During the session of the Conference, Mrs. Miller and myself were entertained by the Misses Curry, whose generous hospitality made our stay with them exceedingly pleasant.  We also visited many of our old friends in the city as opportunity permitted, little dreaming of the surprise that was awaiting us.

The Conference closed in the usual manner by the reading of the appointments.  But judge of our surprise to find ourselves assigned for a third time to the Pastorate of Spring Street Station, Milwaukee.  To say we were surprised indeed would be but to state the truth, and yet to say we were pained we could not, for who that has ever known the good people of Old Spring Street, could ever deem it an affliction to be stationed among them.  However, when we looked upon the weeping eyes of several of our dear Ripon friends in the congregation, and thought of the many others at home, we would have been other than human if our eyes had not also filled with tears.  Nor is it too much to say, that we did not know how much we were attached to the good people of Ripon and our work there, until we found ourselves so suddenly separated from them.  But on the other hand, what could we say?  We came first to Milwaukee when in our youth.  We came again to the Milwaukee District in 1859, and to the station in 1862, giving to the first four years of severe labor, and to the last three of the most successful years of our Itinerant life.  We had known this people as it seldom falls to the lot of Itinerants to know a people.  With not a few we had knelt at the Altar of God, when they passed into the spiritual kingdom.  The names of very many of them had been entered by the writer’s hand on the records of the Church.  With many we had bowed our heads in recognition of their deep sorrow, and with many had clasped hands in the day of their rejoicing.  And now, to be sent back to a third Pastorate within a period of twenty years, could not be deemed less than a great privilege.

But to our work.  Following my life-long custom, the first Sabbath of the new Conference year found me at my post of labor.  I was happy to find the charge in a good spiritual condition, and hence I was able to take up the work in its ordinary line of service.  My first care was to arrange a complete system of pastoral labor, still entertaining the conviction that upon the faithful prosecution of this branch of the Ministerial work depended, in a good degree, the success of the pastoral function.  And in this branch of service Spring Street Station imposes a vast amount of labor.  As the mother Church of the city, her membership is widely scattered, and her congregations large.  Yet the Pastor, with a careful husbanding of time, and an earnest effort, can pass over the field as often as the exigencies of the work require.  He may not always visit each family as often as they desire, for there are many in every Church who have a very limited idea of the amount of labor, care and thought the pastoral office imposes, but he will be able to meet all reasonable demands.