Medway. Immediately there were tokens of His special presence. In connection with the preaching of the gospel, and Sabbath school, the Holy Spirit moved upon the hearts of the people; one after another began to inquire the way to Christ, until those of every age, from threescore years and ten down to twelve, were found among the hopeful disciples of Christ. As fruits of this work, sixty were added to the church in the first year of his ministry. During no year of one-third of a century did the time pass without some accession to the church. Within this period there were some four or five seasons of special blessing. The last was in 1848, when some seventy or more were deeply interested, fifty of whom made an open profession of faith in Christ.

During his ministry here it pleased the Lord to add four hundred and one to the original thirty-four members. Of the members of this church, one hundred and fifteen removed from the town, and among them were ministers, teachers, physicians, missionaries, and others in various departments of active life, who went forth to do good and shine as lights in the world.

He loved the truth and loved to preach it. He was one of the early antislavery advocates among the ministers. He highly valued the gospel ministry, and would not have left it for any other office or profession.

He often spoke of the daughter who became a foreign missionary, and expressed gratitude to God who had given him a child for this honored work.

In him was fulfilled the declaration of God, "Them that honor me, I will honor,' for he was often appointed by his brethren to represent them and the church at general associations and conventions. He died as he had lived, "a good man and a just," filled with the Holy Spirit, and his last words were, "This is the beginning of the everlasting life."

W. M. C.

Rev. SETH WILLARD SEGUR was born in Chittenden, Rutland County, Vt., Dec. 24, 1831. When he was but a few months old his parents removed to Pittsfield, Vt. At the age of twelve years he gave his heart to Christ, and united with the Congregational Church in Pittsfield at the age of fifteen. He fitted for college at Royalton Academy, graduated from Middlebury College in 1859, and completed his theological course at Auburn Seminary (N. Y.) in 1862. He was married, Sept. 13, 1859, to Miss Ellen Blossom, of Pittsfield, Vt. He was licensed to preach by the Royalton Association May 8, 1861. Was ordained to the Christian ministry May 28 the

same year by a council called by the church of which he was a member. He was installed over the Congregational Church in Tallmadge, Ohio, June 8, 1862. He was dismisssed from the pastorate of this church April 30, 1871. During this pastorate of nine years (lacking one month) one hundred and thirty-four persons were received to the membership of the church, eighty-eight of them by profession. Baptisms, eighty-nine children and fifteen adults.

His second settlement was at Gloucester, Mass., where he was installed June 14, 1871, and dismissed Feb. 13, 1873. On May 7 the same year, he was installed over the Congregational Church in West Medway. It was here that the writer made his acquaintance. He preached Christ truly, and made Him the theme of his discourses to an extent unusual. He was a practical temperance man, not only in speeches, sermons, but in labors. He literally took the inebriate by the hand, raised him up, fed, counselled, and guarded him, paid his fines, and appealed to the deepest convictions of his heart. In this he was a rare, a very rare man. His elocution in the pulpit was easy, graceful, and very pleasant. He was eminently a peace-maker; he understood how to move along with the discordant elements of society with wondrous skill and success. His sermons were full of sympathy for the sinful and sorrowing, and yet no truth was compromised and no vital point evaded. He had a shade of reticence, which led persons of partial acquaintance with him to misapprehend him. His business qualities and his mechanical skill were proved to be of a high and leading order while repairing the church and building the chapel at West Medway. The latter edifice will be viewed as built with Mr. Segur as the architect. He was an excellent and accurate singer, and most enthusiastic on the subject of sacred music. He was a man thoroughly loyal to his convictions, and however trying the ordeal, he trod the path of duty and aggressive faithfulness. He once said to the writer, "I shall preach the truth, whatever may be the consequences." While on a visit to Tallmadge, Ohio, attending the semi-centennial of the church over which he was first installed, he was taken sick with the typhoid fever, and died Sept. 24, 1875, and was buried at this his early ministerial home. He was greatly beloved by his former people, as well as by the church and congregation at West Medway.

A friend from Wisconsin thus writes of him: "He was a man and a minister of true, solid worth, with no thorns of any kind about him anywhere. He was what he seemed to be, no airs, no assumption, no cant, but an humble, hearty, devoted, self-forgetting man of God, a good minister of Jesus Christ.”

A. W. I.

Mrs. MELANCIA BOWKER STORRS was born in Fitzwilliam, N. H., Sept. 7, 1803, and died in Amherst, Mass., Nov. 20, 1875. She was the daughter of Charles and Beulah (Stone) Bowker. In addition to the advantages which the country schools of New England. offered to the children three-quarters of a century ago, she, for a time, enjoyed the instruction of Mary Lyon at Ipswich.

She early united with the Congregational Church in her native town, of which Father Sabin, an original character, who died in 1845, was the pastor.

For successive seasons she taught in the common schools of her neighborhood with marked success, until her marriage with Dr. George Newell, of Petersham, Mass., July 17, 1831. But three months of watching with her husband, who was a confirmed invalid at the time of the marriage, left her a widow.

The intervening time, until her marriage with Rev. John Storrs, March 2, 1834, was mostly spent as preceptress in Monson Academy. Mr. Storrs was at that time supplying a pulpit in Norwich, Conn., and also acting as principal of a female seminary in that city. Mrs. Storrs undertook at once the double duties of assistant in the semi. nary and of pastor's wife in the varied work of the parish.

