapter and verse were given, he could recite the passage.

As the school year drew toward its close, John was much troubled over the question whether to finish his theological course at Andover, or go to New Haven. The first year at Andover was regarded as superior, while the doctrinal studies later were not considered equal to those given at New Haven under Dr. Taylor. Moreover the want of spirituality at Andover was in John's mind a powerful reason for making the change. On the other side of the account were the matters of

expense, the sacrificing of established connections, and the conservative solidity of the course at the older seminary. John balanced the pros and cons of this question for days without being able to arrive at any conclusion. At last in his perplexity, while praying for guidance, it occurred to him to try opening the Bible. Without much expectation of help he opened the book at random, and the first passage that met his eyes was Matthew 28:5-6: "Fear not ye; for I know that ye seek Jesus which was crucified. He is not here." The coincidence between this passage and the facts as he had observed them broke the deadlock of his motives and he determined to go to New Haven.

At the end of August 1832 John entered the middle class of the Yale Theological Seminary at New Haven, Connecticut. Here the general tone of his experience underwent another marked change, for whereas at Andover he was mainly occupied with subjective exercises, at New Haven we find him plunging with great ardor into objective Christian work.

One enterprise, to which in his new ambition he devoted himself, was the cause of antislavery. He immediately became much engaged in religious work among the negroes of New Haven and in the winter of 1832-3 he joined with "Hardware Dwight" and a number of other radicals in founding the New Haven Antislavery Society, one of the first antislavery societies to be formed in America.

Another enterprise which called out his enthusiasm was the organization of the New Haven Free Church. One result of the revival fervor throughout the country was the formation of so-called "free churches," in which the more zealous members of all the regular denominations gathered. The free churches were frankly devoted to revivals, and made use of measures which were startling and repugnant to "dead orthodoxy." There was the nucleus of a free church

at New Haven, and John with his revival zeal soon came into connection with it When he first joined. there were less than a dozen members only one of whom had any property or weight of character, and no regular pastor was employed. As time went on the membership increased and the leaders began to look around for a successful revivalist whom they could put in charge of the work. During the winter vacation of 1832-3 John had become acquainted with James Boyle, a powerful preacher who was then conducting a revival in Brattleboro; and when the question of engaging a pastor for the Free Church came up, John urgently. recommended Mr. Boyle. Accordingly the position was offered to him, and was accepted. Boyle came to New Haven and assumed his duties as pastor in March 1833.

In the summer of 1833 John experienced a great increase of faith in prayer. In consequence of this he came perilously near trouble with the college authorities. One of his felIow-students, who was not very friendly to him or his views, asked him one day, what he thought of the prayers which President Day offered in chapel every night and morning. John replied, that in his opinion they were "very good moral discourses-edifying religious talk-but no prayers at all.'' The remark was reported to the faculty, and John received an admonitory call from Tutor Day, a nephew of the President. He admitted that the remark was indiscreet, and the matter was dropped.

In August 1833 John's class received their licenses to preach. In the course of the examinations John was drawn into two warm controversies with his pro-

fessors; one with Dr. Bacon on faith in prayer, and the other with Dr. Taylor on the double sense of Scripture. Notwithstanding his heretical tendencies he received his license with the rest of the class.

It was customary among theological students to spend considerable time during the last year of their course "candidating," as it was called: acquiring experience of actual church work by performing the duties of pastor in congregations where a regular pastor was lacking. Accordingly for nine weeks after his final examinations John officiated as pastor of a church at North Salem, New York, a small village about eighteen miles east of Peekskill. The following extracts from his diary give a glimpse of this episode in his career:

Aug. 18.-In the evening I preached a written sermon, and resolved never to do so again unless by absolute necessity. A dozen times in the course of my sermon I was ready to lay aside my notes, and throw my soul into my mouth; hut I plodded through, and closed with an extemporaneous appeal which was worth more to me than all the rest.

Aug. 25, Sabbath.-In the forenoon went to the meeting-house at the usual hour for meeting, and found nobody there. I waited more than half an hour, and at last a little handful collected. I was wickedly discouraged. Preached on the law. It was hard work. The service dragged, and I was ready to give up in despair.

In the afternoon a larger assembly collected, and I went about my work with more heart and humility.

Preached on justification by faith, and found my mouth full. I blundered some, but on the whole was greatly encouraged to hope that I shall yet be enabled to speak boldly and prevailingly for God.

In the evening preached on the difference between the righteous and the wicked, and again was abundantly encouraged. The audience was respectable, and my heart was enlarged. I am sure I gave the church a faithful exhortation, and it was to me a solemn and delightful meeting. I returned to my room and to my bed much fatigued, but far less so than I expected, and withal happy.

For the first time today I have performed the Sabbath duties of a minister. It is wonderful to think how God has strengthened me. A year ago my nerves were so sensitive, and my voice so weak, that an evening meeting would spoil me for the succeeding day, and I had no expectation of ever being strong enough to preach extemporaneously three times in a day. Now it actually does me good to preach. My nerves are quiet, my voice grows strong by exercise, and I felt better today when I had finished than when I began. Bless the Lord, 0 my soul!

