In the kingdom of grace and in the kingdom of nature, loveliness is ever the fit complement of strength.  Accordingly, to her, who has been the enthroned one in the heart, the light-giver in the home, the beloved of the church, we tender our most fervent good wishes For her also we lift on high our faithful, tender intercession.  To each, to both, we give the renewed assurance of our abiding affection.  God grant that life’s shadows may lengthen gently and slowly!  Late, may you both ascend to Heaven:  long and happily may you abide with us here!” The report of the proceedings of that evening says that at this reference to the “dual” character of his ministry, “the veteran pastor sprang to his feet and, seizing Dr. Chamberlain’s hand, exclaimed; ’I thank you for that, and the whole assembly’s applause revealed its heartfelt sympathy.”  I had declined more than once, for good reasons, the kind offer of my generous flock to increase my salary, but, when on that evening that crowned my thirty years of labor, my dear neighbor and church elder, Mr. John N. Beach (on behalf of the congregation), put into my hands a cheque for thirty thousand dollars, “not as a charity but as a token of our warm hearted grateful love,” I could only say with the Apostle Paul:  “I rejoice in the Lord that your care has blossomed out afresh” (for this is the literal reading of the great apostle’s gratitude).

The proceedings of that memorable evening were closed by a benediction by the Rev. Dr. Charles L. Thompson, then Moderator of our General Assembly and now the super-royal Secretary of our Board of Home Missions.  The proceedings were afterwards compiled in a beautiful volume entitled “A Thirty Years’ Pastorate,” by the good taste and literary skill of my beloved friend, the late Jacob L. Gossler.

In justice to myself, let me say that I have given this narrative of the closing scenes of my pastoral labors, not, I trust, as a matter of personal vain glory; but that good Christian people in our own land and in other lands may learn from the example of the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church how to treat a pastor, whose simple aim has been, with God’s help, to do his duty.

CHAPTER XIX.

LIFE AT HOME—­AND FRIENDS ABROAD.

A few months after my resignation, the Lafayette Avenue Church extended an unanimous call to the Rev. Dr. David Gregg, who had become distinguished as a powerful preacher, and the successful pastor of the old, historic Park Street Church, of Boston.  He is also widely known by his published works, which display great vigor and beauty of style, and a fervid spirituality.  When Dr. Gregg came on to assume his office, I was glad, not only to give him a hearty welcome, but to assure him that, “as no one had ever come up into the pilot house to interfere with the helmsman, so I would never lay my hand on the wheel that should steer that superb vessel in all its future voyagings.”