so I founded this one, which would not take charge of institutions like schools, hospitals, orphanages and the like, but would give themselves especially to the development of the spiritual life, to devotion, to making known the Faith, to preparing persons for the Sacraments, aiding in missions, and the extension of the spiritual kingdom. God blessed me by these earnest and devout workers.

When I perceived that the congregations were large, indeed the church crammed, the parish expenses all met, everything at its highest possible success, then I felt I could resign the work into other hands. My heart was full of missionary enterprise and a desire to go out as a mission priest and preach in other places. And so it was with a heart full of gratitude to God for the success He had given me that I resigned the rectorship of the Advent, took my sisterhood to Providence, and shortly after that was called to the Episcopate.

My consecration took place on St. Mark's Day, 1889, at the Cathedral in Fond du Lac. I chose this place because, however dear to me were my old parishioners at the Advent, I wished to identify myself with the diocese to which I had been called. My consecrators were the Rt. Rev. Dr. McLaren, Bishop of Chicago; the Rt. Rev. Dr. Alexander Burgess, Bishop of Quincy; the Rt. Rev. Dr. Seymour, Bishop of Springfield; the Rt. Rev. Dr. Knickerbacker, Bishop of Indiana; the Rt. Rev. Dr. Gilbert, Bishop Coadjutor of Minnesota; and the Rt. Rev. Dr. Knight, Bishop of Milwaukee.

I

CHAPTER II

"IT IS GOOD FOR ME THAT I HAVE BEEN IN TROUBLE"

HAVE always had objections to a memoir. The effort of most writers is to set forth the subject of the work so that his readers might form a judgment of the character and abilities of the person described. Such judgment, favorable or otherwise, must be more or less erroneous, and not very profitable. Is there any judgment of any real value, save that which the good God declares in His Day of Judgment?

Nevertheless, lives have been written advantageously, and St. Augustine's "Confessions" is the great example. But none save a saint has sufficient humility to write so true an account of himself, and he must have a special call of God to do so.

I shrink from any attempt of this kind, though called on to make it by those I must respect. This chapter is not an account of the soul as God must see it, nor of the great sinfulness that He has shown me to exist in myself.

"When love shall know as it is known,

Till then, the secrets of our lives are ours

And God's alone."

St. Theresa had a vision from Him where her soul might have been in hell. I suppose every

Christian has at times felt that he was deserving of God's condemnation. While then passing over what would be unprofitable, those who are seeking after righteousness may be helped by my words in learning how a poor soul stumbled on towards God. St. Augustine, in his generous-hearted way, says there is a vocation of that kind, and it seems to me to have been mine.

I think my spiritual life was helped by the pious teaching and prayers of others. As a little boy, I was for a long time an inmate of the house of a good Congregational uncle and aunt. I remember they used to pray Sunday afternoons together, and take me along with them, and pray for me, with other members of the family.

After the manner of the day, Sunday was kept strictly. All playthings were put away, and we were sent twice to Sunday school. When a small boy, I remember my aunt had a little seat made in our pew, so I could sit up and see the preacher, in whose delivery I took a boyish interest. I learned the one hundred and four questions of the Westminster Catechism on Sunday evenings, being bribed to do it, partly, by pieces of pie. I think there was a little more than the natural greediness of boyhood in me, as the first false step I can remember was taking cake and apple turnovers without permission. I've always had a liking for good food, though not always able to get it, and in my monkish days lived on very plain fare.

My boyish character was full of the weakness

and sins of boyhood. My uncle and aunt desired much my "conversion," and the death of a companion seemed to afford an opportunity to bring it about. While impressed with the fact of death, I did not feel that sensible change which I was led to expect, and which was called conversion.

I think I was as a little boy very fond of popularity, drawing my playmates to me by gifts of candy, which I would surreptitiously obtain.

While somewhat clever and advanced in my studies, I remember my father saying, when I pointed out my good standing: "Well, my son, if you've got brains, that is not to your credit; but you can be good." One of his instructions which was remembered, for he was a soldier, was: "Fear nothing, my boy, except to do what is wrong."

My first real thinking took place when I was about fourteen years of age and away on a visit. It is only noticeable as showing how God leads us all in varied ways. I had been reading Goldsmith's "Citizen of the World," and somewhere he said, discussing happiness, that it was obtainable by forgetfulness of the past, and absence of anxiety for the future. I can't give the actual words, but it puzzled me, and set me to thinking. And when once the mind begins to think, it swings round the whole circumference of thought, which takes in God and man. The pantheistic idea laid hold upon me, that the All was God, and that God's written definitions needed much enlargement. But I could come to no settled conclusions, as I puzzled and wrestled over the common

problems of humanity, ofttimes with tears. Having much distrust of my own abilities, I felt I ought not to decide such great questions with my limited knowledge and strength. And so I thought it was prudent for a young man to wait, and postpone practical decisions, without positively committing myself one way or another. And here I made a great blunder, for however ignorant a man may be, he should learn first of all to act on his moral sense, according to the saying of our Lord: "If any man will do His Will, he shall know of the doctrine" (St. John vii. 17). God thus left me more to my natural powers, and so I fell into mischief. I remember vainly cultivating the role of a raconteur, and telling a number of worthless stories. I was of a worldly disposition and pleasure loving, and I went somewhat into society. I was thought to be a good dancer, and I remember leading the cotillion in Boston. On discovering my own weakness, and that one must make a decision, I was led to turn to Christ, and was finally confirmed.

I had been led to an intellectual, and perhaps some religious, interest in the Church of the Advent. God, as we know, works slowly, and there was a double movement going on in my soul. But I think it was at Cambridge that I had a final wrestle with the problems of belief and faith in Jesus Christ. By God's grace I was enabled to surrender myself to the Divine Master. I believed what He said, because He said it; and desired to do what He would have me do, for I belonged to Him. I began to use the "Paradise of the Christian Soul," and perhaps other