Aug. 27.-After breakfast this morning Mr. Lockwood came to my room, and gave me another lecture about Taylorism. He says, there were some things in my sermon Sunday afternoon, which he feels himself bound as an elder of the church to reprobate. I was a long time puzzled to think, what there could be in my discourse that he could deem heretical. At last by his help I found out, that he disliked my comparing the sinner's condition to that of a drunkard. In il-

lustrating the idea that faith in Christ implies the giving up of all sin I had taken the case of a drunkard who concludes to give up his cups; but knowing that his bare resolution will never secure him, he makes another man his guardian, puts his property into his hands, and commits himself wholly to his disposal and his guardian covenants to deliver him from his ruinous habit. Thus he virtually in the first act of abandonment gives up the whole habit, because the covenant he then makes covers the whole ground. So the sinner in putting himself whollv in the hands of God virtually gives up all sin. because the covenant he makes with God covers the whole ground, and will certainly secure him from the power of sin. Mr. Lockwood thought this a poor foundation for the perseverance of the saints. We had a very warm discussion, or dispute it might be called, although I told him before we began, I thought a dispute in any case worse than nothing. I suspect he is almost sorry he sent for me to come here and preach. He is much afraid of the Presbytery, and I think myself from what I can learn, that there is reason to expect difficulty. I am in the midst of a domineering set of ministers. I had no idea before, that this land of liberty was cursed with such spiritual domination. Well, I must keep cool and quiet, and move straight forward as long as Satan will let me, and then I must flee to some other city. But God forbid, that I should forbear to declare his whole counsel for the fear of man. The servant of the Lord must not strive, and yet he must preach the gospel of God boldly and "with much contention."

Sept. 3.-Spent the morning in studying ''the mind of Christ," and was permitted to see more of his glory than I have ever seen before. I walked out over the hills, and in the solitude of the forest under the canopy of heaven poured out my soul unto God, and wept for joy. My peace was as a river. I could only exclaim: "Oh, what a glorious Christ is mine!"

Sept. 29, Sabbath.-Was wonderfully pressed in the spirit this morning The word of the Lord was as a fire shut up in my bones, and I longed to speak to sinners. I knew somebody was praying for me. I preached in the forenoon with great enlargement on the case of the amiable young man. After meeting Mrs. T-- walked home with me, and I tried with all my might to bring her to submission. We prayed together. She seemed willing to give up all, and I hope did so; but the Lord only knows. In the afternoon I preached from the text: "How can we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" After service I talked again with Mrs. T--, and with a Miss H--, who seemed to be serious. They both promised they would seek salvation. Also I had a conversation with one of Mrs. B--'s daughters. In the evening I preached from the text: "How long halt ye?" and was greatly assisted. The audience was larger than usual, and very solemn. After the discourse I called upon those who were determined to a decision to arise. One young man arose, but I had no Opportunity of conversation with him. This has been a glorious day. God has seemed to give me a token of his coming. I can hardly realize that he has already awakened some by my instrumentality. The

way of the Lord is prepared in some measure in the hearts of his people. Christians are praying, and sinners will soon lie weeping.

Oct. 14.-Spent the forenoon in making farewell visits; melancholy but pleasant business. I found myself more interested in the people than I expected, or was aware of; and on a review of my sojourn I have great reason to bless God for sending me here. I hope my labors have not been in vain to others. I know they have not been to myself. I have learned more about the Bible and about human nature during the past nine weeks than during all my theological course.

While John was at North Salem, his sister Joanna came on from Putney bringing the tidings that Mary, Horatio and George had all become Christians. Joanna was on her way to Glens Falls, New York, to visit Elizabeth, who resided there with her husband, Dr. Ransom; and she persuaded John to accompany her, wedging the trip in between two Sabbaths, so as to interfere as little as possible with his pastoral work.

On the way from Albany to Schenectady they saw with great astonishment one of the newly-invented steam locomotives driving past them "at the furious rate of fifteen to twenty miles per hour."

In this visit to Glens Falls we catch a glimpse of John through his sister Joanna's eyes. His earnest efforts to convert the members of the family and his single-eyed, unsparing devotion to the cause of Christ drew from her a few days later a letter expostulating with him for "too great strenuousness"; and in a letter

home she says: "John thinks we are very worldly. He is certainly a remarkable person. I never knew anyone so self-denying, so divested of any worldly feeling."

On his return to New Haven in October John plunged again into the activities of the Free Church and of the Theological Seminary. He says in his Confession of Religous Experience:

During the autumn of 1833 my spirit rapidly increased in strength. By constant fellowship and conversation with Boyle, Dutton (a disciple of the famous revivalist Horatio Foot) and other zealous young men of the "new measure" school who had recently joined the Seminary, by reading such books as The Life of J. B. Taylor and Wesley's Christian Perfection, as well as by much study of the Bible and fervent prayer, my heart was kept in steady and accelerating progression toward holiness.

Soon after my return from North Salem I had occasion with the rest of my class to make a skeleton of a sermon for examination by Dr. Fitch on a text given out by him, viz., Phil. 3:13, 14: "Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." The passage harmonized well with the state of my mind, and in studying it I received a new baptism of zeal. The train of thought sketched in the skeleton which I handed in was summed up at the end in these words: Paul sought a perfect object, by perfect means, with perfect energy. The Doctor smiled at the repetition of the word perfect, but made no objection.

Boyle in the course of his preaching frequently threw out the idea that persecution is the test of faithfulness. This was a favorite maxim of the "new measure" school. I embraced it cordially, and promulgated it as far as possible among the students of the Seminary. It met with much opposition. I read a long article on the subject before the Society of the Seminary, in which I adduced the whole testimony of the Bible to the truth that "they who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." The excitement on the subject ran so high, that a debate was appointed, and Dr. Taylor was called in to give his opinion. After much discussion he decided the question in the negative, alleging the experience of the best ministers in Connecticut as illustrations of his position, that in this country persecution does not always follow faithfulness. In the course of this controversy I settled in my heart a principle which abides with me to this day, viz., that I will never expect or desire to be treated in this world better than Jesus Christ and his gospel are treated.

During the whole fall and winter the Seminary was constantly agitated by discussions private and public on subjects similar to those above noticed. Dr. Taylor was usually called in as arbitrator, and usually took sides with the conservatives. I acknowledge, however, to his credit, that he laid no obstacles in the way of free discussion, and that he exhorted us to "follow the truth, though it should cut our heads off." Dutton stood by me faithfully through the whole warfare. Indeed he was the only man with whom I had full sympathy at that time.

