death of the venerable Dr. Barnard, the eyes of his people turned at once to Mr. Abbot as his successor. He preached to them, became acquainted with them, and was ordained as their minister on the 20th of April, 1815.

The trials of a clergyman's life are never small to a conscientious man, and in the place to which Mr. Abbot was called they were on some accounts peculiarly great. He succeeded an aged and experienced minister, who had gained the full confidence and affection of his flock by his intimacy and fidelity in parochial duties. Mr. Abbot's own inclinations and views of duty would lead him also to pay peculiar attention, and devote a large share of time, to this, the most trying and difficult part of ministerial labour. He had come to a large parish when not twenty-two years of age, with but little experience, and oppressed with a sense of responsibility. But he showed himself to be equal to the charge. Young as be was," says one who knew him well, "he discovered at once the wisdom and prudence, which we should suppose could be the result of experience only." He secured to an uncommon degree the respect and attachment of his people, and his own love for his duties soon amounted, as he himself expressed it, almost to a passion. As far as was practicable he made himself personally known to every individual, interested himself as a friend in their welfare, was always by their side in perplexity and sorrow, and ready to make any sacrifices of personal ease for the sake of their good. At the same time he pursued his studies with diligence, and made especially the preparation of his sermons for the pulpit an object of chief attention. These were distinguished for the judgment with which the most impressive thoughts were selected and arranged, for great affectionateness and earnestness of address, and for a style of uniform neatness, purity, and beauty not often excelled. He wrote much besides them to assist himself in the course of his religious inquiries, but not with a view to publication, and engaged but little in studies not connected with his profession, though he was a good classical scholar, and always fond of elegant literature.

His frame was too feeble to support this various load of cares. He had never been robust; and the duties which he pursued with so much ardor, insensibly diverted his attention from the care of himself. In the spring of 1817, his health was evidently impaired; and a little cough, which seemed alarming to some of his friends, but too slight to attract his own attention, followed him through the summer. In October he took a little journey to the south, which injured instead of benefiting him. He felt it his duty, feeble as he was, to preach

in the Unitarian church at Philadelphia, and on his return the weather was cold and stormy; he took a severe cold which settled upon his lungs with a violent cough, and was accompa nied with bleeding. Fearing lest he should become too weak to reach home, he pressed on with injudicious rapidity. On the day after his arrival in Salem, the first Sabbath in November, he preached to his people. The weather was tempestuous. His utterance was interrupted by a perpetual cough; and the service of the holy communion, which he administered for the last time, was a season of distress to his church, and full of the saddest forebodings. He was too ill to attend worship in the afternoon, and from that time appeared to be in a rapid decline. During the winter he was confined to his chamber, and principally to his bed; his weakness was extreme; his voice only a whisper; and he believed himself to be a dying man. But there was othing in him of distress, agitation, or gloom; he was the same tranquil and cheerful man that he had been in bealth. His unwillingness to speak of himself, and his great aversion to talking much of what was passing within him, which was always a prominent trait in his modest character, prevented his conversing much, or to many persons, of his feelings and prospects. He knew that religion did not consist in being forward to tell the secrets of the soul. He did not conceal, however, from those friends who had a right to know his thoughts, that he thought his days were numbered; and to a friend, who often watched with him, he spake frequently without reserve; dwelt upon the thought of dying with perfect calmness; expressed with energy the satisfaction and peace which he derived from the views of religion he had imbibed and preached; and especially from those affectionate and confiding sentiments respecting the essential goodness of God, which had always laid at the foundation of his piety and hope.

On the approach of spring, appearances were more favourable, and he removed to Exeter. There he spent the summer with his parents, and his strength was so far restored, that he contemplated a return to his ministerial labours in the autumn. A letter, which he wrote in July to an intimate friend, presents a beautiful exemplification of his habitual piety. "I think," he says, "that I gain strength, and now cannot but rejoice in the hope, which for so long a time I felt it necessary to check as it rose, of being again permitted to minister the gospel to my beloved people. In this restoration I see the direct agency of Him, who first breathed into me the breath of life; the skill of man and the powers of medicine seemed all in vain; it was his air, the warmth of his sun, the bright and cheering pros

pects of the earth which his goodness quickened and beautified, which thus far have dispelled the damps of disease, and en-. kindled the feeble and dying flame within me. I suppose that every person, when restored from sickness, flatters himself that the feelings of piety, which deliverance awakens, will not decay. God grant that mine may be as permanent and influential as they ought to be!"

In another letter he speaks thus of his attendance on public worship, which he was just able to renew. "I could not help my mind from wandering much away, and being filled with recollections of the past years of my own life; for I had not been present at the ordinance since that distressful day, when I last met our own church at the altar. I think there is no time when the heart more expands towards all present or dis-tant, whom God has made dear to it, than when commemorating that greater friend, whose love was stronger than death."

