place with his family, in 1639, the year of his arrival in Providence. His name has a place among the signatures to the civil covenant in 1640, and is found in various connexions after that time. Backus speaks of him as officiating in the ministry immediately after Roger Williams's death, and Comer, in his manuscript, says that he continued the pastoral care of the church after Mr. Wickenden left it, in 1652. The breach which then arose out of the controversy about laying on of hands as a divine rite, was afterwards healed, as the practice was adopted by the church, although it was not made an indispensable term of communion or membership. In succeeding years, however, it is not probable that any entered the church without it, and the doctrine of the imposition of hands was unanimously received for more than a century.

We know not the year when Mr. Olney's ministry was closed, but he was succeeded by Rev. Pardon Tillinghast, the ancestor of a numerous family amongst us. He was a native of England, emigrated to Connecticut, and came thence to Providence, where, for more than half a century, his life adorned the religion which he preached. It was an honorable testimony borne of him by governor Jenckes, derived from those who knew him, that he "was a man exemplary for his doctrine, as well as of an unblemished

character," a testimony well confirmed by his acts of disinterested benevolence. Certainly it was not without reason that Morgan Edwards said, that the ministry of this church had been expensive to the ministers themselves, though it had cost the people but little; for the first house of worship which this church possessed, was built by Mr. Tillinghast, in 1700, at his own expense. Before that year, they had worshipped in a grove, and in private houses when the weather was inclement. For his own services he would receive no pecuniary compensation, but he did not fail in his preaching to inculcate the principle maintained by Paul, that they who preach the gospel should live of the gospel, and that although he waved his own right to maintenance, it was the duty of the church to provide for those who should succeed him. Governor Jenckes quotes his words on that subject as the words of a man whose name was honored, and whose opinions had weight with those whom he addressed. He died in 1718, and was interred in the burial place of his family "in a good old age."

The year succeeding the death of Mr. Tillinghast, Rev. Ebenezer Jenckes, brother of the

* Gov. Jenckes's letter in Backus, II, 115.

Governor, was ordained to the pastoral office.* He was born in Pawtucket, in 1669, and was the first American minister who preached in Providence. It is pleasing to see that at so early a period, the sons of Rhode-Island were employed in the christian ministry, that the church in the wilderness was not only blessed by her sons "that came from afar," but by those who were "nursed at her side." Mr. Jenckes belonged to a family who have been known as liberal friends of literature and religion. His father, a native of Buckinghamshire in England, was a pious man, and the first who built a house in the town of Pawtucket. His brother, the Governor, a member of this church, was for a number of years, ambassador of the Colony to the Court of St. James, and distinguished not only by the urbanity of his manners and his intellectual endowments, but by the graces of religion. His son, Daniel Jenckes, who was for fortyeight years an active member here, was for forty years a member of the General Assembly, Chief Justice of this county, and a munificent donor to the college and the church. He, himself, is spoken of as a man highly esteemed for his talents and his piety, who declining most of the public offices which were urged on his

acceptance, discharged the duties of the sphere in which he moved, with honor and fidelity.

From a remark in Backus's Church History, it appears that Mr. Jenckes was not solę Pastor of the church, but a colleague of Rev. James Brown. The latter was a grandson of the minister of that name, whom we have already spoken of as the companion and successor of Roger Williams, and the grand-parent of those four brothers, whose names are so widely known as being intimately associated with the commercial character of Providence; whose persons and actions, whose amity, enterprise and public spirit, are embalmed in the recollections of many who hear me, and with whom a number amongst us stand connected in ties of endearing relationship. They have gone from this the scene of their youth, their manhood and their age, but neither is their name extinct or their spirit departed. If while surveying the past, we might be permitted to breathe a wish for the future prosperity of Providence, it would be that all her sons might emulate the examples of these men of other generations, and exhibit their virtues on a scale proportioned to their own advantages; for then, indeed, would her "mer

* See Appendix, I.

chants be princes," and wisdom and knowledge would be the stability of her times.

During the ministry of Mr. James Brown, an event occurred, which showed that more importance began to be attached to the imposition of hands at that time, than during preceding years. The church at Newport had been blessed with a revival of religion, and with the hope of promoting one in Providence, Mr. Walton, a young minister of liberal education, was invited to preach here. He was willing to practice the laying on of hands, but not as a divine ordinance, necessary to church fellowship. Mr. Windsor, then a deacon of the church, was the leader of a party, who urged the imposition of hands as a term of church communion. Newport was then virtually the capital of the Colony, and Governor Jenckes was residing there, for the sake of convenience as a public officer. He wrote to Mr. Brown on the subject, confirming Mr. Walton's view, that laying on of hands "should be no bar to communion with those who have been rightly baptized," and saying that he had been informed by ancient members of this church, that such had been the opinion of Baptists throughout the colony from the earliest times. Mr. Brown perfectly accorded in this sentiment, and strongly remonstrated with Mr. Windsor and his friends against this rigid innovation. As