IN that beautiful season of the year in which the missionary first visited the West, he was again on his way thither, but not with his pilgrim-staff—that was now laid aside. He could no longer travel hundreds of miles on foot as he once did—he was now in a carriage with the venerable Mr. Mason.

He had written to his people in the West, promising to visit them if they would send a conveyance for him, as he was no longer able to walk, and was too poor to go by stage. Yes, he was poor in this world’s goods, but rich in Christ—an heir of Heaven!

No sooner was his letter received, than it[146] was read in the churches and Sunday-schools, and a liberal collection was soon taken up, to insure every convenience necessary for his accommodation; and Mr. Mason volunteered to bring him out. The journey proved to be a great advantage to his failing health.

The appearance of things was very much changed to him, for eighteen years had elapsed since he first came to this place. The little ones had grown up, the youth were heads of families, and the locks of the older persons were turning gray, and many had gone the way of all the earth. Many new settlers had come in, the little hut villages had become towns, the trails and wood-paths were now highways and stage-routes, the log school-houses had become substantial frame churches, and the wilderness in which the missionary had suffered was now being settled and covered with new farms. His friends in the cause of Christ, Mr. Brown[147] and Mr. Wilson and Mr. Truman, the defender of Temperance, were still alive, “Steadfast and unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.”

Many blessed seasons he enjoyed with them, and they were often “sitting in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” After a rest of some days, the missionary felt able to preach and lecture among the people. The opposition to Sunday-schools and the cause of Temperance had in a great measure subsided; public opinion, that great leveler of uprisings, had taken sides with the “new measures,” for the very elements of the Western character demand progress and life. The missionary’s preaching was especially blest to the Sunday-schools; through his efforts whole classes, with their teachers, were brought into the Church.

During one of these gracious seasons, when many were turning to the Lord, a dreadful murder was committed at one of the[148] groceries in the village. One of the Sunday-school teachers, and a noted advocate of Temperance, heard that one of his class had been persuaded to accompany a man to a grocery. The teacher resolved to save his scholar from the influence of the fiends who were aiming at his destr............