April 20th.-If my work was not God's work I should feel discouraged."

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April 27th.-Have been with the Clarkes to Brooke farm. The day cold and windy. We strolled about that place of disappointed hopes. A spirit of sadness seemed to linger around the deserted cottages-cellars filled with ruins-fields wanting not in beauty or richness, but needing the culture of a hand that can say, 'they are mine!' All was interesting, though sad. I can not describe the feelings which pressed upon me. I fancied those tired poets returning to their plain homes, and trying to believe it was pleasant."

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"June 17th.-Preached upon the sphere of the pulpit. Said some very plain things, but the people bore it nobly. Think I touched more consciences than ever before."

June 23d.-Have spent a pleasant day taking father and mother around. They seem much delighted with everything. I dread to-morrow; to preach before them is trying in the ex'treme."

"June 24th.-Father seems to have been much pleased with the services."

"June 26th.—I never expected to receive my parents in so blessed a home. God has been gracious to me indeed. My life is like a dream. Strange, strange that I should be so blessed!"

"September 23d.—Preached my first anniversary sermon to a very full house. Endeavored to tell the people what we ought to do, as well as congratulate them on what we have done. My text: 'Rejoice with fear and trembling.' Am very tired, and feel the need of rest."

"October 23d.-Listened to a sermon by Oliver Stearns, which was a burning fire, but a little tinctured with a foggy theology, which desires to throw around the character of Christ a mystery that does not belong to it. If we once admit that the power of Christ-whatever it may be-was delegated, which all but Trinitarians must do, why not suppose power enough to make

him equal to whatever work he had to perform without any miraculous connection of the Father with him ?"

"October 8th.-Mr. H. tells me there is some uneasiness

felt about my last Sunday's sermon. I do not care; should prefer to give satisfaction, but if I can not by preaching the truth as I see it, it must go."

"December 14th.-Had a talk with Ellen about this world being an unhappy one.”

Of course he did not think it was, for only three days be. fore, his first child, Frederick Augustus, had opened his eyes in the house, and lighted it up with a strange glory. Great was his joy in this new comer, and in the little ones that came after, Fanny and Carrie to just taste the earth and go, and Cora Collyer, to light up for him, with her baby eyes,

To miss it for

the dark valley. His home-life was intense. a day was dreadful pain to him, to take it up again a joy he celebrated in ways more natural than ministerial. His let. ters to Fred are as tender as Luther's to his "Johnny," and a great deal more sensible. In his intimate relations with Heavenly Fahder," he found a source of deep and tender joy. "Well papa," said the rogue one day, when he had come in well soaked with snow-water, "I told Heavenly Fahder that I didn't want so much snow round here, and that I wished he would make it come summer, but he wouldn't." At another time he found him making paper. babies, "for Heavenly Fahder to make angels out of." In no respect was Mr. Staples's constantly increasing nervousness more painful to him, than in its preventing him from always entering into and enjoying his children's pranks, But somehow, they seemed to know that it was not their father, but their father's nerves, that could not stand the awful racket which they sometimes made. They knew they

sunset.

had no better friend than he. One evening the summer after his death, Fred, then nine years old, was looking at a He called his mother to come and see how beautiful it was. She, being busily engaged in conversation with her sister, came and said, “Yes, it is beautiful," and continued the conversation. He next called his aunt, who came and looked, and spoke in the same casual way.

This was

too much. The hot tears came rushing to his eyes, and burying his face in his hands, he cried out, “Oh! I wish papa was here to enjoy it with me," so well did he remember that his sympathy was never craved in vain.

“December 21st.-Rode into the city with Dunbar to hear Thackeray. He is not to be described. Is not profound. Is chatty, ambles along so that you cannot bear to think of his ever stopping. He makes you love him. Does not lecture but

talks."

and Mrs. B

called to talk about joining

"Mrs. A the church. It is curious to observe the workings of different characters on such occasions. Each will give expression to the highest thought they are capable of. Was never more struck with the difference in spheres than when talking with these two ladies. Mrs. A——— is kind-hearted, and has good feelings, but no higher view of religion than as being the highest and best form of propriety and benevolence. Mrs. B- has been in the fire of trouble, and has become purified into a knowledge of the spirit, and a desire for the highest spiritual life."

"February 13th, 1856.—I hope I am on the verge of something better; for certainly this feeling of dissatisfaction is too much."

"March 29th.-If I dared flinch from preaching it (a sermon on intemperance) I fear I would. But my duty is plain. The truth must be spoken. It is hard to wound the feelings of

friends, but woe is unto me if I preach not the truth. I will leave the consequences to him whose the truth is."

"May 10th. [Something having gone wrong in the choir] I sometimes wish I had no ear for music to be pleased or offended. But so it is. I live or die on a sweet sound or harsh.

Mr. Staples's love of music began with his earliest years, and grew with his growth more discriminating, and more passionate every year. This love came from his father, as also did his first lessons. When his father was away from home winter evenings, the boy would go out into the moonlight, and wait, and wait, until he heard the first creaking of his sledge as it reached a neighboring hill-top, and then the sweet tones of his voice, singing some one of the simple songs of which he had a store. When he was weary there was nothing that rested him so much; when he was nervous and distracted, nothing could so soothe and quiet him. There could be no surer proof of his dependence on it, and its power over him, than that on the night of his little Carrie's burial, he went to a concert, and sat there more solitary in his grief than if he had been the only person present, converting the sweet sounds into encouragement and resignation. At an early age he learned to play upon the flute and violin, and still later upon the piano. His journals abound with musical experiences, criticisms favorable and unfavorable on operas and oratorios, and great performers.

On the twenty-first of May, this year, came the news of Mr. Sumner's attempted murder by Preston Brooks. Mr. Staples was very active in getting up an indignation meeting, one of the many that in that day of terrors were held throughout the North. He was delighted with the tokens of awakening conscience that the meeting evinced in the Lexington community, and for a time grew more hopeful

as to his work. He had not been very hopeful during the Spring. He had been feeling a good deal discouraged, and consequently restless and uneasy. It was not from any lack of outward success, nor from the failure of his plans. The society had grown rapidly under his care; the people were united upon him, with the exception of a few persons to whom his anti-slavery sermons were an abomination, and who occasionally slammed their pew-doors behind them and walked out of church; though even these found it hard work to get along without his preaching, and soon got hungry and came back. The church proper had also increased rapidly. But it was evident to Mr. Staples, that his people liked him better than his views. Personally they were very fond of him, and could not do enough for him and his wife. But when it came to his progressive views of doctrine, and worship, and church-work, they did not sympathize with him and offer him their aid. This state of things was most distasteful to him. The righteous indignation aroused by the assault on Mr. Sumner and the Kansas outrages encouraged him for a time; but the trouble was too deep to be thus easily allayed. He was not himself conscious, at first, of its main source, which afterward he found to be the great progress he had made in thought since leaving Meadville, and the instinctive feeling that a new field was best adapted to his new ideas and designs. His radicalism, which had been increasing steadily, did not fairly come to consciousness in him until his Lexington ministry was a dream of the past.

"July 27th.-Mr. Crufts came up to preach for me on an exchange that I had entirely forgotten. I found him in my pulpit when I went there. It is too bad, and I reproach myself severely for it.”