Meanwhile Boyle was laboring with all his might to bring the members of the Free Church under conviction. A revival that promised to shake the whole city had commenced. The first convert was a young man by the name of Merwin. At one of the meetings he was convicted. Dutton, in the bold way which he had learned in his service with the revivalist, Horatio Foot, immediately commenced an open conversation with him, and insisted before the whole assembly that he should immediately submit to God. Much excitement prevailed in the congregation. The young man hesitated long. But Dutton persevered, and by dint of cool reasoning on the one hand and warm praying on the other he at last conquered. Merwin broke down and professed submission on the spot. Thenceforward the revival steadily advanced. The Saturday evening meetings were crowded, and every meeting was crowned with conversions. Boyle gave charge of those meetings to Dutton and myself. Our method of proceeding was this: I preached the regular discourse; Dutton followed with an exhortation and at the close of the meeting those who were desirous of conversation were invited to remain. A dozen or more would usually stay, and it was rare that any of them went away at last without professing conversion. I held several other weekly meetings in different parts of the city at the same time and with similar results. My heart was much engaged in these labors. . .

By systematic temperance, fasting, exercise and prayer I had overcome the bodily infirmities which troubled me at Andover. I was no longer tormented

with inordinate alimentiveness and other temptations to sensuality. I had conquered my nervous system, which for a long time after my conversion had been morbidly excitable. I could now study intensely twelve or even sixteen hours in a day without injury. Preaching, which once would shake and disorder my nerves, had become a delight and refreshment to me. I was constantly cheerful and often very happy. My chief delight, next to that of communing with Christ through the Scriptures, was in prayer. I was in the habit of spending not less than three hours in my closet daily. In those seasons I could truly say that I entered "into the secret place of the Most High, and abode under the shadow of the Almighty." The spirit of love blotted out my transgressions, wiped away my tears, and filled me with unutterable bliss. Many times and for days together my heart was so burdened with spiritual joy, that my body became weak and pined away. I record these facts not in the spirit of boasting, but rather that I may show how much religion I had to give up, when subsequently "judgment was laid to the line, and righteousness to the plummet."

It is related that soon after his conversion, while discussing a question of theology with his father, Noyes advanced a view that was at variance with the accepted doctrine. "Take care," said his father. "That is heresy. If you get out of the traces, the ministers will whip you in." "Never!" said Noyes. "Never will I be compelled by ministers or any one else to accept any doctrine that does not commend itself to my mind and conscience."

It is indeed unthinkable, that Noyes with his fiery zeal and independence of mind should for long continue within the rock-bound limits of the traditional creeds. We saw in the last chapter how nearly he came to a serious collision with a "set of domineering ministers" at North Salem. We have now to trace the course by which, starting in full sympathy with the church, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, he gradually passed beyond the boundaries of orthodox belief, and finally found himself completely without the pale.

In his Confession of Religious Experience Noyes says:

"I first advanced into actual heresy in the early part of the summer of 1833, while still a student in the New Haven Seminary. In the course of my Bible

studies my attention was arrested by Christ's expression in John 21 :22: 'If I will that he [John] tarry till I come, what is that to thee?' This seemed to imply that Jesus expected his disciple John to live until his second coming, and the disciples so construed it. The church on the contrary taught that Christ's second coming was still far in the future. I had long been growing in the belief that the Bible was not a hook of inexplicable riddles, and I determined to solve this mystery. Accordingly I read the New Testament through ten times with my eye on the question as to the time of Christ's second coming, and my heart struggling in prayer for full access to the truth. I soon perceived that every allusion to the second coming in which there was a clue as to its time pointed in the same direction; and when my investigation was ended, my mind was clear: I no longer conjectured, I knew that the time appointed for the second coming of Christ was within one generation from the time of his personal ministry."

Noyes's theory of the second coming was the key to his theology and consequently a most powerful factor in shaping his career. Since his exposition of the subject is contained not in a single book but in a large number of articles and talks scattered through forty years of his life, it is impossible to bring together direct quotations which will give a concise, connected account of the subject in its various aspects. The editor has therefore attempted in the following statement partly in his own words and partly in Noyes's to present the theory as nearly as possible in the form it finally took in Noyes's mind:

To prevent misunderstanding it should here be shown exactly what is meant by the second coming of Christ. A miniature of the transaction comprised in the first and second comings may be seen in the parable of the nobleman's return: "A certain nobleman went into a far country, to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds. and said unto them, Occupy till I come. But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us. And it came to pass, that when he was returned, having received thc kingdom, then he commanded these servants to be called unto him [and he reckoned with them, rewarding them according to their several merits, and then said :] But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them. bring hither and slay them before me." Luke 19:12-27.

We learn from this parable that Christ came, departed, and returned. We learn also that at his first coming he was comparatively powerless: that in the interval between his departure and his return he had received from his Father great power and authority: and that his second Coming was attended by the judgment, reward, and punishment of those who had witnessed his humble ministry and cruel death while on earth.

A more particular account of the second coming is contained in the twenty-fourth chapter of St. Matthew. In answer to his disciples' question, What shall he the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world, Jesus described the unparalleled tribulations soon to

be visited on the Jewish race culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem. Then he said: "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."

Because of the form of the disciples' question in the English translation some have assumed, that the second coming was to be identified with the end of the physical world. But the Greek words translated "end of the world" mean only end of the age; and that Christ used them in this sense is evident from his reference in this same discourse to events that were to take place on earth long after his second Coming.

