that in leaving home and country he was following an undoubted call of God, while he hoped and expected to live, and by his labors to satisfy his friends that he had been thus led of God. But it soon occurred to him that God's thoughts are not always man's thoughts, nor his ways as man's ways, and he became as calm and quiet as possible. If he could not do God's will, divine grace helping him, he could suffer it. Thenceforward, 'Thy will be done,' was his submissive prayer and his only anxiety.

"Soon after the question as to life and death had been thus peacefully settled, I was sitting with him alone, at the fireside, when he said: 'Mr. Grout, since I shall not live long, I have a request to make of you. Do you remember there is a little tree standing about thirty feet from the door of your new chapel? When I am dead, I wish you would bury me near where that tree stands. Mrs. Lloyd will enclose the spot, and erect my tombstone there, where all your Sabbath worshipers can see it as they go up to worship. As they look it may be they will remember that the dead man came to preach to them. Thus I wish, hope and pray that my grave may preach the gospel when I am gone.' The enclosure and the grave are made according to the good man's wish, and on the tombstone are these words: 'Weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning.

"Now that the sickness, the death and the burial are over, we sit silently and submissively down and think of the past-the quick, light step; the active body and mind; the social converse; the delightful, all-absorbing music; the warm, affectionate heart; the active, warm-hearted piety, which were so noticeable in him who is now silent in death."

Mrs. Lloyd, who is eminently blessed in her labors, is still connected with the mission: their only child died Oct. 30, 1864.

MACMASTER, D.D., ERASMUS D.-The son of Rev. Dr. Gilbert and Jane (Brown) MacMaster, was born at Mercer, Mercer county, Pa., Feb. 4, 1806. His mother was a daughter of Benjamin Brown, Esq., of Canonsburg, Pa., who was an uncle of Matthew Brown, D.D., for many years president of Jefferson College, Canonsburg, Pa. He was graduated in Union College, Schenectady, N. Y., July, 1827. He studied divinity under the care of his father, and was licensed by the Northern Presbytery of the Reformed Presbyterian Church at Albany, N. Y., June 16, 1829. He was ordained and installed pastor of the Presbyterian church of Ballston, N. Y., by Albany Presbytery (having changed his church relation). This connection lasted seven years, and at his request the pastoral relation was dissolved, April 24, 1838. This was his only charge. This pastorate was pleasant, and only dissolved by reason of the concern he felt for the great West and the education of its sons. In the sermon he preached on leaving his people he makes use of the following remarks: Standing among you, brethren beloved of the Lord, for the last time as your minister in the mystery of the gospel of Christ, I feel that the occasion is one of deep and solemn interest. Myself and my personal feelings, however, I have never made the theme of my ministrations among you. I shall not begin now. Bear with me when I say that the ties of sensibility and of strength are far other than existed on the day when I was ordained to the work of the ministry among you. Never can I forget that it was here and among you that I was consecrated to the work of preaching the gospel of Christ, and that it has been among you that the first seven years of my ministry have been spent. I came among you young in years, and with many defects which only experience could remedy. You have manifested forbearance toward my imperfections. I have received many proofs of your kindness. With

you, or with any individual of you, I have had no quarrel, public or private. We part in amity and with good-will and kindness. I shall ever cherish you in my memory; I shall ever bear you in my heart. For myself, one request I have to make of you, and that is-pray for me."

In 1838 he was elected president of Hanover College, Hanover, Ind., and in his inaugural address, delivered Nov. 7, 1838, he thus speaks of his views regarding education: "The education which does not instruct man in his relations to God, his relations as a religious being, in his religious duties and destinies, which does not properly cultivate the religious principles of his nature, is chargeable with the grossest oversight of his actual character and condition and of the exigencies of his being, and must be looked on as utterly inadequate in the matter of chief importance to that for which it is the object of education to provide. This college has been founded upon Christian principles, in faith and prayer, by men who fear God and honor his Son; and while we trust that there will be, in the religious instructions which shall be here imparted, and in the spirit here cherished, nothing narrow or illiberal or merely partisan, it will be our aim to carry out the intentions of the founders of the institution. We avow that it is our aim to bring over and into the institution the influence of the principles of the gospel of the Son of God. It is our design to mingle the waters of the Pierian spring with those of the well of Bethlehem and of "Siloa's fount that flows fast by the oracle of God."

