designated, and found a venerable, kind-looking Friend seated under the preachers’ gallery.  In obedience to a signal from him, he took a seat by his side, and they remained there in silence nearly two hours.  Then the old man turned and shook hands with him, as an indication that the meeting was concluded, according to the custom of the Society of Friends.  When he found that he was talking to the son of Isaac T. Hopper, and that he had promised to attend meeting there, during his stay in Charleston, he was so much affected, that his eyes filled with tears.  “Oh, I shall be glad of thy company,” said he; “for most of the time, this winter, I am here all alone.  My old friends and companions have all died, or moved away.  I come here twice on First days, and once on Fifth day, and sit all, all alone, till I feel it right to leave the house and go home.”

This lonely old worshipper once had an intimate friend, who for a long time was his only companion in the silent meeting.  At the close, they shook hands and walked off together, enjoying a kindly chat on their way home.  Unfortunately, some difficulty afterward occurred between them, which completely estranged them from each other.  Both still clung to their old place of worship.  They took their accustomed seats, and remained silent for a couple of hours; but they parted without shaking hands, or speaking a single word.  This alienation almost broke the old man’s heart.  After awhile, he lost even, this shadow of companionship, and there remained only “the voice within,” and echoes of memory from the empty benches.

While Mr. Hopper remained in Charleston, he went to the Quaker meeting-house every Sunday, and rarely found any one there except the persevering old Friend, who often invited him to go home with him.  He seemed to take great satisfaction in talking with him about his father, and listening to what he had heard him say concerning the Society of Friends.  When the farewell hour came, he was much affected; for he felt it not likely they would ever meet again; and the conversation of the young stranger had formed a link between him and the Quakerism he loved so well.  The old man continued to sit alone under the preacher’s gallery till the house took fire and was burned to the ground.  He died soon after that event, at a very advanced age.

Another incident, which occurred during Mr. Hopper’s stay in Charleston, seemed exceedingly trivial at the time, but came very near producing fatal consequences.  One day, when a clergyman whom he visited was showing him his library, he mentioned that his father had quite an antiquarian taste for old documents connected with the Society of Friends.  At parting, the clergyman gave him several pamphlets for his father, and among them happened to be a tract published by Friends in Philadelphia, describing the colony at Sierra Leone, and giving an account of the slave trade on the coast of Africa.  He put the pamphlets in his trunk,