members of both congregations. This mutual sympathy and co-operation was rendered permanent by a society which he formed for purposes of benevolence, the members of which were composed of the different denominations of Christians. This, by bringing them together on common ground for reciprocal assistance and support, removed the jealousies and tendency to conflict which had before existed, and gave them a consciousness of their common interest, and the claims of a common cause. This society held its meetings at his own house, every month, and its annual meeting always in the Episcopal Church. The principle upon which he acted in the establishment of this society, was maintained by him through his whole subsequent life. While he was devotedly attached to the principles of the Church of which he was a minister; peculiarly exact and regular in the discharge of all the services which he felt to become him as her minister, according to the promises of his ordination; and while he laboured for the prosperity and extension of the Church to a degree unsurpassed by any cotemporary, he was fully satisfied that there was ground for religious effort, which he might easily and happily occupy with other denominations of the Lord's people, without any relinquishment of his own rights or obligations as an Episcopal minister. He had not been educated in such views, nor during a considerable portion of his previous ministry had he acquired them, nor during any part of it had he

been able to bring them, as he wished, into operation. But when the American Bible Society was formed, his attention, as we have seen, was called to this point. He saw no difficulty and danger for the Episcopal Church in the union with that enterprise. To similar institutions he gave his influence and efforts with the same readiness of feeling, and continued always afterwards to rejoice in entering upon any undertaking for good to men, in which the painful and discouraging divisions in the Christian Church might be forgotten, and all the followers of the Lord be united in a common interest and common labour of love.

The ministry of Mr. Bedell in Fayetteville was immediately distinguished for its evangelical character, and for its successful results. The Church edifice was completed and occupied in the commencement of the winter succeeding his removal to the place, and a large and united congregation was soon collected to worship in it. The impression and effect which was produced here by his ministry may be well gathered from the following extract from a letter of a highly respected gentleman, then a member of the congregation :

"I have been trying to revive my remembrances of him at that period, and although I can bear strong and willing testimony to his eminent piety; his charitable and kind deportment towards other classes of Christians; his efficient services in the pulpit, and his courteous and blameless life in society; yet my memory furnishes few details that can be of any use for the purpose

you mention. Indeed, soon after he rendered, with so much kindness and sympathy, the services at the death-bed of my beloved sister Sarah, my attention was forcibly diverted by preparations for my voyage to Europe.

“Though young, and comparatively thoughtless, I was not unobservant of the sensible effects of his ministry upon the community. You will remember, with the exception of the short ministry of the Rev. Mr. Judd, that Mr. Bedell's was the first that the people of Fayetteville had ever had in the Episcopal Church, and although the congregation had been organized by his predecessor, yet it was under his ministry that the cold materials seemed to receive life and feeling. He attracted many to the Church, some aged individuals, who had scarcely ever been seen within a Church.

"Mr. Bedell drew many worldlings and careless livers to his Church by the animated and impressive style of his oratory, and made them regular attendants by his earnest appeals to the heart, by his own obvious piety, and by the forbearance and Christian charity, and the manner with which he treated the peculiar doctrines of his Church, which was inoffensive to the casual hearers of a different persuasion. He seized all occasions for arresting the attention of the thoughtless. If a death occurred in the place, some appropriate and solemn remarks on the following Sabbath were made to carry a salutary warning to every heart, and the occasional sermons which he preached on Christmas-day and New-Year's, (which days had never been so observed before this,) were impressive and solemn.

"The harmony which existed between the Presbyterian minister and himself, was creditable to the Christianity of both. They so arranged their services on the afternoon and evening of the Sabbath, that the people of one could hear the preaching of the other."

The remaining portion of the letter from which the above is extracted, contains a delightful account

of an incident which occurred in Mr. Bedell's ministry, in the summer succeeding his removal to Fayetteville, and which, as exhibiting God's blessing, resting upon his labours for the good of souls, becomes of peculiar interest to us in this period of his history. We insert the account in the language of the letter:

"But my personal knowledge of Mr. Bedell commenced in August, 1819, at the time of his kind attendance on my dying sister; and for his services on that occasion, I have ever felt grateful to him, and thankful to God for the merciful and wonderful results which seemed to flow from them. As such incidents rarely occur under the ministry of any man, I will relate it more minutely, not trusting to my memory for the details, but will avail myself of letters written at the time to an absent brother.

"To appreciate the extraordinary manifestation of God's grace and power in her triumphant death, it may be necessary to premise something of her character; and to feel the full force of the expression that she made on her death-bed, 'Oh, I have suf fered a great deal in this world, but I would suffer again ten thousand times for this hour of happiness,' it will be requisite to understand the severe and varied trials through which she had passed in her short career. She had been left an orphan at the age of twelve years, (the eldest of six children, to whom she supplied, as far as it is possible, the place of a mother, tenderly and faithfully,) married early from a mere impulse of the heart; soon lost her health; buried four infant children, and was subjected to domestic trials of the most distressing nature. She was full of sensibility, and early in life cheerful and ardent, but misfortunes had long since chilled down her temperament, until her heart-broken appearance was evident to every beholder.

"She rarely spoke on the subject of religion, and when she went to the communion table, she seemed oppressed by a sense of her unworthiness to such a degree, that she was visibly distressed and indisposed for days afterwards. During her protracted ill health she was very wakeful at night, and several times, in the darkness and silence of midnight, she was found upon her knees at the bed-side, too feeble to get back without assistance.

"We had so long and so often seen her very sick, that it was not till the evening of the 18th August, 1819, that the hope of her restoration forsook us; her respiration then became difficult, and it was too evident that death was indeed at hand. It was suggested to me that Mr. Bedell had better have some appropriate conversation with her, and administer all the consolation in his power.

"I went immediately to him, and he kindly came at once, about eight o'clock in the evening. The weather being warm, her bedstead had been placed in the centre of a large room, with a piaz. za before it.

"To his question of how she felt,' she replied,' as a miserable sinner;' to which he rejoined, we are all miserable sinners, and it was well that she could realize it.' To his appropriate remarks she listened with deep attention, but seldom spoke. He asked her if he should pray; she answered, certainly.' He then knelt by her bed-side and gave an extempore prayer, during which she often groaned, and her countenance indicated the deep anguish of her soul. Mr. Bedell left the room, and she clasped her hands, and appeared to be praying most fervently to herself. On seeing him through the windows, walking in the piazza, she sent and requested him to pray again, and it was during this second prayer that the very remarkable change in her took place. By this time many relatives and friends and servants had collected around the windows, and in her chamber, to witness the closing scene, and while with deep emotion and sympathy we stood watching her emaciated countenance, so full of pain, anxiety, and misery, suddenly it became radiant with happiness, and lighted up with