Here he assumed labors of a varied and arduous character. Having just succeeded in freeing the institution from a heavy debt, and in securing a subscription for endowment, a financial crisis rendered these results nugatory. Though the institution was elevated in literary character, and the reputation of its president established for high scholarship and ability, difficulties so thickened in the end that Dr. MacMaster determined on attempting the removal of the college to a neighboring city. The transfer not having proved acceptable to the majority of the Synod under whose control the institution was, the new enterprise failed. At this juncture the presidency of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, was tendered him. He was inaugurated Aug. 13, 1845, and in his inaugural address, whilst pressing the necessity of the relig ious element being identified with the University, he remarked: "God gave me my birth as a Presbyterian, and I am not ashamed of my ecclesiastical lineage. Without any disparagement of other families of the great Christian commonwealth, I reckon the Presbyterian to be some of the best blood in Christendom. As I was born so I expect to live and to die-a Presbyterian; unless God should in mercy, before that event come to me, hasten the day earnestly hoped for by all the good, when the watchmen upon the walls of Zion shall see eye to eye, and together lift up the voice, and when, as there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all, so there shall be visibly, as there is spiritually, but one body, and all these party names shall be sunk in the one catholic and glorious name-the Church of the living God, the ground and pillar of truth."

For something over four years from that inauguration he was employed in those harassing and severe labors and conflicts apparently inseparable from the history of Western colleges, and certainly unavoidable in an institution so conditioned as was Miami University at the accession of Dr. MacMaster. Here, too, the curriculum was advanced. The contest for discipline was fought, and just as the victory had been won, another institution seemed imperatively to claim his services.

In his address, delivered Aug. 9, 1849, on the occasion of resigning the

presidency of Miami University, he spoke of the difficulties that surrounded the institution, the falling off in the number of students, &c., as follows: "First among these causes of evil is a prevalent misconception of the true and proper object for which a college is established. In former times the class of schools commonly designated in our land colleges,' had a specific object, well defined and generally understood. This is not even instruction in the studies immediately and properly belonging to preparation for the exercise of the liberal professions; still less is it to do the work of the mere elementary and common schools, and least of all is it the communicating of the special knowledges and instruction by which men are fitted for the ordidinary manual and industrial occupations of life. Not that these are not important in their own place, but a college' is not the proper place to obtain instruction in them. Its specific and proper object is, along with the formation of good moral, gentlemanly and Christian character, to give to youth that training in liberal studies of higher grade than those of the common school or academy, and the consequent mental discipline, which constitutes the fitting preparation for entering on the strictly professional studies of medicine, theology, law, government or general literature, science and philosophy. If this one thing were understood and remembered, the specific and proper object for which a college is established, it would correct a thousand mistakes and furnish an answer to a thousand objections, and put to rest the vague, indefinite and crude, but erroneous and michievous notions which are afloat on the subject.

He accepted the professorship of Systematic Theology in the seminary at New Albany, Indiana, reluctantly. The seminary was established by Indiana Synod; other Synods subsequently became associated with that of Indiana in its control, viz.: that of Cincinnati in 1840; Missouri in 1841; Illinois in 1842; Northern Indiana in 1844; Kentucky in 1846; and Nashville also in 1846. The seminary, though regularly established, was not in any special degree successful. When, in 1849, the directors secured the services of Dr. MacMaster troubles and embarrassments broke out afresh, so that the Synods, and finally the General Assembly were called upon to have the seminary question up for discussion year after year. Dr. MacMaster was opposed to the multiplication of theological seminaries. In all these discussions and plans for getting up seminaries and arranging professorships, the exclusion of Dr. MacMaster from any faculty that might be formed was deemed most important, The contest apparently ended in the success of those who were opposed to him, and though, when New Albany Seminary passed away two other seminaries saw the light-one at Danville, Ky., the other at Chicago, Ill.-the chair of theology was filled by another in each institution.

