feeling called to give his time wholly to missionary labors amongst the negroes, Mr. Jones had resigned. Meanwhile he had been instrumental in giving the church an impetus to growth, and in securing the initial steps looking to the erection of a house of worship. Following upon his pastorate had come a series of stated supplies. The next pastorate had been that of Rev. Joseph L. Jones from April 27, 1837, to his death in 1841. The church had thus had a succession of short pastorates, interspersed with stated supplyships. The members were not numerous, but amongst them was not a little stalwart Presbyterian stuff.

While preaching the sermon dedicatory of the present edifice of this church, on the 9th of June, 1872, Benjamin M. Palmer himself described the session of the church as it existed during the period of his pastorate as follows:

"It would require little effort to reproduce the old session of thirty years ago; the faithful body-guard of the young pastor whose inexperience was then first learning how it should behave itself in the house and kingdom of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.' Here, just upon the right, sat the patriarchal Maxwell, an Israelite in whom there was no guile; who united the simplicity of the child with the prudence of the sage; in whose fatherly heart the children of sorrow and care ever found shelter, and whose word or smile was a perpetual benediction to the weary and worn. There, in front, and near the middle of the house, was the unbent figure of Joseph Cumming, with the steel-gray eye and compressed lip, the very symbol of decision and power; whose broad intellect measured truth in the grandeur of her proportions, and whose massive will crushed difficulties, as bars of iron are sometimes bent in a giant's grip. A few pews in advance of him was present the honest Crabtree, the frankness of whose nature was like the open sea, with which in earlier days he held communion; positive in his judgment, as those are apt to be whose only education has been hard experience, and whose practical wisdom was gathered in the same school. There, upon the left, sat the John-like Ingersoll, whose gentleness distilled like the dew and softened all about him; whose counsels were always of peace, and whose loving spirit fitted him so early to go up and lie upon the Savior's bosom; whilst a few steps in the rear of him, was the humble and timid Faries, with a gift in prayer that I have never heard equalled since; and a memory so steeped in the language of David and Paul that his petitions at the mercy-seat seemed like the breathings of the Holy Ghost. These it may be proper to distinguished as the 'Overseers' appointed to feed the church of God, purchased with his own blood. But the roll of those who

gathered around the sacramental board would sound very like precious names, as of Richardson, Copp, Ferguson, Sturtevant, Bernard, and others-written in the book of life, and now at the marriage supper of the Lamb in Heaven."2

In this church he had a good field for a young minister of his energy and his rich endowment of gifts,-a good field for him notwithstanding his inexperience. It would have proven one of too much work for all save a few young ministers. They would have been reduced to empty talkers, or have been broken in health. He felt the strain of it himself, as will appear; but he had very unusual resources. In one way or another, he could appear before his people three times a week with somewhat worthy of their hearing and heeding.

His ordination and installation as pastor of the church did not take place until he had served the people for several months. They had awaited the convenience of the Presbytery of Georgia, the only Presbytery in the State at the time. On Sabbath morning, March 6, the Presbytery, being in session proceeded to the ordination. By special invitation, the Rev. Edward Palmer, then an Independent Presbyterian minister in South Carolina, had come over to preach the sermon in connection with the ordination of his son. He preached on Ezekiel 30: 7, latter clause: "Therefore, thou shalt bear the word at my mouth and warn them from me." The Rev. Robert Quarterman presided and put the constitutional questions to licentiate and people; and after the ordaining prayer, the Rev. Charles Colcock Jones delivered the charge to the newly ordained and installed bishop, and the Rev. I. S. K. Axson that to the people.

Mr. Palmer threw himself with great zeal into his work. He rejoiced in every part of his labors. Rarely is there found. such perfect adaptation to every part of the ministerial work as existed in his case. He delighted in the study of the Bible and the great theologians, and the connected philosophical and psychological subjects. He exulted in preaching. Speechmaking was the function to which he had been born. He threw himself into it with joy. The pulpit was his throne and he had been made a king in it by the imposition of the Almighty hand. By his bearing, his tact, unfeigned sympathy, and the confi

2 Quoted in the Historical Sketch of the First Presbyterian Church, Savannah, Ga., by Wm. Harden, p. 25.

dence and love he inspired, his pastoral work soon came to be a delightful part of his labors.

Nevertheless, his ideals being very high, before a long period had elapsed, he began to feel keenly the burden of preparation for preaching. He himself, in the address "In Memoriam, Rev. I. S. K. Axson, D.D.," 3 which was delivered June 14, 1891, in the Independent Presbyterian Church, of Savannah, Ga., has described and defined in part, just where and how it pressed most heavily, and has told us of the cure to which he was pointed for the uneasiness occasioned by the burden, in the following words:

