The first part of this letter points at the real trouble-real to him at any rate-which he felt in Milwaukee. It was that he found there no general appreciation of what he knew was his best thought and life. That "no one had ever acknowledged any worth or pertinence in what he said or aspired to" was true of neither Lexington nor Milwaukee, though for the moment it seemed so in comparison with Collyer's perfect sympathy and appreciation. There were a few who took him at his best, asked him for his best. There were many who admired him personally. But there were also many who admired in him what he knew was not his best and deepest side, and their admiration was a constant premium on his unfaithfulness to his clearest light and brightest vision.

The recognition which he wanted was recognition of what he knew was his real worth as such, not any superficial admiration. Furthermore, there were little annoyances connected with the practical management of the society on which his nature fretted as a brook against a stone, yet made no music that he then could hear. Such, with others that I have already named, were his reasons for leaving Milwaukee. Yet his final resolve to do so was taken suddenly, and was abruptly broken to his people. In June, he preached in Brooklyn, but hardly as a candidate for settlement. In July, a commission was offered him as chaplain in the Sixth Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteers, which, after a long and careful consideration, he accepted on the 10th of the month, at the same time resigning his position as minister of the Milwaukee society. The pain it cost him to do this is evinced by the silence of his journal, which was now again taken up. There is not one word about it beyond the simple statement of the fact. The whole matter was unspeakably painful to him. He felt as if his whole ministry

had gone for nothing, a feeling from which his brother, who succeeded him, eloquently appealed in a sermon preached to the Milwaukee people the Sunday after Nahor's death. I can not do better than to sum up the results of his Milwaukee life in the words of that sermon.

"Yet in no sense can his ministry here be regarded as a failure, though I have sometimes thought this was the view he then took of it. On the contrary, it was a marked success. During those two years the society lost a class of people who are never of much value except as they help to fill up the pews. It lost those who are never willing a minister should utter what he believes to be true and right when it crosses their political prejudices or selfish interests, who will support him as long as he preaches what does not relate to their sins, but will condemn and shun him if he applies the truths of the Gospel to their conduct. The society lost those who go to a church because it is on the wave of popularity, and it will advance their interests in business to be seen there, or who go to hear some new and startling thing said—all this class, never to be relied on in the hour of trial, always found wanting when their help is needed most, deserted it. These people, and those who had more regard for the minister than for the cause he represented, have very little value in the permanent growth of a church, and their loss to us is not to be taken into account in considering this matter of success.

"But if that discipline which draws out all the latent powers of mind and spirit; if a wide and lasting influence, won by the force of his talents and his devotion to his work; if the awakening of high and generous purposes in others, the strengthening of their souls in trouble, doubt and fear, and the upbuilding of their faith in a God of infinite mercy and tenderness, and a life of endless progress beyond the grave; if the firm planting of a liberal church in a community deeply prejudiced against its doctrines, and the winning for those doctrines a wide and respectful hearing in the State by the eloquence with which he pre

sented them, and the ardor with which he labored for them; if a work done for the poor, the erring, the forsaken in this city, which will cause his name to be long remembered with gratitude and affection; if these be the evidences of true success, then he won it fully in his ministry here.

"And so it appeared to him at last. In the closing days, when he sat in the shadow of the great change that was coming —or rather, when the light of the opening day shone backward soft and beautiful on all his course-he saw his trials, his disappointments, his sorrows, transfused with the glory of infinite wisdom and love, and felt that all had been well—that all was needed to chasten and purify his hopes. 'I was led in the right way,' he said, 'disciplined for a higher life, and a larger and better influence. That church offers a great and promising field of usefulness. In it I made my best attainments, and did my best work. They are a generous and appreciative people.' The hard and bitter things of his experience here had been touched, softened and glorified, by his faith that God was ever working in him and through him; his disappointments had been swallowed up in the triumphs to which they led the way. Your expressions of love and respect alone lingered in his memory, to brighten and cheer the closing hours. His last thoughts of you were of great tenderness; of the trials and joys which he had shared with you, the holy ties which bound you to him and him to you, and which the approach of death only strengthened, and made him feel would survive all change, and live eternally in the purer air of heaven.”

At the beginning of his army journal, Mr. Staples states his reasons for going to the war in the capacity of chaplain. They are:

"I. The hope of doing something to sanctify this cause in the hearts of the soldiers and the community from which they go, and make them if possible worthy of so great a mission.

"II. Because every interest of church and state is concentrated in the success of our cause, and this fact should be impressed upon soldiers and people.

"III. Because some one of position and influence should go with such a body of men, whose special duty it is to keep himself and others human in the midst of war's savage necessities.

"IV. That by associating with the common soldier and gaining his confidence, I may do something to convince him of the deep reality of the spirit and her wants.

"V. That I may be of service to the soldier's friends at home; a mediator between his new life and the old.

"VI. That I may speak words of courage and hope to these eleven hundred men, keeping ever before them, as far as I can, the fact that God is very near them always. I put the speaking last, because I think it belongs there.

"VII. Although I shall make no attempt to proselyte, the hope that our faith, so dear to me, may be honored through my fidelity has had something to do toward strengthening my purpose to enlist."

In this straightforward, simple manner did he accept his task, and in like manner did he bear himself while it continued. But his chaplaincy fell upon an evil place and time. His regiment was posted near Washington, when McClellan was just entering on his career of masterly inactivity. We had had rashness, and now caution was to take its place. How long Mr. Staples would have fretted under that costly and terrible experiment we do not know; for his health soon began to grow worse very rapidly, and he applied for and obtained his discharge. He went back to Milwaukee unable to speak above a whisper. But the voice then so feeble was

to rally once more for a brief space, and then for ever cease, save as its echoes would for some time longer haunt full many a loving heart.

The one great good that came from Mr. Staples's army life was the reënforcement of the friendship between him and Collyer by many days and nights of sweetest interchange of thought and aspiration.

V.

BROOKLYN.

In July, 1861, while he was at Washington, Mr. Staples received a call from the Second Unitarian society in Brooklyn. The society had been without a pastor for some time, and was not in a flourishing condition. Mr. Longfellow's ministry of seven years had been very successful, but its success was of the sort that must be measured by the plumbline, not by the surface-level. He had gathered about him a little band of faithful souls, and had nurtured in them a spiritual life that would be to his successors an unfailing source of quiet inspiration. But the same stumbling-blocks that Mr. Staples had encountered in Milwaukee, Mr. Longfellow had encountered in Brooklyn. His pronounced radicalism in theology and politics hindered the lateral growth of the society, but made it strike down its roots the more deeply. Never did any preacher, coming into a new position, find a better nucleus awaiting him than Mr. Staples found in Brooklyn. He accepted the call of the society on condition that he should not enter upon his duties until he had taken a deeper draught of army life.

In the month of August, an effort was made by outside parties, who were not perhaps aware how far the matter between Mr. Staples and the society had gone, to effect the settlement of Rev. W. H. Channing, who was at that time in this country. Somehow it got to the ears of Mr. Staples, who wrote at once to Mr. Mills, as follows: