the gentle footstep that has never wearied in the pathway of life for two and thirty years.  From how many mistakes and hasty indiscretions her quick sagacity has kept me, you can never know.  If you have any tribute of thanks for any good which I have done you, do not offer it to me; go carry it down to yonder home, of which she has been the light and the joy, and lay it at her unselfish feet." On that occasion (for the only time) I heard a murmur of applause run through my congregation.

About the time of our marriage, I received a call from the Shawmut Congregational Church of Boston, and soon afterwards overtures from a Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, and from the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago.  All these attractive offers I declined, but within a few months I accepted a call from the Market Street Dutch Reformed Church of New York—­a far more difficult field of labor.  My ministry in Trenton was one of unbroken happiness, and the Church were profusely kind; but at the end of nearly four years I felt that my work there was done.  The young church had built a beautiful house of worship without a dime of debt, and it was filled by a prosperous congregation.  I was ready for a wider field of labor.

The Market Street Dutch Reformed Church, to which I was called, was down town, within ten minutes’ walk of the City Hall, and was beginning to feel the inroads of the up-town migration, when my excellent predecessor, Dr. Isaac Ferris, left it to become the Chancellor of the New York University.  Although most of the well-to-do families were moving away, yet East Broadway was full of boarding houses packed with young men and these in turn packed our church on Sabbath evenings.  Of the happy spiritual harvest-seasons in that old church, especially during the great awakening in 1858, I have written in the chapter on Revivals.  I was as eager for work as Simon Peter was for a good haul in fishing, and every week there, I met on the platform the representatives of temperance societies:  The Five Points House of Industry, Young Men’s Christian Associations, Sunday schools or some other religious or reformatory enterprise.  These outside activities were no hindrances to either pulpit or pastoral work; and, like that famous English preacher who felt that he could not have too many irons in the fire, I thrust in tongs, shovel, poker and all.  The contact with busy life and benevolent labors among the poor supplied material for sermons; for the pastor of a city church must touch life at a great many points.  Our domestic experiences in early housekeeping were very agreeable.  The social conditions of New York were less artificial than now.  Pastoral calls in the evening usually found the people in their homes, and I do not believe there were a dozen theatre-goers in my congregation.  After a very busy and heaven-blest ministry of half a dozen years, I discovered that the rapid migration up town would soon leave our congregation