time his life has been little else than a protracted struggle with disease. The ardor of his nature and the impetuosity of his will, which many who knew him only. in his earlier life will recall, were beautifully tempered by Divine grace through the instrumentality of affliction, and before his departure he had become literally like a shock of corn ripened for the garner.

It is the inevitable misfortune, perhaps, of persons with as positive points of character as those which Dr. Purviance possessed, to come in collision sometimes with the opinions of their brethren; but there is no one, probably, who knew him well who will not certify that if ever there was a heart devoted to the love and maintenance of truth, it was his; and if ever there was a man since Paul's day who has verified Paul's ideal of the Christian-in the loyal soldier, the honest steward, and the single-eyed racer, and over whose grave the inscription could be written-"I have fought a good fight, I have kept the faith, I have finished my course "—it was he. J. B. S.

THE

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE

APPOINTED BY

PRESBYTERY OF MISSISSIPPI

TO PREPARE AN OBITUARY OF THE REV. B. CHASE, D. D.

THE Committee appointed to prepare an obituary of the Rev. Benjamin Chase, D. D., would report that, in compliance with the duty imposed upon them, they have compiled the following sketch of the life of this eminent and beloved father in the church, mainly from materials which his own hand has preserved in a manuscript autobiography.

Dr. Chase was born in the Township of Litchfield, New Hampshire, on the 20th of November, 1789. His ancestors came from England as early as A. D. 1635. There is satisfactory evidence that about that year, Thomas, William, and Aquila Chase-immediate descendants of Sir Robert Chase, of Cornwall-emigrated to this country, and settled, two of them, Thomas and Aquila, at Hampton, New Hampshire, and the third, William, at Yarmouth, Massachusetts. The father of Dr. Chase was Simeon Chase, the great-great-grandson of this Aquila Chase. His mother was Mary Bartlett, of Newtown, New Hampshire, which was also the birthplace of his father. Of this marriage seven children were the issue-four sons and three daughters. Benjamin was the second child, and the oldest son. His father and two brothers settled at Litchfield prior to the Revolution of 1776. They lived contiguous to each other, each possess

ing a good farm, and owning jointly a saw-mill and a gristmill. The rudiments of his education were acquired at the district school. His progress in knowledge was interrupted by frequent infirmities of defective constitution, and, under the impression that he was not adapted to a student's life, he spent several of his early years in assisting his father on his farm and in his mills; and, for a considerable period, was occupied as an apprentice to a house-carpenter. In his nineteenth year, having formed the purpose to acquire a classical education, he entered the academy at Salisbury, New Hampshire; and in August, 1811,was admitted to the sophomore class in Middlebury College, Vermont. His room-mate at this institution was Reuben Post, afterwards Rev. Dr. Post, of Charleston, South Carolina; and Sylvester Larned, afterwards the first pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of New Orleans, was a member of the class in advance of him. All three of these young men became subjects of a religious awakening, which occurred while in college, and Mr. Chase was received into the Rev. Dr. Melvill's church, at Middlebury. The change in Mr. Chase was the result of convictions which dated back to an early period of his life. His mother was an eminently pious woman, who, although her death occurred when he was in his thirteenth year, had made impressions upon his mind by her instructions, which were never obliterated. His father was not a member of any church, but was a man of exemplary life, who maintained worship in his family, and was careful in the religious training of his children. Mr. Chase was graduated at college in August, 1814. His purpose, at that time, was to devote himself to teaching, as a profession. With this view, he accepted, for a brief period, a position as head of an academy in New Jersey, and subsequently was transferred to a similar position in Philadelphia, which

he continued to occupy until the fall of 1817. On the 17th of December of that year he arrived in New Orleans, having made the passage thither by sea, in the hope of repairing the health of his wife. In this hope he was disappointed. The sufferer lingered till the following spring, and then died. During the winter thus spent in New Orleans, Mr. Chase was associated with Rev. Elias Cornelius, Rev. Sylvester Larned, and Rev. Jeremiah Chamberlain, in efforts to establish institutions of Protestant worship, and to promote, in various ways, the work of Christian benevolence.

After the death of his wife, he yielded to the conviction that his proper calling was the Gospel ministry, and commenced a course of theological study, under the direction of his friend, Mr. Larned, at the same time. making a support for himself by teaching a school, first at New Orleans, and subsequently at St. Francisville, Louisiana. He was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Mississippi on the 19th of November, 1820. From that time till the summer of 1823 he was, in connection with the charge of his school, engaged laboriously in the work of an evangelist, supplying the destitution of Louisiana, as far as he could reach them, at great sacrifice to his own ease, and without a dollar of pecuniary compensation.

Repeated attacks of sickness at length constrained him to seek a change of climate, and, in 1823, he left the South, with the expectation of never returning to it, being, in his own words, "only the wreck of a man, with sight impaired, teeth loose, and jaws stiffened (from salivation), and a cripple, walking with a crutch and staff."

During his sojourn in New England, and under the impression that his stay there was to be permanent, he requested ordination from a Congregational body—the

"Association of the Western District of New Haven County, Connecticut," and was by them ordained on the 17th of August, 1824.

In taking this step, he followed the counsel of the Rev. Gardiner Spring, D. D., of New York, who was present, and preached the sermon on the occasion of his ordination.

In the fall of that year, having been solicited to return to his old field of labor, he accepted a commission from the General Assembly's Board of Missions, and arrived in Natchez in the latter part of December.

On Christmas-day he preached at the Carmel Church, Second Creek, where a house of worship had been erected, and a church, consisting of fifteen or sixteen members, had been organized the year before.

Establishing himself at Pinkneyville, he spent the winter in preaching at a number of points in Louisi ana and Mississippi which could be reached from the centre. At the spring meeting of Mississippi Presbytery, in 1825, he was received as a member of that body, the vote, however, being accompanied with a minute, expressive of the disapprobation of the Presbytery of the mode in which his ordination had been obtained, and requiring him formally to adopt the Confession of Faith and Form of Government of the Presbyterian Church.

In the year 1828, he was married to Mrs. Anna W. Smith, daughter of the late John Henderson, of Natchez, a lady eminently gifted with intelligence and piety, with whom he maintained the happiest relations, till her sudden death, in 1845, deprived him of her precious companionship.

Mrs. Smith was the owner of a residence and plantation in the Second Creek neighborhood, ten miles south of Natchez, known as Mantua; and Providence, in leading Mr. Chase into this matrimonial connection, fur