man for a religious teacher. Secession was the natural, if not necessary result. Numbers formed themselves into a new society, established separate worship, and attended upon the ministrations of Rev. Aaron Bancroft. Of these transactions, due notice will be taken in a subsequent part of this work.

In 1786, the Rev. Daniel Story was invited to settle here, on a salary of £120, with a gratuity of £300. He accepted the invitation, the day of his ordination was designated, and a committee appointed to make suitable preparations. Before the day arrived, another meeting voted that the time be postponed. At an adjourned meeting, probably by Mr. Story's desire, the invitation was recalled. He could not persuade himself to labor permanently, where embittered divisions would be likely at once to impair his peace and prevent his usefulness. Retiring from the place where he had labored for about two years, he preached in Concord, N. H. Respectable acquisitions and an agreeable manner could not do away the force of the impression that he was tinctured with Arminianism, and he was not settled there. Having removed to Ohio, he became the first minister of Marietta. Born in Boston, Mass., he was graduated from Dartmouth College, N. H., in 1780, settled in the State of Ohio, and died in Marietta, in 1813.

Several candidates were heard during the two years that followed Mr. Story's retirement, but no one united the suffrages of the people on himself, until the name of the Rev. Samuel Austin, of New Haven, was presented to them. He was invited to settle here, March 22, and installed, Sept. 29, 1790. The following clergymen assisted in the public services of his installation:

The Rev. Samuel Spring, of Newburyport, invoked the divine blessing; Rev. Samuel Hopkins, of Hadley, preached the Sermon; Rev. Ebenezer Chaplin, of Sutton, made the Installing Prayer; Rev. Joseph Sumner, of Shrewsbury, delivered the Charge; Rev. Nathaniel Williams, of Brimfield, proffered the Right Hand of Fellowship; and Rev. Nathanael Emmons, of Franklin, led the concluding devotions of the assembly.

The salary voted to Mr. Austin, was £130. In consequence of disapprobation expressed by a single individual to the settlement of this candidate, and for the purpose of ascertaining whether any considerable opposition existed, a meeting was called to test the feelings of the people a second time. The result of the meeting was, that seventy-three were in favor of, and only two against him. Soon after his installation, there was a revision of the creed and covenant of the church.*

The life of Dr. Austin was full of stirring incident. There are but few men of any profession or calling, whose lives present more diversity of scene and action, than did his. Born in New Haven, Ct., Nov. 7, 1760, he remained with his parents till the war of the revolution broke out. Shortly after this, young Austin became a substitute for his father, who had been drafted as a soldier, and did service for him in the city of New York.. The surrender of that city to the British occasioned his discharge, and he returned to his parents. For two or three years, he divided his time between school-teaching and military service. About the age of twenty years, he decided on entering a professional life. The study of law first attracted his atten

* Appendix F.

tion, and he commenced the preparatory course for that profession with Judge Chauncy, of New Haven. He was soon aware that, in order to attain to eminence in the profession, he must revise his earlier studies and secure a more thorough intellectual discipline. Devoting himself to the classics with his characteristic ardor, he made such progress that, in 1781, he entered Yale College and became a member of the Sophomore class. While preparing for college, his mind seems to have been deeply impressed with his religious responsibilities, and he became the subject of that moral transformation which turned his thoughts and desires in a new direction, and gave him a new object to study and to live for. In the first year of his college life, he was admitted to the church by President Stiles, and thenceforward, while reason held her throne, he gave indisputable proof that for him to live was Christ.' From a diary he kept, some of the first leaves of which are lost, the following extract will indicate the spirit with which he commenced his religious life. The imperfect manuscript thus begins: "Jesus Christ to be my Saviour, and the Holy Spirit of all grace to be my sanctifier: and promise, by the grace of God helping me, without which I can do nothing, to walk according to all the precepts of God exhibited in

* Charles Chauncy, L.L. D., was a descendant of Charles Chauncy, the second President of Harvard College. He was born in Durham, Ct., June 11th, 1747. A graduate from no college, he was admitted to the bar in 1768. Yale gave him the degree of A. M., and Middlebury, that of L.L. D. In 1789, he was appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court of Ct. He died at New Haven, in 1823, at the age of 75. His thirst for knowledge was unquenchable, and he was admirably qualified for the high station to which he was elevated. A firm believer in the Scriptures, he was an intelligent and devoted Christian. His old age was honorable and peaceful, his death triumphant.-Allen's Biog. Dic'y.

His word, to practice all known duty, and avoid all known sin-to adorn the doctrine of God my Saviour, and to live as becomes a member of the church militant of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

During his collegiate course, Mr. Austin united in his own person two things that are far too often separated in the life of a student-earnest devotion to scholarship, and assiduous culture of the Christian graces. Religious principle seems to have pervaded his whole conduct. Not less, but more a student because he was a Christian, he was not less a Christian because he must needs be a scholar. What he was in the latter character, will appear from the following letter of a class-mate,* who knew him well, and could judge impartially. "He was an assiduous and thorough scholar. Attentive to all the prescribed duties of college, sober and discreet, he sustained an unblemished character. An excellent linguist, he was a Deant scholar. Regarded always as a very good speaker, he received as the reward of merit, the first appointment in the exercises of commencement, when he was graduated. His maturity of years, with unremitted attention to his studies, gave him a rank, to say the least, among the first scholars of his class."

His determination that study should not interfere with devotion, or that the ambition of a scholar should not suppress the 'panting of the heart after God,' is obvious from one or two of the Resolutions which he adopted as rules for his daily conduct: "Resolved to watch strictly over my own heart, that it be not, on the one hand, too much capti

*Hon. Judge Daggett, New Haven, who attended on Mr. Austin's preaching when he was settled in Fair-Haven.

† Scholarship instituted by Dean Berkley, subsequently Bishop of Cloyne.

vated by the world and its pleasures, and, on the other, that it be daily conversant in heaven, and fixed on God."

"Resolved that every day, before morning prayer, I will look forward into the probable business of the day, and see wherein I shall be exposed to temptation, and to determine accordingly; and to survey the day with this idea, that I will live as piously that day as though it were my last. And now, though I shall by no means be likely to live so, without divine assistance, yet I pray God to enable me, by the assistance of His holy and blessed Spirit."

A perusal of his diary, will shew that these and their associated Resolutions had a restraining, purifying and elevating influence on his mind and character all the way through college, and indeed through life. "He began from his conversion to walk with God on earth; he sought to consecrate every faculty of his soul to the divine glory, while he was forming and fitting himself for usefulness; and, by the grace of God, he was a burning and shining light in every station which he was afterwards called to occupy in the church."*

Having completed his collegiate course with the first honors of his class,† he devoted himself to the study of theology. Law might still have had attractions for him, but Divinity was far more congenial to his feelings, besides being imperative with his conscience. Dr. Jonathan Edwards of New Haven was his instructor. While reading for his profession, he was also engaged in teaching. In

* Am. Qu. Register, IX. 207.

↑ His class numbered forty-two. Among others, the Hon. Judge Daggett, the Rev. Dr. Holmes, the Rev. Dr. Morse, and the Hon. John Cotton Smith, L.L. D. belonged to it. Of the whole number, thirteen became ministers of the Gospel.-Historical Sermon of the Rev. Mr. Dutton, p. 78.