Going to work.

An agent.

CHAPTER IV.

Out of College and at Work.-Becomes an Agent of the American Tract Society.-Travels in Washington County, N. Y.-The Men he met.-His Diary.-Fruits of his Labors.

SCARCELY was he out of college walls before he was in a field of useful and active labor. He graduated in September, and was to enter the Theological Seminary at Princeton in November. This brief interval he employed in an agency for the American Tract Society. Leaving the city of New York on the morning of Friday, September 22d, 1826, he had a disagreeable passage up the Hudson River on the Olive Branch. Riding in the stage-coach from Albany to Troy, he was attacked with a pain in his neck so severely as to call out the sympathies of a stranger, Mr. Tracy, who took him to his home, and entertained him kindly and hospitably. In the evening Dr. Robbins bled him, and he was confined two days to the house. Rev. Dr. Beman gave him a cordial welcome when he called on his recovery, and encouraged him greatly in his work. September 27th he left Troy, and, passing through Lansingburg, he journeyed to Washington County, the field to which he was sent. Arriving at Salem, he was made at home in the house of the Rev. Alexander Proudfit, D.D. This distinguished servant of God received him with great kindness, and entered heartily into the work. Together they rode

Washington County.

Whitehall.

into the neighboring towns, made appointments for public meetings, delivered lectures and addresses, and formed auxiliary societies. At Granville the Rev. John Whiton was his guide and support, and here his labors were very successful. At Sandy Hill the Rev. Ravaud K. Rogers took him warmly by the hand, and made his labors delightful and fruitful. At Cambridge he stopped at the house of Rev. Mr. Prime, who went with him to other places and cheered him in his work. In his journal he writes: "Nowhere have I met with more efficiency, nor found an individual more hearty in the cause than Nathaniel S. Prime." His sketches of the scenery and the characters of the men he met with in this town are exceedingly graphic and truthful. The following are

Extracts from Journal of an Agency for the A. T. Society.

"Whitehall is situated in a narrow defile, between high, rocky, and bleak mountains. Nature seems to have fortified it on every side with walls of adamant. When the breeze is so light that it scarcely causes a leaf to flutter on the mountain top, the rush of winds through its narrow passage is deafening. Its proximity to Lake Champlain, and its situation at the head of navigation, together with its being the thoroughfare to the Canadas, and at the entrance of the Champlain Canal into the lake, point it out as a place of commercial and religious importance. Hitherto its wickedness has been proverbial. Being the landing-place in the United States of those European emigrants who come by the way of the Canadas, and these being gen

Improvement.

Fort Ann.

erally of the lowest order, they settle down here and stagnate, like a filthy marsh, polluting even the very atmosphere. Until very lately the Sabbath was openly profaned, the streets exhibiting the same degree of bustle and business as any other day in the week. But society begins now to assume a different aspect; a neat little Presbyterian church is seen to lift its sparkling dome to the sunbeams, and from the exertions of the pious, and the influence they possess in the village, we may soon expect to see Whitehall, like the peaceful bosom of the lake on the borders of which it is situated, reflect the image of heaven."

"To Fort Ann is nothing but Wood Creek widened. A more sterile, cold, and rocky country I think I never passed through. A wide waste of marshy land, with here and there a blue pool of stagnant water, and in the distance, which is not generally far removed, white limestone rock, partly covered with stunted trees, are the scenes which continually meet the eye. Houses in ruins, and naked and starved-looking women and children are seen in numbers along the road. The business continually going on through the canal gives to the dreariness of the place a little variety, but you never see any thing more pleasing than a sluggish boat 'dragging its slow length along,' or hear any thing more musical than the voice of the driver, echoed back by the mountains, heaping blessings and curses alternately upon the consumptive nag as it quickens or slackens its pace. About two o'clock P. M. we arrived at Fort Ann."

"In company with some ladies, I took a walk to the

Glenn Falls.

Cooper's Cave.

of

celebrated Glenn Falls, rendered classic by the pen Cooper. The village is in the county of Warren, and in the town of Queensbury. It is indeed a most romantic spot. Every thing sublime and awful in the ragged rock, and in the headlong thundering torrent, present themselves to view. Looking downward on the confused and tumultuous waters as they pursue their angry and headlong course through the channels they have worn in the everlasting rocks, you are amazed. Here, century after century, they have been roaring and tumbling. They have sung their dirge over the last of the brave men that once wandered free on their borders, and will continue to sing when the persecutors of those brave men shall have perished forever. The water was so low that you go all over the immense rocks around which the waters are roaring. In some places you find holes twelve feet deep, completely circular, and as smooth as if made with an auger, and all over their surface you find indentations similar to those which can be made by pressing the finger on mortar. Nor are the rocks solid. They are all disjointed masses, in some places thrown promiscuously together, and in others laid with great regularity, as if by some Titanic power. I went into the cave where Uncas and black-eyed Cora, together with their songster, Gamut, passed the terrible night when the infernal Magua was in their pursuit. It looked not as if it would make a bed 'soft as downy pillows are.' It is formed by the meeting together of two rocks which Nature's chisel seems to have converted into an alcove. It is admirably calculated for the pro

Great success.

Expenses.

tection of innocence from Indian ferocity. The tree now exists not on which Hawkeye shot his pursuer, nor can we find many of the prominent situations and cliffs described by Cooper. They are fast passing away; even the adamantine rocks decay before the withering march of Time.”

In this agency he visited and performed valuable service for the American Tract Society in Troy, Lansingburg, Salem, Greenwich, Hebron, Granville, Whitehall, Fort Ann, Kingsbury, Sandy Hill, Glenn's Falls, Hartford, Fort Miller, Union Village, Argyle, Easton, Buskirk's Bridge, Cambridge, and several congregations in other places. Some of these places he visited two and three times, being obliged to go first and make arrangements for public meetings, and then return to address them and attend to the business of the society. In most of them he found auxiliary tract societies, and in some towns that are large, including several villages, he organized one in each settlement. Every where he was kindly received, and his pleasing address and popular manners gave him access to all houses and hearts.

In this journal of his first service in the cause of Christ we find an account of his expenses for the six weeks in which he was employed, including every thing he spent, from the blank-book in which his journal is written, twelve and a half cents, to his fare from Albany to New York, four dollars, on his return. It is worthy of being recorded as an evidence of his economy and systematic habits, that the entire expenses of this trip, involving daily travel from place to place,