The entertainment was given in the evening in the Parsonage, and was attended by about one hundred persons.  Spring Street and the other Churches of the city were well represented.  But in addition to these, there were delegations present from all the charges we had served in the Conference, each bringing the hand of greeting from our old friends to cheer us.  A record of the occasion, however, would be incomplete if I were not to state that the silver ware of the house was increased by an addition valued at nearly five hundred dollars.  But every rose has its thorn.  Never before were we obliged to sleep with one eye open to guard our treasures.

The year now drew to a close, and, counting up the results, we found that fifty-one members had been received, the Pastor’s salary, amounting to twenty-three hundred dollars, had been paid, the Church debt had been reduced to ten thousand dollars, and that to meet the balance there were subscriptions, including organ fund, of fifteen thousand dollars.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Conference of 1872.—­Rev. A.P.  Mead.—­Rev. A. Callender.—­Rev. Win.  P.
Stowe.—­Rev. O.B.  Thayer.—­Rev. S. Reynolds,—­Revival under Mrs. Van
Cott.—­Conference of 1873.—­Rev. Henry Colman.—­Rev. A.A.  Hoskin.—­Rev.
Stephen Smith.—­Illness.—­Conference of 1874.—­Rev. Dr. Carhart.—­Rev.
Geo. A. Smith.—­Rev. C.N.  Stowers.

The Conference of 1872 was held Oct. 9th, at Division Street Church, Fond du Lac, Bishop Haven presiding.  The Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, having been fully recognized by the General Conference, was made the subject of a highly appreciative report, in which the Conference extended to the ladies of the Church a cordial welcome to this new field of effort, and pledged them a helping hand in the good work.

At this session Rev. A.P.  Mead was appointed Presiding Elder of Waupaca District.  Brother Mead graduated from the Garrett Biblical Institute in 1861, and was the same year admitted into the Conference.  His appointments had been Sharon, Elkhorn, Kenosha, Bay View, and Lyons, when he was sent to the District.  He remained only two years on the Waupaca District, and was then appointed to the Fond du Lac District.  Brother Mead is a man of genial spirit and large practical sense.  His sermons are replete with Evangelical truth, and produce an abiding impression.  His intercourse with the people and Preachers is instructive, and his administration cannot fail to prove a blessing to the District.

At this session of the Conference, the decease of Rev. Aurora Callender, among others, was announced.  Brother Callender entered the Pittsburg Conference in 1828, and was first stationed at Franklin, a circuit located on the slope of the Alleghany Mountains, and in the neighborhood of the Oil Regions.  Before coming to Wisconsin, his appointments were Meadville Circuit, Meadville, Springfield, Cuyahoga Falls, Chardon and Middleburgh.  Coming to Wisconsin, he was stationed, in 1850, at Sylvania.  His subsequent appointments were Geneva and Elkhorn, Union, Hazel Green, Dodgeville, Mineral Point District, Norwegian Mission District, Clinton, and Agent of American Colonization Society, Subsequently he filled several charges as a supply, and departed this life in the midst of his work at Pickneyville, Ill., Oct. 23d, 1871.