Again, because of the fact that the second Coming was manifestly associated in these passages with a day of judgment, many have supposed that the second coming would not take place until the final and general judgment of mankind. But an attentive study of the Bible leads to the conclusion, that the judgment of mankind instead of being a single transaction, as popularly supposed, is divided into two acts occupying two distinct periods of time. When Christ says that Jerusalem after its destruction "shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be

fulfilled," he implies that the judgment of the Gentiles will be distinct from and long after the judgment of the Jews. The same fact is brought out clearly by John in the vision of the seals and trumpets. In this vision, when the sixth seal is opened, Christ appears on the throne of judgment amid signs in heaven and earth, and men hide themselves from his face, saying, The great day of his wrath is come. This is evidently the first judgment. Afterward the seventh seal is opened, introducing a long series of events attending the successive sounding of seven trumpets. At length, when the seventh trumpet sounds, Christ is proclaimed sovereign of the earth, and the stage is set for a second and final judgment.

The propriety of two judgments becomes apparent, when we consider the general plan of redemption as laid down in the Bible. As God divides mankind into two great families-the Jews and the Gentiles-so he has appointed a separate judgment for each. The harvest of the Jews came first, because they were ripened first. God separated them from the rest of the nations, and for two thousand years poured upon them the sunshine and rain of religious discipline. When Christ came, he said that the fields were "white to the harvest." By the preaching of Christ and his apostles the preparation for judgment was completed, and at the destruction of Jerusalem the Jews as a nation were judged. Then the process of special religious discipline passed from the Jews to the Gentiles. For nearly two thousand years the Gentile crop has been maturing, and we may reasonably look for the Gentile harvest as near.

Thus it will be seen, that by the second coming of Christ is meant his coming with authority and power to reckon with, reward and punish those to whom he delivered the gospel at his first coming; the day of judgement for the apostolic church and the Jewish nation, not the final and general judgment; the end of the age or cycle which commenced with Moses, not the end of the physical world.

Christ in his various discourses explicitly limited the time of his second coming by five different but equivalent statements:

1. He placed it "immediately after" the unparalleled tribulations of the Jewish people leading up to and culminating in the destruction of their holy city and the extinction of their national existence.

2. He said that his disciples would not have gone over the cities of Israel in their mission of preaching the gospel before the Son of man would come.

3. He expressly stated that his return would take place within the lifetime of the generation then living on the earth.

4. He declared that some of those to whom he spoke would live to see the event.

5. He plainly intimated in the passage quoted above that John would be one of those who would survive until he came.

The apostles in their writings give abundant evidence that they understood these sayings of Christ in their literal and obvious sense. They exhort the churches to look and wait for the coming of Christ in language which would sound strange in the mouths of ministers today. They constantly speak of the

event as near at hand. Paul plainly assumes, that he and some of those to whom lie writes will be alive on earth when Christ returns. Both church and secular historians are fully aware of this belief on the part of the apostles, and have noted the fact that the amazing growth of the church (luring the forty years following the crucifixion was partly due to the universal expectation among the primitive believers that the return of Christ for judgment, vengeance and reward was soon to take place.

In addition to the five explicit time-limitations quoted above Christ predicted three events within the church, which were to serve as signs of the near approach of his coming, namely, the preaching of the gospel throughout the world, the appearance of false Christs, and a great falling away among his followers. The fulfillment of these predictions is recorded in the New Testament itself, as will be seen by placing predictions and fulfillments in parallel columns thus:

canic eruptions, and crop failures resulting in famine.* And the most notable sign of all, the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans under Titus in the year 70 A. D., is as well authenticated as any fact in history. This event with its attendant circumstances was to the Jews a calamity horrible, stupendous, inconceivable. In all of its physical aspects, at any rate, it was a veritable national judgment. Jews by the hundred thousand, the flower of the race, who had come to Jerusalem from all over the world to attend the Passover feast, were caught in the Roman net and destroyed. Eleven hundred thousand, including all the aged and infirm, perished by sword and famine during the siege. Ninety-seven thousand able-bodied men were carried to Rome or sent as presents to the provinces, to be killed by gladiators and wild beasts in the games of the circus. All the children under seventeen were despatched as slaves to the Egyptian mines. The city and temple were utterly demolished. The daily sacrifice, which symbolized the Jewish religion and which, they believed, had been almost uninterruptedly maintained since the time of Moses, was forcibly and hopelessly broken up. The national and territorial rights of the Jews, which even their Babylonian and Persian conquerors had to some extent recognized, were completely and finally taken away.

But despite the fulfillment of the predicted signs it might still be objected, that history bears no direct

testimony to the occurrence of the second coming itself. This leads to the inquiry, what according to Christ's description was to be the nature of the event. The answer is, it was to be secret "like a thief in the night" ; omnipresent like the lightning; not with outward show, since the kingdom of heaven was within. In a word the second coming was to be, like the first coming, of a nature to confound and disappoint the expectations of worldly wisdom. There was to be an outward and visible index of portentous events, but the principal manifestation was to be in the invisible world, whither a large majority of the subjects of the Jewish dispensation had already departed.

Although history bears no direct testimony to the occurrence of Christ's second coming at the end of the Jewish dispensation, there are nevertheless a number of circumstances which might be regarded as indirect confirmations of the foregoing theory. Among these the following are deserving of mention:

I. The destruction of Jerusalem marks the beginning of a strange hiatus in the records of the Christian church -- a "historical chasm of sixty or eighty years" Heudekoper calls it. Where before we walk in the glare of authentic letters and narratives in abundance, immediately after we grope and stumble in a historic night. Luke for some unaccountable reason closes his narrative of the The Acts, leaving us in doubt as to the fate of Paul. Paul himself, inde-

* See also the preface to the 1887 edition of The Parousia (London) by J. Stuart Russel1, who advocates with great fullness of detail the preterist view of the second coming.-G. W. N.

fatigable publicist as he always was, writes no more letters, and sends no more messengers to the churches under his care. Mark throws aside his pen in the middle of an unfinished sentence, abandoning his gospel to be finished by an unknown hand. We have no certain information regarding the death of any of the apostles save the few who perished years before the critical period. Just as the darkness closes in, what Renan calls "the lightning-flash of the Apocalypse" for a moment illumines the scene. It is a warning message to the church that the coming of Christ is at the door. Then the curtain falls, and for seventy years almost the only authentic evidence of the existence of the church is the letter of Pliny to the emperor Trajan, which, as F. W. Frankland says, bears "oblique but eloquent witness in its account of the strength of Bithynian Christianity to the impression produced by great events in the recent Past."

