MORE than a dozen years ago I happened to spend a night in New York. In the evening I strolled leisurely along Beekman street. Among the restless tide that thronged the pavement I was a total stranger. Despite the crowd, I felt isolated and forsaken. For we are never more solitary and lonely than just among such a moving mass of strange humanity. A place of worship would have been a great relief to me. But where can a stranger find such a place on a week-day evening in New York? At length I reached a venerable brick building, which I afterwards learned was "the Old Brick Church." By this name it had long been known as one of the principal Presbyterian churches of New York. The door was open and the church lighted. I followed the few who entered, for it was yet early in the evening. Less than fifty persons had been assembled in the large church. Ere long, as the hour of service approached, the body of the building was well filled. On the pulpit sat a tall, well-built old clergyman, with a massive head, decked with gray locks. His white side-whiskers added an aspect of dignity to his stately figure.

The venerable pastor evidently felt uneasy as to the probable attendance on the services that evening. He watched the people as they entered, now and then raising his tall form a little so as to be able to look over the pulpit, and tell who was coming up the aisle. He seemed to suffer with weak eyes, for in these efforts to see the comers he held the hand over them as a shade.

After opening the services in the usual way, he called certain parents forward, and baptized their child. I was impressed with the earnestness and unction of his prayer. It was a preparatory service, at which a stranger preached.

It was to me a pleasant and edifying occasion, and the more so because it gave me an evening in "the Old Brick Church," and a glimpse of one of the pillars of the New York pulpit, Dr. Gardiner Spring. He was a man of great force of character, with a strong mind, and a strong will, which, when wrong, gave him no little trouble.

Some one ridicules the Germans for their ancestral pride. "In giving a sketch of his life, a German will always begin with his great-grandfather." It may be, but the English, and the Yankees have the same weakness. In a half apologetic way Dr. Spring says, he has not been able to trace his paternal ancestry beyond the year 1634. On his mother's side several generations of these were ministers of the Gospel. They descended from the Puritans, and lived in New England. His father, Samuel Spring, was a minister, "a Hebrew of the Hebrews" as to his New England views on theology and piety. A man of intense earnestness, and great influence. He studied at Princeton College and Seminary, one hundred years ago. The year after being licensed, in 1775, he entered the continental Army as Chaplain, and served under Gen. Arnold and Col. Burr in the expedition to Quebec. In later life he visited his son Gardiner, in New York, in company with Drs. Lyman Beecher and Taylor. The father asked the son to go with them on a visit to Col. Burr. Gardiner replied that since the murder of Hamilton, Burr had lost caste, and that he had better not call upon him. For a while the old man yielded to his son's advice. But before leaving New York he repeated the request:

My son, I must see Burr. We went through the woods together; I stood at his side on the plains of Abram, and when Montgomery fell, I have not seen him since, and I must see him before I go. The last time I saw him was after Montgomery had fallen, and little Burr, up to his knees in snow, was trying in the face of the enemy, to bring off Mon'gomery's body. My son, I must see him."

"We called at his office in Nassau street, but he was out, and did not return the call till toward evening. I will not speak of the particulars of that interview. It was a beautiful, yet a strange interview. Mrs. Spring and the two gentlemen just referred to were present, and listened to many a tale of by-gone days. Burr was no friend of Washington. Said he, 'You know, Dr. Spring, that Washington was a coward.' Dr. Beecher could scarcely restrain himself. Said he, I wanted to knock him down.""

Well may Gardiner Spring be thankful for a pious ancestry. For they had much to do to make him a good and useful man. And his father, Samuel Spring, was not the least of them. Although stern and severe in his religious habits, and unyielding in matters of principle, on proper occasions he unbent and indulged

in innocent fun. He firmly held to the old Puritan view of the Sabbath."

"He would not shave his face on the Lord's day, nor allow my mother to sew a button on her son's vest; and on one occasion, when his nephew, the late Adolphus Spring, Esq, arrived in haste on a Saturday evening with a message that his father was on his bed of death, he would not mount his horse for the journey of seventy miles, until the Sabbath sun had gone down." * *

"He was a working-man in his youth, and a working-man in his old age. He knew how to take hold of things by the right end, and frequently instilled the lesson upon his sons. He was not only watchful of the books we read, the principles we imbibed, the company with which we associated, and the amusements we indulged in, but the manner in which we did our work."

The Springs, for generations past, have been a long-lived tribe. Dr. Gardiner Spring reached 88, and his father 73 years. His father, a few months before his death, preached his last sermon on the words: "Behold, now I am old, I know not the day of my death."

On his death-bed he was asked how his past life appeared to him; he replied: "Oh! it appears as if it needed grace thrown over the whole of it." His son says:

"I did not know of his last sickness until a few hours bef re his death. It was at noon on the Lord's day that the mournful intelligence reached me. The following morning I left New York, hoping to be in time for his funeral; but a violent snow storm so obstructed the travelling, that I did not reach Newburyport until the day after his interment. I could not, however, resist the desire to look once more upon that loved and venerated face. I had the grave uncovered-the sexton only with me, and took a last look at the dear form of my departed father, his robe of office inwoven with his shroud. I merely said, Yes, it is my father, and wept."

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His lineage on his mother's side Dr. Spring traces back to 1648. She was born in 1760, in Hadley, on the Connecticut River. The year 1766 was memorable in this town for the destruction of a certain private dwelling. It was the house of a large family.