In 1836, Dec. 20, Mr. Storrs was called to the pastorate of the Congregational Church in Holliston, Mass. For the six ensuing years Mrs. Storrs did her full share to make the ministry of the Word a success among the people.

In 1842 Mr. Storrs accepted an invitation to act as agent of the American Bible Society for the State of Connecticut. Five years later he accepted a call to supply the Congregational Church at Middleboro' Four Corners, Mass., — a relation which continued

some two years.

In 1849 Mr. Storrs was settled over the First Congregational Church in Winchendon, Mass. Here, seconded in every good work by his wife, he abounded in labor until his sudden death in 1854. Of their seven children, two died in infancy. The widow was left with five children, the eldest of whom was but sixteen years of age, and the whole amount of their property could hardly have exceeded $2,000.

The future at that moment, to one less courageous and hopeful and full of faith than Mrs. Storrs, must have been dark indeed. Edu. cated herself and highly cultivated, the dream of her life had been to, give to her sons and daughters the best advantages of the schools; but with her income cut off, and with the whole burden of support resting upon her, how could she do this?

For two years she waited and prayed before her plans were matured and she was ready to make the venture; but having purchased a little homestead in Amherst, Mass., in the spring of 1856 she removed thither and entered upon the serious work of educating her children. How she was to carry three sons through the college and two daughters through the seminary at Norton her friends could not tell, nor could she explain it by any logic except that of faith. Her eldest son, Col. S. J. Storrs, graduated in the class of 1860; her youngest, Prof. H. E. Storrs, in the class of 1864; and her second son, Capt. C. L. Storrs, in the class of 1867. Her first and second sons did good service for their country in the war of the Rebellion. Her two daughters, in the mean time, accomplished the full course in Wheaton Female Seminary, and now, filling stations of usefulness and honor, these sons and daughters "rise up and call her blessed."

Mrs. Storrs combined in herself singular graces of person, of mind, and of heart. She possessed rare dignity and beauty, superior intellectual ability, great force of will, strength and depth of affection, and a sweetness of manners which threw a charm over all she did. She was a Puritan of the Puritans, and ordered her house in the fear of the Lord. She had led all her children to Christ in their early youth, and she lived to see them members of a Congregational church; and, not unnaturally, when she saw this double education accomplished, she felt that her life-work was done.

The long struggle, though borne so bravely, had told upon her health, and she began to falter. A sense of weariness compelled her to confess the need and sweetness of rest. A troublesome cough had followed her for a number of years, but no fatal result was anticipated until a sudden cold brought on the crisis which ended her life. She died as she had lived, in the faith of her Saviour, surrounded by loving children and devoted friends. Her life, so broad, so pure, so sweet, so deep, will be had in everlasting remembrance. The weary child has reached her Father's house, and has before her all eternity in which to rest.

C. L. W.

LITERARY REVIEW.

THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS.

THE Sermons on Gospel Themes,1 by President Charles G. Finney, of Oberlin, is a volume of 417 pages. We cannot better set forth the circumstances attending the origin of this book than by copying the opening sentences of the Preface, from the pen of Prof. Henry Cowles, D. D., under whose care the volume was prepared. He says, "These sermons were preached by President Finney, at Oberlin, during the years 1845-1861, and reported from his lips by myself. In taking these reports I aimed to give the heads of the sermons and all the important statements verbatim, to retain always the substance of thought, and especially to seize upon the illustrations and present their essential points. Taken down in a species of short-hand, they were subsequently written out, and in every case read to President Finney, in his study, for any corrections he might desire, and for his indorsement. Consequently, these reports present truthfully the great doctrines preached, and in good measure, it is believed, the method and manner of his preaching."

These sermons are twenty-four in number, on such topics as "The Wages of Sin," "On Refuges of Lies," "Moral Insanity," "Conditions of being Saved," "On the Atonement," " Converting Sinners a Christian Duty," etc. The opening paragraph of the volume will recall to all who were wont in past years to hear Mr. Finney, his crisp, sharp, incisive method. "Sin is the most expensive thing in the universe. Nothing else can cost so much. Pardoned or unpardoned, its cost is infinitely great. Pardoned, the cost falls chiefly on the great atoning Substitute; unpardoned, it must fall on the head of the guilty sinner."

From the general conditions under which these sermons were preached at Oberlin, covering, as they do, a range of sixteen years, the reader has a far better opportunity to estimate the various powers of the distinguished preacher than in a series of purely revival sermons. This volume will do nothing, in our judgment, to impair, but will rather enhance the impression that Mr. Finney was a man strong, original, and, in his own domain, a master. He had not all gifts, but he has left behind a record that will not soon be forgotten. The most living part of that record, which will stretch on into eternity, is found in souls redeemed and consecrated through the power of those "gospel themes" which he effectually handled. In the thirteenth sermon he treats a subject which is, in its very nature, a delicate one, but which lies near the heart of theology. Some will read that sermon and not agree with it, at least, in all its parts; but in "vindicating the ways of God to man," some such view as the one here given seems to us essential in order to bring the full power of the gospel to bear upon the sinner's conscience.

Dr. Cowles, the compiler, deserves a hearty word of commendation for

1 See J. E. Goodrich, p. 87.