2. When at length the church again emerges into view, its character is totally changed. In place of the substantial unity of the apostolic church we find a main body represented by the so-called apostolic fathers, opposed on the one side by the Ebionites and on the other by the Gnostics. The early simplicity is already giving way to the ritual and organization of the Church of Rome. On examining the writings of these various sects we find what Reuss cal1s an "immense retrogression" from the views of the apostles. Puerility is the outstanding characteristic of all.

To the apostolic fathers salvation has become a mere matter of wages and mechanical arrangement. Prayer, fasting, alms-giving are efficacious to cancel an equiv-

alent amount of sins. No difference is felt as to moral value between the law and the gospel. Heresy-limiting has become the chief intellectual concern. Extravagant claims of miraculous power are equaled only by the credulity with which they are received. The seeds of monasticism and saint-worship are plainly to be seen.

The Ebionites were a Judaizing sect. Because Paul broke loose from Judaism and adapted Christianity to world-wide needs, they rejected him as an impostor. They adhered to the entire Mosaic law, including circumcision, and observed both the Christian and the Jewish Sabbath. They circulated fantastic tales about a revelation given in the year 100 A. D. to a certain Elchasai by Jesus Christ in the person of an angel ninety-six miles high, accompanied by the Holy Ghost in the person of a female angel of the same stature.

The Gnostics were a sect of mystery-mongers. They relied for salvation on the observance of mystic rites, and the knowledge of mystic names, numbers, and formulas. They believed that the soul in its flight to heaven was opposed by a legion of demons, and in order to make a safe passage must know the name of each diabolical assailant and be provided with the requisite sacred formula to render him harmless.

No one of these sub-apostolic writers had any sure information regarding the last days of the apostles. Expectation of an imminent second coming of Christ, which was so rife in the Primitive Church, had wholly passed away.

3. The closing events of the apostolic age and the world movements of history which followed were singularly suggestive of the authority and power which

prophecy had assigned to Christ at his second coming. The Jewish people, who had rejected and crucified him, driven from their native land and scattered among all nations in accordance with his prediction, remain to this day a monument of miscarried national hopes. Jerusalem, the scene of his humiliation and death, after being destroyed by the Romans was rebuilt only to be ground under the heel of Gentile oppressors for two thousand years. The Roman Empire, whose provincial governor delivered him to his accusers and whose soldiers executed their brutal sentence, was at length dashed in pieces. It was the last of the world-empires described by Daniel in his interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, and was succeeded in accordance with Daniel's prophecy by a group of balanced and divided political powers. The Gentiles, previously from the Jewish point of view without the pale, were admitted to an equal share in the salvation brought by Christ, and in the new cycle, which commenced with the destruction of Jerusalem, became the chief subjects of religious discipline. The Christian religion swept with incredible swiftness to its complete triumph over Judaism and Paganism in the Greco-Roman world. The tiny record of Christ's life and teachings, written not by Christ but by his disciples, preserved through centuries of pagan hostility and barbarian vandalism, was at last printed, translated into every tongue, and circulated more widely than any other book. The Christian nations with resistless tread advanced to sovereignty over all the earth. If Christ had then begun literally to "rule the nations with a rod of iron," events could hardly have turned more in accordance with the prophe-

cies of the Bible and the interests of his own kingdom.

In the foregoing review we have followed the stream of historically recognized events as it approached and passed through the predicted "end of the age" and finally merged with the events of the succeeding age. So far as these visible events are concerned the prescience of Christ in his eschatological utterances is minutely established. In regard to the invisible events, which were equally the subjects of his predictions, we can only say that the fulfillment of his predictions in the things that were seen creates a presumption, that his predictions were fulfilled in the things that were not seen; and those who have learned on other grounds to take Christ fully at his word may reasonably believe in a second stream of events parallel to the first, but beyond the verge of visibility. They will see in imagination a Judgment Assize set up in the invisible world immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem; punishments and rewards meted out to all the subjects of the Jewish dispensation; immortality of a vivid and dominant type attained by the faithful followers of Christ; and the emergence of the spiritual organization of which Christ was head as thenceforth the paramount factor in human affairs.

Noyes was one of those who took Christ fully at his word, and the second coming of Christ in its visible and invisible aspects was to him a potent reality. He measured the greatness of the event thus: "As the body is to the soul, so was the awful overthrow of Jerusalem to the second coming of Christ. The slaughter of eleven hundred thousand Jews was the visible and inferior

index of that spiritual judgment, in which 'the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man hid themselves in the dens and rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb for the great day of his wrath is come.'

The most important consequences of this theory may be stated thus

I. It reestablishes the credit of Christianity by reestablishing the credit of Christ and his apostles on a crucial point of their teaching. The idea that Christ and his apostles were mistaken in regard to the time of the second coming has been felt in all ages as a serious difficulty for the Christian religion and now that the "mistake" has been magnified to nearly two thousand years the difficulty has become well-nigh insuperable. How vulnerable Christianity is on this point, and how alive to their advantage hostile critics are, may be judged from the following extract from an article by Alexander Brown in the London Contemporary Review for March 1911:

"At present the storm-center is the seemingly insignificant matter of the apocalyptic teaching of the Master. The accusation is made in the bluntest terms, that He uttered predictions concerning Himself, which time has shown to be false, proving that He misconceived His own importance and misread the future of His cause. This is meant to carry the implication, that one so visibly deceived cannot be trusted in anything else that He taught. This accusation of failure and

falsity has been persistently made, and buttressed with much learning during the last ten years."