"It was a cold night in midwinter, and the owner of the house (Dr. Samuel Hopkins) then in the vigor of manhood, was almost frantic with anxiety for the safety of a beloved daughter, then but six years of age. She had escaped at the first alarm without being noticed, and was running in her night dress, and with naked feet, when a kind lady took her in her arms and carried her to her own bed. In the midst of his deep agony for his beloved child, the father was told that his daughter was safe, when he turned to the blazing mass and exclaimed, Now burn!' That little child, so kindly cared for by a watchful Providence, was my beloved mother. She was the daughter of Rev. Samuel Hopkins, D. D.,-a wife meet for such a husband as my father; in piety, in personal accomplishments, and activity, fitted to be his helper, his adviser, his comforter in his arduous work.”

Humanly speaking, how near came the little girl ending her life at six years of age. Ending here, Samuel Spring would not have gotten Hannah Hopkins to wife, and what then of Gardiner Spring? On how many providences-so-called accidents and deliverances-does our existence depend.

A kind Providence gave these parents a goodly flock of children. Already at his baptism the mother devoted Gardiner to God, with the hope that he would become a minister. His wayward habits in youth gave his parents much pain. He was inclined to vice. In spite of their entreaties, warnings, reproofs and corrections he persisted in his evil ways. When God in mercy had turned him to Himself, the mother reminded him of his youthful vices:

"You well remember the day of fasting and prayer set apart by your father and myself on your account. My heart was that day overborne with sorrow. I thought it would be comparatively easy to follow you to the grave, to what I then suffered. It is impossible for me to describe to you, unless you know experimentally what it is to 'wrestle with God,' the ardor of my soul before God on your account."

These parents knew and felt the responsibility of having children entrusted to them. They could not endure the idea of having a child live and die out of Christ. These family fasts, and wrestlings with God, show what spirit dwelt within them. The parents were pious from early youth. The mother had read Henry's Commentary through before she was fifteen years of age. At eighteen she joined the Church. She helped the father much in the religious education of the children. On Saturday evening she would gather them around her in a Bible-class, which, as one of them says, were more to them than all the Sunday-schools in the world." She was quick and emphatic to rebuke wrong; and very ready and gentle to forgive if they "owned up." She never spoiled them with luxuries, nor encouraged them in effeminate habits. She sought to train them in rugged manly virtues, and to trust in God and breast themselves for the battle of life. She would laugh at their complaints of the winter's cold, and tell them to go and warm themselves by shovelling away snow.

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On a certain Sunday Dr. Hawes, of Hartford, preached for Dr. Spring. It was a powerful sermon to the young. How the mother prayed for her boys during that sermon none but God could see and hear. After church she always retired to her closet for prayer. This time she came from her closet to the table. She said nothing, but all noticed the tears trickling down her face, as she poured out the tea. It was too much for her two boys. They could not eat. They felt that their mother's tears fell for them, and left the table weeping.

Some of our readers may act as did the Spring boys. Turn a deaf ear to the advice and entreaties of their pious parents. Like them they may be kind and obedient to them in all points save one; refuse to give themselves to Christ, by wholly consecrating themselves to Him in a consistent membership with His Church. No appeals are so eloquent and solemn as those of a tender mother, mutely weeping over a wayward child, or tearfully praying for the wanderer's return.

"Sweet as the image of the brood ng dove!
Holy as heaven a mother's tender love!
The love of many prayers and many tears,
Which changes not with dim declining years,-
The only love, which on this teeming earth.
Asks no return for passion s wayward birth."

The mother makes the man. And good Gardiner Spring's mother had much to do in making him the useful man which he became. And full well the grateful son knew it. The most affecting thought to him on the death of his parents was, that he had lost their prayers.

"She was a sweet mother O! we loved her, and we love to dwell on her memory. I feel while writing these few pages, as though she was near me, and communing with me. I told my family at breakfast this morning, that I was going to-day to enjoy her company. She was our earthly refuge. The church loved her, as much as they did their pastor. The whole town, with all their denominational differences loved and respected Mrs. Dr. Spring. She was at the head of their charitable institutions, alike honored by the rich and sought after by the poor. She was fifteen years younger than my father, and survived him but a few short months."

Dr. Spring was tenderly attached to his parents. From his fifteenth year he always wrote them a letter on his birth-day. And when they had entered into rest, he grieved at its return that he could not unburden his heart in the usual letter.

"They were lovely in their lives, and in their death they were not divided. Since their death I have felt myself very much like an orphan. I could not reach the house of mourning in time, for my father's funeral, but had the satisfaction of passing the week after his death with my sorrowing mother. On the morning on which I left I saw that my poor mother was much depressed. As I bade her farewell, I simply said at parting, Dear mother, let not your heart be troubled! I could say no more. It was the last sentence I ever uttered to my mother. We wept and parted-I for my field of labor, she for her rapid maturity for heaven. In the following June I was called to visit her. But on my way I learned that by a fatal hemorrhage of the lungs her spirit had fled. On my arrival I found it so. I entered the chamber where she was dressed for the grave. Dear mother! I said as I kissed her clay cold corpse! I could not utter another word. Many a time have I blessed God for such parents; and I will praise Him for them while I live. I mourn that I ever grieved them, and praise Him for all the comfort they derived from my subsequent history."