Half a century.

Venerable man.

well as it is known in the city of New York. His works praise him in the gate, and in every gate in the world. He has been a minister here, and a minister at the same time to our common humanity. Hence we should honor and imitate him. Not merely in the way that his venerable classmate (Dr. Humphrey) has stated, has he been a blessing, but in many other ways. He has been here for fifty years; the winds have beaten about him, and the floods have come up around him, but he has been as a pillar unmoved. Why? Because, as a minister of Christ, as a preacher of the Gospel, he has been founded on the Rock. Others have fallen and have been swept away, but he has remained strong and immovable as the mountains that surrounded Jerusalem. He has stood firm. Changes have passed over other churches and other men; clouds have passed over the characters of others, but the sun of this brother has shone clearly, summer and winter, for the last fifty years, and has been growing brighter, and brighter, and brighter, even unto the perfect day. Fifty years have passed over him, and where in this city, or where in this land, is the individual that can rise up and accuse him of saying any thing or doing any thing unworthy of his position as a Presbyterian minister of the Gospel? Why, sir, in the presence of such a man I feel very much as one feels in one of those old cathedrals-Westminster, for instance-going around that old chapel of Henry VII.; or, standing under the shadow of those old trees in Hyde Park. I venerate those things; I look upon them with veneration; and we must venerate still more the man

Prince of preachers.

Expectations.

who, for fifty years, has gone on among the same people, preaching to them the truth, breaking to them the bread of life-without a stain upon his character, and going down, quietly, the hill of life amid the admiration of those to whom he has so long ministered. Surely we must venerate such a man as that. But not in this way alone has he been a minister of New York. He has been a constant preacher, and, as I heard John Breckinridge say himself, one of the most impressive and eloquent men of his day (and I repeat it now in his own presence), the 'prince of preachers.' He has been not only a constant preacher, but he has been an industrious, laborious, and active man. He has made the most diligent preparation for the pulpit. He has brought out of his treasures things new and old, and has never drawn from the top of his mind, as a great many individuals do whose minds, unlike milk, make no cream. He gave them beaten oil from the sanctuary; and in this respect, as well as in every other, he stands up before the youthful ministry of this land as a man every way worthy of their imitation. IfI, on a future occasion, should have any thing to say in reference to this man when his work is ended, I should hold him up to the ministry of this country as every way worthy of their respect and admiration. The course which he has pursued has made a man of him; and it would have made a man of an individual far less endowed by nature than he is. But the evening is becoming late. I feel that, as a son of this Church, I could not have said less than I have said.

"There is one thing, however, that fills our hearts

Takes the offered aid.

Aunt Betsy.

with mourning this evening, and that is, that the partner of his life should be absent from this ovation. But she has gone to a better and a higher world; and when her venerable partner goes the way which she has trod before him, if we live we shall strive to follow him to his resting-place, good men shall carry him to his burial, and long after his sun shall have set in the west will its heavenly light shine on the high places of our Zion."

Returning to our narrative, we find that Mr. Murray was not reluctant to avail himself of the aid proposed. It was just what he desired, as it gave him the opportunity of obtaining an education, and he seized upon it with avidity. Even while as yet the way was not open, he was improving every leisure hour in the acquisition of classical learning, hoping against hope that he might yet find his way into the pulpit. In the circle of young Christians with whom he was now brought into contact there were some who have since been distinguished in various public and private walks of life. His associations were the happiest and most useful. With them he mingled in the regular meetings for prayer in the church; and for their own improvement, as well as to do good to others, they joined in private prayer-meetings among the poor. One of these meetings he describes:

MEETING AT AUNT BETSY'S.

"It was my first visit to the prayer-meeting at Fulton Street, where God has so signally manifested His

Prayer-meeting.

Young ladies.

presence. The room on the first story was full, and I made my way up to that on the second. I found a seat in the middle of the room, from which I had a good view of the persons around the pulpit, and could look out of the windows in its rear. And as I glanced upon the high brick stores in Ann Street, the memories of other days rushed in upon me. Where those brick stores now rise, upward of thirty years ago there stood some wooden buildings of very lowly pretensions. In an upper room of one of them there dwelt an old colored woman, then widely known as Aunt Betsy, or Sarah-which, I now forget. She was very old, and very feeble, and remarkably pious. To what church she belonged I do not remember, nor is it necessary to my present purpose to know. She was dependent upon the hand of charity for her daily bread; nor was she neglected. Some ladies, not now unknown in the religious circles of New York, were sent to her room by their parents on their first errands of mercy to the poor. And some young men, mostly from the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches, held a prayer-meeting in her room on each Sabbath afternoon, as she was too infirm to attend on any of the public means of grace. She lay on her lowly bed during these meetings of prayer; and, as we retired, she took each of us by the hand, and gave us her parting blessing.

"That meeting in the upper room of that poor disciple had passed away from my recollection, although it was in it I offered the first prayer I ever uttered in the hearing of man. But now, in a meeting for pray

Merchant prince.

The young men.

er, and in sight of the very place, it came up in all its freshness before me. The old buildings took the place of the lofty stores. I could go round the room of Aunt Betsy, and count its chairs, and almost talk with the young men that sat on them. I could hear them pray, and see them retire, each receiving in his turn the blessings of the 'aged disciple.' And as I was busy with my own thoughts, scarcely hearing the singing and praying that occupied all in the room, I was waked from my revery by a voice from behind me. It was that of a merchant exhorting his brother merchants to a deeper interest and a warmer zeal in the salvation of men. As the voice seemed familiar, I turned round to see who was the fervid and fluent speaker. He is now one of the princely merchants of New York, but in his youth he was one of the young men who met for prayer in the room of Aunt Betsy, and his wife was one of the little girls who, as the ravens did to Elijah, carried to her daily food!

"Those young men were not the sons of wealth; if not poor, they supplied their own resources by their daily employment, and all of them were too young to have made for themselves position or character. They were Sabbath-school teachers, most of them were communicants of churches, and all of them professed to love the Bible, and the place where prayer was wont to be made. And what has become of the young men that met weekly in the room of Aunt Betsy? Of the subsequent history of some of them I have no knowledge. It is to be hoped that, having commenced aright, they held on the even tenor of their way-that C