earnestly devoted to his chosen work. He was not eloquent in the pulpit, perhaps never cared to be so, but he was amiable in temper and gracious in manner everywhere. Those who knew him seem to have liked him, and that was everything in a small parish and in a time when people lived in more permanent relations than they do in these days of long vacations and frequent migrations. His personality must have been attractive to win and hold the respect and affection of his parish, as we are told he did. No one, however, seems to have remembered any particular remark he made, or any particular thing he did. He lived in Weston thirty-one years, but although I knew his two granddaughters well, and saw them often, I cannot recall a single incident they related about him. The reason is that he always said and did what was expected of him, and the expected is always easily forgotten. It is creditable to him that, in his simple, sincere, and conventional way, he has left the impression of a faithful and loving soul in the memories of those who knew him. The stream that glides unnoticed through the land carries none the less a blessing in its course. There are, however, two or three incidents in Mr. Woodward's ministry which tell us something of the man. was the minister of Weston during the Revolutionary On the morning of April 19, 1775, a company of one hundred men assembled, it is said, in front of the house of Captain Lamson, which stood where the farm-house of Mr. George C. Davis now stands. There Mr. Woodward offered prayer, and then taking a gun he fell into the ranks to march with his fellow townsmen to the aid of the embattled farmers who were struggling for national independence at Con

war.

He

cord, showing by this act, as the old record states, that he meant "to put his preaching into practice." He rendered active service for one day and then returned to his pulpit. In September, 1776, he read the Declaration of Independence in the meeting house. This was done in obedience to the order of the council, but we may feel sure that Mr. Woodward would have read it without any command.

Another incident of his life, of a more personal nature, occurred at the close of his ministry. His son, Cyrus, a promising youth of nineteen, a member of the sophomore class at Harvard, suddenly died of a fever on September 10, 1782. The Sunday after his interment Mr. Woodward preached his funeral sermon. His subject was: "Submission to the Providence of God a Christian Duty," from the text: "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Job i. 21. It is, so far as its form and phrasing are concerned, a very ordinary sermon, no better than many which before had made little impression. But the circumstances under which it was spoken endow it with life and reality. In this sermon a father's heart throbs with sorrow for his son, as he seeks to impart the comfort which he himself needs so much. The reader of the sermon, even now, more than a hundred years after it was spoken, feels the pathetic note in one of its opening sentences: "Submission eases the mind, and mitigates that sorrow that otherwise is ready to oppress and sink the heart." The preacher had said, using the words attributed to David on the death of his child: "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." The words were prophetic, for the minister had preached his

last sermon. In a few days he was taken with a fever, and on October 5, 1782, passed to where God had called his dear one on. He lies buried in the cemetery of the town of Weston, and a memorial tablet records his virtues. In his centennial discourse Doctor Kendal, who was his successor in the ministry, says: "He died greatly beloved and lamented by the people of his charge, by his brethren in office, and by an extensive circle of acquaintance. His memory is yet dear to many of this society."

Samuel Kendal, who succeeded Mr. Woodward, was born July 11, 1753. He is the first minister of Weston of whom we have distinct and vivid remembrance. Those who preceded him seem like shadows, but he stands before us a well-defined and robust figure. We know him as a strong man who wrestled with the hard conditions of his life, and prevailed.

He seems to have inherited the vigor of his constitution from his father, Elisha Kendal, who survived his son ten years, and who died at the great age of ninety-nine. It is said that when he was ninety he walked from Weston to Salem in one day. It may be due to his influence that Doctor Kendal resolved in early youth to become a minister, for he was a simple-hearted, deeply religious man, who always loved to remember that he had been converted under the preaching of Whitefield. When Doctor Kendal was nineteen he had saved enough money from his earnings to purchase his freedom, and started at once from Nova Scotia, whither his father had removed from New England, for Massachusetts, in order there to pursue his studies. He crossed the Bay of Fundy in a boat so