But the approach of autumn proved these flattering expectations to be delusive. His cough, which had never left him, became again alarming, and it was thought expedient that he should spend the winter in a warmer climate. He acquiesced in the measure, but did not greatly desire it. "Life for its own sake," he said, "was scarcely worth preserving at such a price; but he was not his own; and he felt it to be a duty to use every means which presented a hope that he might be restored to his people." On the eighth of November he sailed for Havana, to spend the winter with a friend in that place. But all hope of benefit from this step was disappointed. His voyage was rough and fatiguing; and although, as he very gratefully acknowledges in his journal, every possible attention was paid to his accommodation and comfort, he yet suffered much. "Upon the whole," he writes after his arrival, "I have been disappointed in regard to the voyage. My cough is somewhat increased and my strength lessened." His residence upon the island was not more salutary. The kindest attentions of devoted friends were vain. It was soon found hazardous for him to remain within the walls of the city, and he quitted the hospitable dwelling of the old friend with whom he at first resided, for a lodging among strangers in the country. He felt that nothing had been gained, and he sometimes said so; but no complaint ever escaped his lips, no look of discontent overspread his countenance. And when it was mentioned as a subject of regret that he had quitted his country, he said, "By no means; that he considered it the peculiar appointment of Providence, and, whatever might be the event, he would not alter a single circumstance if he could."

A minute account of his residence in Cuba would be exceedingly interesting. There was not a day of his exile, says the friend who accompanied him, that he was not a subject for home and a nurse; yet his mind was tranquil and active as when in health. He commenced a journal when he left home, which he continued until increasing weakness compelled him to relinquish it thirteen days after his arrival. What he wrote is interesting from its minute descriptions of scenes and events, and as it shows that he was alive to all around him, and could observe and reflect as he always did. His remarks upon the character and influence of the Roman Catholic superstitions, concerning which he made full inquiry and observation; upon the state of morals; and upon the great evils which result from making the Sabbath a day of amusement; are truly creditable to his talents and piety, and almost wonderful, when it is considered that he was so feeble as to be utterly exhausted by the effort required to write a few pages. But he was one who never would suffer the opportunity of improving his mind or his heart to pass by. He formed an acquaintance with several Friars of distinction, with whom he used to converse by means of a pencil in Latin; one of whom, of superior rank and fortune, became greatly attached to him, and daily exchanged visits. Through him he was received with hospitality at the convent of which he was a member, obtained access to the library, with liberty to borrow books, and was requested to visit freely at all times. He visited the prison, the slave-market, and the burial place of Americans, where he attended the funeral of a young man, a fellow passenger, and other similar places of suffering. When the fatigue attendant on such exertions was named to him, he replied, that it was the duty of a clergyman to make himself familiar with such scenes, as they fitted him for the better discharge of his duty. So much had he at heart the one object of being a useful minister.

But the increasing heat of the weather soon rendered it impossible for him to take the necessary exercise, and his strength hourly decayed; when, in one of those sudden changes to which the climate is subject, but against which man has made insufficient provision, he took a severe cold which threatened a speedy termination to his sufferings. As soon as he was a little relieved, he embarked for Charleston, S. C. sea breeze in some degree restored his appetite and strength; and when he arrived, the sensation, which every one feels on treading again his native shore, gave a stimulus to his exhausted frame, which he mistook for returning health. He immediately found kind and devoted friends, though he came to them a

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stranger, and received every comfort which the most affectionate and tender sympathy could bestow. But he soon found that his feelings had deceived him, and his spirits sunk for a moment under the pressure of disease, and disappointed hope, and the delay in returning home, occasioned by the lateness of the New England spring. On it being remarked to him that he was in low spirits, he answered, "No; not in low spirits, but sober. I think it very doubtful whether I am ever any better, and it is time for me now to consider myself a stranger and pilgrim on earth." He would often say, "O that I had wings like a dove, that I might flee away and be at rest.' He sometimes regretted the distraction of mind produced by travelling, and said there was great justice in the remark of Jeremy Taylor, that "no one can be devout who leads a wandering life." The thought of dying was evidently familiar to him. As he was riding one fine morning, he applied to himself the lines written by Michael Bruce, just before his death: :

Now spring returns-but not to me returns

The vernal joys my better years have known;
Dim in my breast life's dying taper burns,

And all the joys of life with health are flown.

Yet in the midst of a weakness and langour which might bave excused him for attending exclusively to himself, he engaged in teaching the slave, who waited upon him, to read.

When the weather became hot in the middle of April, he left Charleston and reached Philadelphia by packet on the 22d, so much reduced that it was thought doubtful whether he could live to reach home. His father and several friends met him there. Their presence produced a temporary exhilaration of spirits, but his strength was rapidly decreasing, and from that time he could speak only in a whisper.

He arrived in Exeter, at the abode of his parents, in June. During the summer his decline was certain but gradual. He had too long contemplated the event to be moved by it. His whole demeanor remained collected and tranquil. There was a quietness in his manner, a placid gentleness in every look and word which came from him, which discovered that death had no terrors to sadden or deject him, and that he had no duty now but to withdraw his interest from earthly things, and "prune his flight for heaven." The same desire to save others from pain, which had always been eminently characteristic of him, prevented him for a long time from speaking of his death to the friends who were with him, and made him reluc