"There is an experience somewhat dark and painful, which these pastors around me will verify as occurring in the life of every young preacher. It is when he has fairly used up the elementary knowledge which prepared him for entrance upon the sacred office, and he sinks under the oppressive sense of mental exhaustion. He finds himself confronted with responsibilities of which he cannot be divested, except at death, and which he feels wholly incapacitated to fulfill. He has spoken all he ever knew without the hope of another fresh thought as long as he may live. There is for him, apparently, neither retreat nor progress. It was in this trying crisis that the speaker took refuge in the fatherly confidence of Dr. Willard Preston, then in the fiftyseventh year of his age, and not far from the middle of his long pastorate here of four and twenty years. Blessed servant of God, how vividly at this moment do I recall his genial presence, the kindly smile flitting like a wave of sunlight over his placid face, with a gentle humor lurking still in the corner of his eyes! How tenderly he took me to his heart and suffered me to nestle in his bosom! From that hour I have loved him with the reverent affection of a son. Without any show of patronage or of supercilious condescension, he showed how this experience must come sooner or later to every ingenuous student; how this shallowness of present knowledge would whet the appetite for the truth lying in the unfathomed depths yet to be explored; how needful this lesson of humility was to forestall the selfconsequence and offensive vanity so apt to be engendered in those whose teachings are accustomed to be received with entire deference by others. Then tearing a leaf from his own record, he exposed the secret of a like humiliation in his earlier years, and, pausing to lay his hand upon the Sacred Book, he pointed to the inexhaustible treasures hid therein, and, as answering to these, he alluded to the depths of Christian experience lying yet undeveloped in my own heart, which would be opened by the Divine Spirit to all the truth contained in the

'pp. 6 and 7.

Scriptures themselves.

It was another Elisha opening the eyes of the young man to behold the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire round about. From this time forth there lingered no fear of future bankruptcy in the ministry of the Word."

Feeling obliged to study broadly and thoroughly, Mr. Palmer resolved to discard writing his sermons and preaching from manuscript; resolved to prepare the matter with great care and the plans of his discourses and to get the plans well into his memory, but to depend on the inspiration of the moment for language in which to clothe his explicatory thoughts. His natural gifts of speech, inbred correctness as to form, and vigorous training as a debater and orator in every school from the Walterboro Academy to the University of Georgia, came now to his help. He succeeded splendidly in his new departure, whilst most men so young and inexperienced would have failed. His preaching after his new fashion was vastly more acceptable than his former preaching had been. His mental excitement in the pulpit was necessarily greater. Responding to the demand to clothe the skeleton sermon he held in memory in fitting words as delivered, he inevitably underwent the exhilarating labor of recasting as well as reclothing the whole discourse. His exhilaration was imparted to his audience through noble speech, the commerce of his fine eyes, his graceful gestures, and his whole bearing.

Being able to preach after this sort of preparation, he could command the time previously occupied in the laborious writing of his long discourses, in the study of the Scriptures and of such collateral works as he might be specially interested in from time to time.

From a universal index, which he apparently began to keep while he was in Savannah, we learn that he was not only reading some of the leading theological reviews and an occasional book of travel and history, but that he was studying certain subjects profoundly, e. g., the evidences of Christianity, the doctrine of justification and of sacrifice, and especially the nature and place of the atonement in the scheme of Christian redemption. He seems to have studied profoundly Witsius, On the Covenants, Magee, on the Atonement and Sacrifices, the Works of John Owen and John Howe, Calvin's "Institutes," Dwight's and Dick's Theologies,-not the whole of the works but considerable parts. He seems to have read quite a string of works on "inspiration;" and a considerable number of

works on church government, and to have done special reading on the place of children in the church. Kurtz's "History of the Old Covenant" received considerable attention; Boston's "Fourfold State," etc.

This breadth of study as well as thoroughness was of importance in the part he was to play subsequently in very commanding positions. Indeed, it was essential. Mr. Palmer was to serve his church in functions wherein he needed the richest scriptural and theological furnishing as well as all his wonderful oratorical gifts.

Bred up in the home of a pastor of wonderful efficiency, who laid great stress on the importance of the minister's pastoral functions, he naturally threw himself into pastoral work just so far as sickness and other emergencies demanded, and as far as the interests of those committed to his care seemed to him to demand it. He paid many social calls, too, believing that he could thus draw people first to himself and then perhaps, to his Lord. Nevertheless, he was more jealous of the time so spent than he became toward the end of his life, when he could better afford to spend more time outside of the study.

He possessed somewhat of the headiness of youth during this period. From a child he had had a fondness for having his own way. In that he was not, as in some other respects, singular, however. It was soon to become a mark with Mr. Palmer that he could secure his own way with those with whom he had to do by gracious tact. He was rarely to put himself in a position in which he might meet open defiance on the part of a member of a church, or stubborn refusal, or any similarly unpleasant conduct. In his later days he sometimes illustrated what he called his "youthful rashness" in the Savannah pastorate by the following incident: In his church there, there was a member peculiarly gifted in prayer. He had been called upon several times to lead the congregation in prayer and had always done so with evident edification; but at length he suffered, while leading them in their supplications, a sort of stage fright. He subsequently came to Mr. Palmer and asked him. not to call on him again, declaring that he could not make the attempt to lead the people thereafter. Mr. Palmer tried to reason with him; and finding that he could do nothing by reason or persuasion, told him that he intended to call on him as before. At an early meeting, perhaps the next one, Mr. Palmer called on him to lead in prayer. There was no response. Af