The common view of the second coming, it must be confessed, leaves Christianity helpless against such attacks. The above theory, if true, is a complete defense.

2. This view removes the foundations of a great variety of false and harmful speculations in regard to the second coming, such as the following:

(a) The belief of William Miller, of the Adventists, and of numberless others throughout the Christian centuries, that the second coming was, or is about to take place.

(b) The belief of many, like Swedenborg and Ann Lee, that the second coming has recently taken place in their own persons.

(c) The belief of the Universalists that, since the judgment most frequently alluded to in the Bible was to take place within the lifetime of the apostles and evidently referred to the judgment of the Jews in connection with the destruction of Jerusalem, no further judgment of mankind need now be expected.

3. This view reduces the authority of the early Christian fathers to an amount commensurate with their actual merits. According to the accepted view the early Christian fathers, since they lived so much nearer than we to the time of Christ, must have been correspondingly more Christ-like than we; hence in the orthodox churches Clement, Ignatius, Papias, Barnabas were regarded as nearly if not quite equal in authority to Peter, James, John, Paul. And yet nothing is more manifest to a student of history than the fact, that the Christian church in passing from the first to the second cen-

tury underwent a sudden and vast declension of quality. With this undoubted fact the foregoing theory of the second Coming exactly agrees. According to that theory the apostolic church, which attained the highest standard of character the world has ever seen, passed at the second coming into the invisible world; and the church immediately succeeding, being composed chiefly of newly-converted pagans and barbarians and lacking the genuinely spiritual nucleus which at the second coming was withdrawn from the visible world, instead of being more advanced than the church of the present day must of necessity have been far less advanced. To one who accepts that theory, therefore, the early Christian fathers with their crude ideas of morality and religion are examples not of an exalted spiritual state which we ought to strive for, but rather of a childish state which we have outgrown.

4. This view of the second coming invalidates all claims to ecclesiastical authority that are based on the assumption of historic continuity with the apostles. The thread of historic continuity, instead of connecting with the apostles, connects either with the unfaithful few* who at the second coming were rejected, or with the mass of immature believers who could not in any sense be looked upon as vested with apostolic authority. The only credential that can substantiate a claim of

* Noyes did not deny that there have been many true representatives of Christ in the world since the second coming. But he believed that, like the "two witnesses" described in Revelation, they have been "clothed in sackcloth," not in priestly robes. He looked for the "remnant of the seed" of the apostolic church not among those who claimed authority inherited from the apostles, but among the heretics whom they persecuted.-G. W. N.

apostolic authority is present communication with Christ.

5. This view of the second coming gives a reason-able answer to the many attacks on Christianity which are based on the failure of the visible Christian church fully to embody Christian principles. First, the apostolic church, which alone exhibits the mature fruit of Christianity, fully embodied the principles of Christ during its career on earth, and has fully embodied those principles since its transfer to the spiritual world. Secondly, Christianity as we see it today is not an uninterrupted development of the Christianity that existed at the end of the apostolic age. On account of the withdrawal of the spiritual part of the apostolic church at the second coming and the assimilation of uncounted multitudes of pagans and barbarians during the two centuries immediately following, the Christianity of the third century A. D. represented a stage of civilization in many respects as low as that of the Jews in the time of Moses. It is to this low beginning that the development since must be added in reckoning the present position of the visible Christian church. And if the proportion of altruistic individuals among the Christian nations today is approximately as great as it was in the Jewish world in 70 A. D., which probably few will deny, Christianity must be pronounced an unequivocal success.

6. This view of the second coming brings into harmony the biblical and the evolutionary conceptions of religious history. The orthodox churches believed that religious privileges and experience had remained on the same general level since the time of Moses. Christians

confessed sin the same as non-Christians; and Christians of the nineteenth century the same as Christians of the third century, or Jews of the twelfth century B.C. All, however, were devoutly hoping for a religious consummation to be suddenly manifested at some distant future date. This is the static conception of religious history. The foregoing theory, on the other hand, marks off religious history into cycles of definite aim and accomplishment. The second coming marked the end of a cycle which commenced with Moses. Its aim was the religious discipline of the Jews, and its consummation was the apostolic church, which, as will be shown in the next chapter, for the first time in human history attained the experience of complete freedom from sin Then a new cycle commenced, the aim of which was the religious discipline of the Gentiles. For nineteen hundred years the Gentiles have been toiling upward toward a consummation which Noyes believed to be close at hand. This is the dynamic or evolutionary conception of religious history. According to this view the religious experience of mankind, instead of being a static condition with a sudden cataclysmic dénouement, is a progressive evolution in harmony with the principle which governs all other known processes of life.

7. Finally, this view of the second coming rivets the attention of Christians to the apostolic church as the perfect pattern both in teaching and experience. As that church was the consummation of the Jewish era, the discerning Christian will see in it the consummation toward which the present era is progressing. And the Christian churches that have occupied the visible field

since the second coming he will see in their true perspective, starting from a low beginning and advancing through the centuries to a point not yet as high as that of the apostolic church in 70 A. D. For instruction and example therefore he will look over the heads of Revivalist, Calvinist, Reformer, Pope, Apologist, and Christian Father, and fix his eye on Christ and the apostles; and so far as his faith is able to apprehend the apostolic church as a still existent spiritual organization, as the united triumphant church which Christ prayed for and predicted and which has always been the ideal of Christendom, so far will be able to draw on the stores of sympathetic help which flow from a sense of personal companionship and leadership in the battle of life.

