sanctuary, and then for three months more, to use his own language, wearisome days and nights were appointed to him. "But I bless God," said he, "I feel perfectly willing to have it just as it is. I have resigned myself into his hands, knowing he will not inflict one pain too much." His extraordinary fortitude seemed to spring directly from his faith in God, which was at all times equal to the emergency. I remember well the emphasis with which a friend who visited him in his sickness, and had just come from his bed-side, expressed the sentiment, that he had never seen such a lamb-like, unmurmuring sufferer, amidst pains so exquisite.

During this period, his mind was sustained by meditations of an elevated and cheering character, and he found some hours for reading a few favorite books, such as Fuller's Life of Pearce, and Jay's Lectures. "This" said he, "is the kind of reading which my soul loves." No book suited him then, which did not tend to guide his mind to the cross of Christ. When visited by one of his aged friends, Deacon Joseph Martin, an officer of the church, he said with much emphasis amidst great weakness, "I am glad to have an opportunity to express to you that the doctrine of the Deity of Jesus Christ is my support-it is the rock on which my soul rests in the last hour." "Ah, Doctor," was the reply,

(6 you still hold to that." "That doctrine holds me," said he, "or I should sink."

On the afternoon of Sunday, the 17th of August, his mind was filled with unusual joy and transport. Heaven broke upon his sight. "Not a cloud," he said, "but all clear sunshine. I have been trying to find a dark spot, but all is bright." I feel filled with God and Christ."

Oh if my Lord would come and meet,
My soul would stretch her wings in haste,
Fly fearless through death's iron gate,
Nor feel the terrors as she passed.

His desire was realized on the following afternoon, Monday, August 18th, 1828. On August 20th, a funeral discourse was delivered by Rev. Dr. Sharp, of Boston, from Proverbs 10: 7,"The memory of the just is blessed."

After the death of Dr. Gano, the church remained more than a year and a half without a pastor. They then united in a call to Rev. Robert Everett Pattison, who had been Professor of Mathematics at Waterville College, but was at that time pastor of the second Baptist Church in Salem. The invitation was accepted, and he was settled March 21st, 1830. He remained pastor of the church more than six years, during which time the connexion between them be

came increasingly happy. Under his ministry

a fresh impulse was given to the progress of religion, and those interests of the church and society which had languished during the declining days of Dr. Gano, and while the church had been destitute of a pastor. After the arduous labors of a year, he was pleased to observe a renewed attention to religion gradually extending itself, and before he resigned his charge, he had baptized two hundred and three individuals into the name of Christ.

His departure from this place was rendered necessary by his declining health. His resignation of the pastoral office was accepted August 11, 1836. He then entered upon a new sphere of duties, which he yet fills with renovated energy and with gratifying success.

In looking back upon the history of this church from its formation to the present time, we cannot but feel that we are loudly called upon to-day, to bow our heads in solemn worship, before the Lord, while in this temple of our solemnities, we remember how great things he hath wrought for us. We are assembled near the spot, where our founder lifted up his voice in words of praise, that he had passed through the great and terrible wilderness, and had found at last the promised land. Well may we catch the same notes of thanksgiving, well may we cry in the words of the ancient patriarch touching his once exiled

son, "blessed of the Lord be his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath, and for the precious things of the earth and the fullness thereof, for the good-will of him that dwelt in the bush, and for the blessing which came upon the head of his servant, and upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his brethren." Add your testimony to his this day, that God's providence is rich, his judgments deep, his promises sure; for I call you to record that the hopes of that venerable pilgrim have fully been realized, and not one thing hath failed of all that he saw by the eye of faith. Here freedom has been established, religion enshrined, persecution condemned; here civil order and the right of private judgment have met together, and thus righteousness and peace have embraced each other.

It is a matter of just and special congratulation too, that this church, is united in maintaining the same great doctrines which were professed on the day of its formation. Roger Williams was celebrated in his day, as a preacher of the very principles of evangelical religion which were the distinguishing doctrines of those great reformers, Luther and Calvin, and which, in another century shone forth with such effulgence in the preaching of Whitefield. They

have been sustained by no state patronage, they have not even been embodied in a creed, but subjected to free discussion, and received as the doctrines of the bible, they have held their sway simply by their moral power. They have endured every trial, are still retained amongst us, and loved as well as ever. Standing as she does on the ground of her early faith, while the very churches which once censured her freedom as the prolific source of every error have gone far from what they then called orthodoxy, she is prepared from the experience of two centuries, to urge afresh upon the whole professing church of Christ, this great lesson, that whatever truth may be, she needs not to be guarded by the edicts of states, or the set phrase of synodical articles, but would fain shine by her own pure light, and be permitted to have free course that she may glorify herself.

While by the light of history, we look around upon the present state of the world, a few facts replete with meaning, connected with important practical lessons, force themselves upon our attention.

I. The success of the principle which was embodied in the constitution of this church. That principle, reduced to its simplest expression, is, that the christian dispensation acknowledges no tie which can unite a human being to