me with his precious blood. Was quite affected at my deficiency, but not delivered from bondage.

"How long dear Saviour, O how long

Shall this bright hour delay?"

May 1st. Visited Pawtucket, and spent the day in visiting the brethren. It is pleasant to renew former acquaintance with the friends of Jesus, and it leads us to anticipate the joys of that blessed morning when the friends of God in every clime will meet upon the shores of immortality never more to part.

8th. Spent the day in study at home. I wish to acquire that knowledge and information, which will render me extensively useful in the world.

21st. I do not study sufficiently. Were I to pay more attention to my books, I should be less illiterate e; and be better qualified to discharge my duty. What trivial excuses deter me from that application to books, which the worth of knowledge demands. May I for the future imitate the great Doctor Franklin in assiduity, faithfulness, and perseverance. Like him, may I obtain that knowledge which will render me more extensively useful in the world.

22d. Spent the day at home, and in the afternoon was visited by my friend Mr. Hyde. Mr. H. has ever treated me with politeness and attention. His friendship I shall not forget while the powers of recollection continue. A consistent union is a great blessing. As far as we are agreed, we will harmoniously walk together; and never, for the sake of argument and contention, converse upon those points in which we differ. May the time speedily arrive when the watchmen of

F*

Zion will see eye to eye; and unitedly lift up their voices to proclaim salvation. When they shall believe the same sentiments, and be found in the same practice.

24th. How sweet the contemplation of doctrinal truth. What a boundless treasure the word of God affords to the children of the most high. From this may I be assisted to bring forth things both new and old.

30th. At Hampton. O that I could feel that heavenly solemnity, and that glowing zeal, which I have frequently experienced in this place.

June 2d. Spent the day at home in my study. In the evening I was quite aroused to a sense of my duty. How unfaithful I have been, how cold and languid my affections, how insipid my prayers, how lifeless, and how void of animation my preaching. Good Lord, inspire me with zeal, and make me useful in thy kingdom. As I have formed a new determination to be more active in thy service; do thou assist me to put in prosecution this resolution. Had some freedom in secret

and family devotion.

I now begun to think in earnest that some increase of education was necessary. From the [time I was ten years of age until I commenced preaching at the age of seventeen, I had received but about fourteen weeks schooling. I had in fact learned nothing but to read and to write. Since the commencement of my ministry, I had studied grammar, assisted by a daughter of Capt. Daniel Meech so far as she could assist me, and pursued it much farther by myself, and had just commenced the study of Latin with Rev. Mr. Hyde, the Congregational minister of Preston. But the people

with whom I was labouring, were at that sime decidedly opposed to my devoting much time to scientific improvement. This fact, together with the inadequacy of my support, determined me on leaving them"

Mr. Davis came to this conclusion with great reluctance. No one, however, can question that it was not a wise one. Where a people are unwilling that their minister should make every suitable literary attainment, in all ordinary cases, it will be his duty to seek a residence among a Church that are-nay, that are desirous of it. And happy is that pastor who obtains a settlement where he will be prompted by the desire of his congregation, unless that desire be unreasonably ardent, to do so. But at the present time there is not that aversion to ministerial improvement, which existed in the early days of Mr. D. There is danger now of a people seeking to have their excitement fed, instead of being thoroughly instructed in the doctrine of grace. It is hoped that the teachers of our rising ministry will look well to the kind of instruction they communicate, and diligently and prayerfully labor to make those impressions upon their minds, and instrumentally inspire those desires and feelings in relation to the great work in which they are to be engaged, that will operate as an effectual balance to stay the people—to cherish in them a conviction of truth, and excite them to receive nothing in exchange for it-to be contented with nothing but pure Bible and saving truth. If such ministers can come to our Churches-men full of faith and of the Holy Ghost-men whose spirits sigh over the desolations of Zion, and pant for the conversion of sinners, the time will soon come, when every Church in the land will demand such a minister, and such ministers to be sent to the heathen.

In his journal of June 12th, Mr. D. mentions that one soul, after a meeting held in a certain neighborhood, was brought to rejoice in the wonders of redeeming love. May the work rapidly increase and spread. May converts be multiplied like the drops of morning dew."

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6

"August 6th. Went to the house of Mr. Samuel Andrus in Norwich, and at two o̟clock P. M. delivered a discourse from Gen. xlvii. 8, 9. And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How old art thou? And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil' have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers, in the days of their pilgrimage.' On this day Mr. Andrus was ninety-eight, and requested me to deliver a sermon on the occasion. It is not supposed that the old gentleman ever experienced that change or birth which is indispensably necessary to admission into the kingdom of glory. Therefore I made to him the following address: 'It is probable that all the persons present who have not been intimately acquainted with you, are excited to ask you the question which Pharaoh proposed to Jacob: How old art thou? To this you can answer, I I am this day ninety-eight years old.

You, my

dear friend, have lived to an advanced period: you have passed the meridian, and are rapidly declining in the western horizon; your sands are falling in quick succession, and your course will soon be finished. Let me ask, are you prepared? If not, "after so long a time harden not your heart." "Now is an accepted time and now is a day of salvation." You have my fervent prayers for your welfare, and I hope that by divine

grace you will be prepared for that world in which there shall not be an old man nor an infant of days.'

In the autumn of this year, having occasion to journey to Providence and Boston, I was earnestly solicited, during my first visit at Providence, by the Rev. George Evans, to spend the first Sabbath in Sept. with the destitute Church in South Reading, Mass., distant from Boston about ten miles. Having intended to spend that Sabbath at Boston, and with brother Walter Brown, jr. to hear the ministers of the city preach, it was with extreme reluctance, that I finally consented to his earnest importunity. How obvious is the truth of divine inspiration, "It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." How little did I think that I was to spend eleven years of my life in South Reading when with extreme reluctance I}agreed to spend one Sabbath there.

At the close of the Sabbath's services at South Reading, I received an unanimous call from the Baptist Church in that town to become their pastor. This call was communicated to me the same evening by the Standing Committee of the Church.

I expressed to the Committee my surprise, and my full conviction that the act was a hasty one. I however agreed to spend another Sabbath with the Church and Society in the following month; and having attended the Warren Association, and the ordination of Messrs. Wheelock and Coleman as missionaries to Burmah, at Boston, returned to Preston. On the first Lord's day in October, agreeably to appointment, I visited South Reading with Mrs. Davis, and preached several times to the people. The call was renewed; but I gave no other encouragement than the promise to take the subject into deliberate and prayerful consideration."