Whatever may have been the objective truth or falsity of this theory of the second coming, its subjective effect was tremendous. It is difficult for us of the twentieth century to put ourselves back into the state of mind and feeling of the New England church of 1833. To Noyes, just completing his theological course at New Haven and thus far in full sympathy with the church, how revolutionary these conclusions seemed! What boundless possibilities of doctrinal reform opened before him! With what a consciousness of power did he attack the problems of the Bible! No wonder that he instinctively felt, and wrote to his friends, that he had entered upon a course of discovery which would probably end in his expulsion from the church.

Noyes with his intensely practical turn of mind soon perceived in his new theory of the second coming an important bearing on the problem which ever since his conversion had engaged his thoughts and energies, the problem of overcoming sin. He saw that, if it was really true that the second coming of Christ took place at the close of the apostolic age, the religious experience of the world had reached a later stage of development than he had supposed. Instead of living, as he had been taught, in the age of prophecy and promise, he was living in the age of fulfillment. The Jewish era, commenced by Moses, extended by the prophets, amplified by Christ at his first coming, was brought by his second coming to completion. Therefore in the later days of that era, in the period between the first and second comings of Christ, must be found the mature fruit of a complete cycle of religious discipline; and it became a matter of great concern to ascertain exactly what that fruit was. Searching the Bible for an answer to this question Noyes became convinced, that the mature fruit of the Jewish era was nothing less than entire salvation from sin, perfect holiness in this life.

In the natural development of ethical ideas holiness and sin are at first conceived as outward acts that either

do or do not conform to the will of God. The earliest religious leaders were men who believed themselves to be in communication with God, and authorized by him to proclaim his will. Moses was one of these. His message to the Jewish people was the necessity of right action. He embodied what he believed to be the will of God under all conceivable circumstances in his marvelous code of laws, and he promulgated this as a perfect rule of action. For many centuries the Jews were dull to Moses' commands; but at last by prolonged discipline and the incessant labors of the prophets the Mosaic idea was completely enthroned in their hearts. To them holiness was obedience to the law; sin was disobedience to the law. In other words holiness was right action; sin was wrong action.

But right action is consistent with wrong intent, and wrong action with right intent; and since action is ultimately based on intent, the latter rather than the former is the true measure of character. Hence Christ introduced a radical change in the conception of holiness and sin. While affirming with Moses the necessity of right action, he insisted on the prior necessity of right intent. He said to his followers: "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." And to show wherein the difference consisted he said: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Christ knew that right intent working intelligently was certain to result in right action; hence to him

the kernel of holiness was perfect love of God and man.

This new conception, while it added to the scope of holiness, simplified greatly the problem of its attainment. The thousand precepts of the law were reduced to one, that is love; and love, which is the essence of holiness, was made easier by the wonderful example of it in the life and death of Christ himself.

The first person in modern times who began to apprehend this new conception of holiness in its relation to salvation from sin was John Wesley. He had taught about a hundred years before, that holiness consisted essentially in perfect love of God and man, and could he attained in this life. But lacking the viewpoint of Noyes's theory of the second coming he could not see the doctrine of Christian perfection in its true perspective. He did not grasp the fact that perfect holiness was attained by the apostolic church in the harvest period just previous to Christ's second coming, and that it must again appear as the mature fruit of the Gentile era. He looked upon perfect holiness as a theoretical possibility, and encouraged the more spiritual of his followers to seek it. But he did not regard it as necessary to a sense of justification, nor as secure from backsliding if attained. Nor did he dearly and practically distinguish between the new conception of holiness as love, and the old conception as doing the works of the law.

Within recent years in America the doctrine of Christian perfection had been taught by a number of revival leaders, notably James Latourette, John B. Foot, and Hiram Sheldon. During the period of religious en-

thusiasm in the early thirties these men had gained a considerable following, especially in the state of New York. The New York Perfectionists, as they were called, were all Wesleyan in origin and characteristics, the chief difference being that they laid more emphasis on the doctrine than Wesley did, and were willing to be called Perfectionists.

Even the leaders of the New England church were beginning to lean in this same direction. For example, they could no longer subscribe to the old Calvinistic doctrine, that man was created wholly depraved and incapable of righteousness except as moved by God. This idea was manifestly out of harmony with the spirit of the times, and the New Haven Seminary made a particular point of teaching, that God created man able to choose between right and wrong, and could therefore justly require him to obey his laws. From this position it was obviously but a step to Perfectionism; and in fact Dr. Taylor had at one time expressly favored preaching the obligation of perfect holiness. Then at Andover the astonishing paradox founded on the seventh chapter of Romans, that Paul was "the chief of sinners" at one and the same time that he was "the chief of the apostles," had been exploded by Professor Moses Stuart, who propounded a new interpretation of that celebrated chapter, according to which the apostle's supposed confession of sin was made to refer to his pre-Christian experience. Many earnest people were beginning to ask themselves, whether Christ's mission was not in some way to give men more power over sin here in this world. If it was merely to the life after death that the salvation brought by Christ

had reference, they said, wherein was their situation any better than that of the Old Testament patriarchs.

With all these approximations to the doctrine of salvation from sin Noyes had become familiar while a student at Andover and New Haven. By their aid and by much prayer and study of the Bible he reached his own conclusion, that entire salvation from sin in this world was attained by the apostolic church just previous to the second coming, and must again emerge as the standard of Christian experience at the "end of the times of the Gentiles." An outline of the argument in his own words is presented below:

Paul says: "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." From what does he propose to save them? A few plain texts of Scripture will answer:

On the first page of the New Testament it is written: "She [Mary] shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall save his people from their sins." Matt. I: 21. "What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh ... condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us." Rom. 8: 3-4. "You that were sometime alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled to present you holy and unblamable and unreprovable in his sight." Col. I: 21-22. These texts, and others like them, explicitly declare the object of the mission and sacrifice of Christ to be the salvation of his people

not merely or primarily from the consequences of their sins, but from the sins themselves.