It was at the Assembly in Indianapolis, Ind., on May 30, 1859, that Dr. MacMaster made his celebrated speech, on the motion to postpone the election of professors in the Theological Seminary of the North-West, at Chicago, Ill., till the following Assembly. His speech was in vain; the Assembly decided against him, and it seemed as if he, "the noblest Roman of them all," had been crushed; but "time at last sets all things even. The echoes of that speech were audible in the Assembly of 1866, when in St. Louis, Mo., June 2, he was elected to the chair of theology in the NorthWest Theological Seminary, Chicago, Ill. Seven years, to a day, had wrought out a harvest of truth; men saw things as they really were, and were prompt to acknowledge the fact. It may be asked, especially by my subscribers in foreign lands, Whence this persistent opposition to Dr. MacMaster? It was simply because he was in favor of the abolition of American

slavery as it existed in the United States; he was a lifelong, a consistent and honorable opponent of the whole system of human bondage.

During the years that succeeded this decision of the Assembly, Dr. MacMaster remained in comparative retirement, though he ever lived in the hearts of his friends. For a year or two he resided in Monticello, Ind., and in 1863 projected a monthly magazine, entitled "THE MESSIANIC WITNESS." This never saw the light; the price at which it was offered was too small, being one dollar per annum. The troubles of the country prevented a large subscription list; hence it was thought best not to start it. in 1863 he removed to Poland, Ohio, and became an inmate of the family of his highminded brother, Rev. Dr. Algernon Sydney MacMaster. It was here that the action of the Assembly of 1866 found him, and the following letter will show the spirit with which he responded:

"POLAND, OHIO, July 10, 1866.

"The Rev. Messrs. Thomas Ebenezer Thomas, D.D., and R. G. Thompson, and John C. Grier, Esq., Committee, &c. :

"MY DEAR BRETHREN :-Your favor of the 11th of June, informing me that I had been appointed by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church professor of theology in the Theological Seminary of the North-west, has been duly received.

"It is impossible that I should not feel, with profound sensibility, the obligation under which I have been laid by the regard shown by my brethren to myself in this appointment, and in the spontaneity and the approach to unanimity of the action of the Assembly, and the views by which, as I am assured by yourselves and by many others, the great body of its members were influenced; the significancy of which, in reference to the past, not less than to the future, I am not left to doubt. It is not I, but the principles in the maintenance of which I, along with many other brethren, have borne an humble part in times past, that are honored in this appointment. In comparison with these, all mere personal considerations are nothing, and less than nothing, and ought not to be allowed to come into mind.

"The question of my return to the service from which I was seven years ago relieved, is not so clear to me as I could wish. As I have always had, so have I now more than ever, a painful consciousness of my own insufficiency for the work. But, as this is now a question for myself, on it I have no disposition to multiply words, or to invite my friends to say what their friendship or their politeness might dispose them to say. Other considerations, too, have had with me their weight; especially that which concerns the present endowment, the income of which appropriately belongs to the professors already in the seminary, and which is insufficient even for their proper support. But this difficulty is obviated by the spontaneous action of the brethren who have the matter in charge, and by whom I am assured that the endow ment of the chair to which I have been appointed is to be provided for by an additional fund, so as to preclude the necessity of drawing for its support on the present endowment. Upon this subject, therefore, I have no occasion to say anything, except to express my sense of the considerate forethought of the brethren.

"I have only to say that, so far as I am able to judge upon as careful a consideration of the subject as I can give to it, I do not see that, under all the conditions of the question, I am at liberty to decline this appointment; and that I therefore hereby signify to you my acceptance of it.

"As I have frankly referred to my former relations to this seminary, which are well known to all concerned, and to avoid all mention of which