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tenfold experience, still hold themselves to be but learners."

And how true has been the following foreshadowed experience both as regards expectation and result in the case of the State banks.

"But now for the interest of the issuers themselves, how are the State banks to be made willing or even unwilling parties in this substitution? Twelve hundred, at least, State banks, broken or unbroken, now enjoy this privilege, and value it as a source of profit, and will not abandon it. By what scheme of tyranny, it is asked, shall it be wrested from them? By what instrument of power shall the federal government put them down? Still more, by what argument justify to the nation such usurpation? But softly, gentlemen! Your right of issue we do not propose to take from you, but simply the motive of interest, that alone leads you to issue your own notes; we propose not to break you down but to build you up. Suppose, for instance, you were to find it to your interest to circulate the notes of a national bank rather than your own, would you not at once pocket both the profit and the affront? Surely as wise bankers you would, or if you still preferred pride to profit, stockholders, having no pride on that point, would soon put others in your place who would."

It had not been my intention to go even as far as I have into this exposition of my father's views on the subject of finance, but there is an undoubted interest, hard to resist, in thus tracing the prophetic flashes of the true science of yesterday as it discloses the riches

of to-day. And such was the character of my father's work as a political economist. He was no second hand retailer of book truths, but a genuine tentative thinker, bent on discovery. As he says of himself in another review on this subject: "We are of that class of reasoners who hold it to be of the nature of truth to work its own way. And we are further well satisfied, that in the long run the world is governed by what practical men so greatly despise -IDEAS-abstract, metaphysical, primal truths, such as

'Wake to perish never.'"

THIS

CHAPTER VII.

CLERICAL AND COLLEGE DUTIES: 1828.

HIS was a busy period in my father's life, and he gave himself up without reserve to every call that seemed to him one of duty. For two years or more he had been a member of the missionary committee of the diocese, and soon was appointed its secretary, which brought upon him the chief burden and responsibility of its affairs, This was especially the case during Bishop Hobart's absence in Europe, at which time he entered with much zeal into the interests of the Indian mission of the diocese, at the "Oneida Reservation," where Williams, who afterwards obtained that strange notoriety as a possible Bourbon, was quietly and earnestly officiating as deacon. He himself visited the Reservation, and afterwards so warmly pleaded the Indian's cause at Washington as to obtain from the General Government aid for their mission school. The scene of this interesting mission is thus described in his "Life of Bishop Hobart": —

"Their rich, extended domains were lying in common, the property of the tribe, not of individuals, some little of it cultivated, more in open pasture, but most in its state of native wildness, and reserved for

hunting grounds. Through these forests, paths there were many, but roads none, and the generally rude, though sometimes neat and rustic dwellings of these sons of the forest lay scattered in wild but picturesque confusion.”

Among those who flocked around Bishop Hobart on his visit to them a few years previous, was one aged Mohawk warrior, who, amid his heathen. brethren, had for half a century held fast by that holy faith in which he had been instructed and baptized by a missionary from the Society in England while these States were still colonies. Through the catechist, as interpreter, he now recounted the event in the figurative language of these children of nature, and pointed out with as much feeling as belongs to that imperturbable race, the very spot where this early missionary had been accustomed to assemble them and to preach. It was an open glade in the forest, with a few scattered oaks, still vigorous and spreading; and within view, as if to perpetuate the association, now arose the tower of a neat rustic church."

Mr. Williams' name having been mentioned, it seems due to him upon whom some would have thrust the doubtful honors of a title to the French crown, to erect here his truer monument of praise from the mouth of Bishop Hobart :

"Mr. Eleazar Williams, educated in a different communion, connected himself with our church from conviction, and appears warmly attached to her doctrines, her apostolic ministry, and her worship. Soon after he commenced his labors among the Oneidas,

the pagan party solemnly professed the Christian faith. Mr. Williams repeatedly explained to them, in councils which they held for this purpose, the evidences of the divine origin of Christianity, and its doctrines, institutions, and precepts. He combated their objections, patiently answered their inquiries, and was finally, through the Divine blessing, successful in satisfying their doubts. Soon after their conversion they appropriated, in conjunction with the Christian party, the proceeds of the sale of some of their lands for the erection of a handsome edifice for divine worship." 1

A vote of thanks from the board of the general missionary society of the Church to Professor McVickar, dated May 16th, 1828, shows him as supplying at this time the pulpit duties of the Rev., afterwards Bishop Upfold, while the latter was preaching for the society. That preaching had not, in spite of other thoughts and duties, become irksome, is evident from the following scraps of family letters belonging to this period:

"I have been called, through Dr. Wainwright's absence, more than usual of late to clerical duties,. to which I return with so much pleasure that were it not for other considerations I should have strong thoughts of returning to them again."

"Dr. Wainwright, after being away three weeks, has returned. His absence revived my love of parochial duty, and I shall come to it perhaps at last. No duties leave so pleasing an impression on my

1 Journal of New York Convention, 1818.

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