The "glad tidings of great joy," which the angels represented as coming with the birth of Christ, were in fact tidings of things well known to the prophets and patriarchs, if they related only to the pardoning mercy of God. But if Christ came proclaiming not only the mercy of God in pardoning sin, but also his power to cleanse and preserve from sin, then truly he brought "good news" to the world; his message is worthy to be called "the glorious gospel of the blessed God."

It is obvious that the doctrine of salvation from sin is not liable to any objections drawn from the experience of those who lived before the manifestation of Christ. To adduce the sins of Moses and David as proof that the gospel does not give entire salvation from sin is to overlook altogether the distinction between the Mosaic and Christian dispensations, and in fact to assume that Christ brought no new blessings to the world. This is as absurd as it would be to undertake to disprove the reality of steam power by referring to facts that occurred a thousand years ago.

The objector may still allege that sin remained in the saints after the coming of Christ. While Christ was personally with them, the disciples exhibited a hasty and bigoted zeal in proposing to call fire from heaven to consume their opposers; carnal ambition and childish rivalry appeared among them; at the cross they all forsook their Master; and Peter, the boldest and most devoted of them, thrice denied him with cursing and oaths.

We admit the facts, but deny the inference. Salvation from sin is effected by two agencies, the spirit of God, and the truth concerning the death and resurrection of Christ. Since the sins in question were committed before the outpouring of the spirit of God on the day of Pentecost and before the death and resurrection of Christ, they stand on the same ground with the sins of the Old Testament saints. They occurred before the Christian dispensation began.

Finally it may be objected that the saints of the apostolic age who lived after the death and resurrection of Christ and the effusion of the spirit of God and were therefore certainly subjects of the Christian dispensation did nevertheless commit sin. Years after these events Peter "was to be blamed," and James was obliged to say, "In many things we offend all."

Admitting, as we freely do, that in the early days of the apostolic age sin still had place in the church, we nevertheless maintain that the time came at last when they that continued in Christ's word were made free from sin. We are fully sustained in this position by the first epistle of John. That epistle was among the latest writings of the New Testament, and as such is just the testimony we need to determine what was the power of Christianity when its fruit was ripe. Taking that epistle by itself, disencumbered as it ought to be of the experience of Jewish and semi-Christian saints, it is impossible to avoid the conviction that the theoretical and practical standard of religion there exhibited was perfect holiness. Let us hear his testimony:

"If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin."

"Hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him."

"Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not; whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him."

"He that committeth sin is of the devil."

"Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God."

But we need not rely exclusively on the first epistle of John. If our theory concerning the progressive nature of spiritual experience is correct, we may expect to find in the later records of the Primitive Church evidence of the existence of two distinct classes of believers: a class that was yet in a carnal state, and a class that had attained perfect holiness. In the writings of Paul we find proof that this was actually the case. "We speak wisdom," says he, "among them that are perfect." I Cor. 2 :6. It appears by what follows that he uses the word perfect in this case to describe those who had attained salvation from sin; for he says: "And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, [this is the class whom he calls perfect], but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. . . . For whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?" The perfection of Paul and of those among whom he spoke wisdom stands opposed to the imperfection of those

who were yet subject to sinful passions; it is therefore perfection of holiness.

In support of the general argument which we have presented, we will now adduce an individual instance of perfect holiness. And our specimen shall be the apostle Paul.

[Here follows a discussion of the famous passage in the seventh chapter of Romans, in which Paul was supposed by some to have confessed sin. The argument which Noyes uses to prove that Paul in this passage refers to his pre-Christian experience he learned at Andover from Professor Stuart; and as few since Stuart's time have ventured to uphold the former interpretation, we omit it. We also omit his discussion of Paul's remark in Phil. 3: 12, "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect"; since it will he shown in the next chapter that the word perfect is here used with reference not to holiness but to experience. We proceed directly to the main contention which is as follows:]

I. Paul asserts in a great variety of passages his union with Christ.

2. He plainly asserts his freedom from sin as the consequence of his union with Christ in such passages as these: "How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" Rom. 6: 2. "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Rom. 8: 2.

3. His writings, instead of being filled with confessions of

sin, everywhere abound with vindications of his own conduct, bold assertions of his righteousness,

and appeals from human accusation to the judgment of god.

4. He constantly proposes his own life as a perfect example for imitation. "I beseech you," he says, "be ye followers of me. For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus . . . who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ." "Those things which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you."

The above testimony, both negative and positive, should be weighed in connection with the fact that Paul unreservedly preached perfection to the churches, and that he made it the main object of one of his most important epistles, that to the Hebrews,* to exhibit Christianity as a dispensation of perfect holiness. In view of this we must conclude either that Paul was self-deceived and that his life was altogether at variance with the theory which he preached, or that he was a genuine example of salvation from sin.

Thus we have shown, first, that salvation from sin was the great object of the mission and sacrifice of Christ; secondly, that the sins of the Old Testament saints cannot be adduced as evidence against this doctrine, because they were committed before Christ came into the world; thirdly, that the sins of the disciples during Christ's personal ministry cannot be so adduced, because they were committed before the death and resurrection of Christ and the effusion of the spirit of

[* The epistle to the Hebrews, though probably not written by Paul, was certainly written from the Pauline point of view.-G. W. N.]

God; fourthly, that the sins of many in the Primitive Church after the day of Pentecost cannot he so adduced, because they were committed before the truth concerning Christ's death and resurrection was fully developed and applied; and finally, that according to the testimony of John and Paul Christianity in its maturity did actually make believers perfectly holy in this world.