years of farming and tanning went on, and he became aware that he was reaching up to manhood, and his progress toward the goal of his ambition was scarcely perceptible.

In the winter of 1844 and 1845 he taught his first school in Bath, N.H., and the following spring spent his well-earned money in a term of study in St. Johnsbury Academy, then in charge of Professor Colby.

The following summer, coming in one day from farmwork, discouraged with the kind of life he was leading, and quite out of sorts with the world in general, he called out to his father, who sat quietly reading, "Father, I wish you would buy me a watch."—“Well, I shall not," replied the wise parent. "Then I wish you would send me to school," Calvin continued. After a few minutes of silence, his father answered, "If you will work well this summer, you may go to school this fall; then, if you can teach in the winter, you may go to school as long as you can pay your own way." This was the "proclamation of emancipation" to the petitioner. He mowed and raked, and tumbled and pitched off, during the remaining haying and harvest season, with a courage and will he had never shown before.

A

GIOUS EXPERIENCE.

FTER enjoying the fall term at the academy at St. Johnsbury Plain, he engaged a school for the winter in "Ross District," Lower Waterford, Vt., and then really began the work of teaching that only ended with his life. During this winter, boarding at some distance from his work, he spent the hour of intermission in his schoolroom. Soon after the term commenced, he began to look around for something to occupy this comparatively quiet and leisure hour. Finding at hand only the Bible, aside from ordinary text-books, he bethought him that though he had always read and heard the Bible read daily, had studied it also from his childhood in Sunday school, still he had never given it a really thoughtful perusal. After turning over the leaves a little, he decided that he would spend this leisure midday hour in reading carefully and thoughtfully the Psalms of David. Putting this resolution in practice, he found his attention absorbed and his interest fastened more and more on those wonderful truths and poetical utterances. The words of inspiration did not fail to reveal their power, and to stamp their impress on the young inquirer's heart.

One evening, after his duties for the day were ended, as he sat alone in the little chamber at his boarding-place, he thought of his Christian home, of the house of God

where he had year after year sung songs of worship, of the sabbath school and its instructions, of the many lives that he knew as having a Christian faith and experience that he had not; and he asked himself, "Why am not I a Christian?" He could give no answer. His conscience told him that it was not only the most reasonable thing to serve God, but that the Author of his being and the Source of all his blessings had a rightful claim upon his service, that heretofore he had utterly disregarded. He saw the unjust position he had been holding, and deliberately decided he would no longer be inconsistent with himself. Since he believed he owed his life to his Maker, he would henceforth pay his honest dues to Him who held this infinite claim. Having deliberately made up his mind thus, he kneeled, and formally gave himself to God; then retired to rest with a heart calm, unmoved, but satisfied in having done the present duty.

The week ended, and he went home, as usual, to spend the sabbath. He found the little village of East St. Johnsbury all awake to the interests of the Christian religion. Daily meetings were being held, and on Saturday evening he made his way to the chapel where the villagers were assembled. The earnest prayers and songs of praise to the great Father, and the simple testimonies to a faith in Christ Jesus that brought peace to troubled hearts, all had their convincing effect on one already decided to do the bidding of the Divine Master; so that, when an opportunity was given, he scarcely needed the earnest. glance of a dear brother to induce him to bow at the altar where public consecration was made to God. After the prayers, his voice calmly told the purpose of his life henceforth. And on Monday morning he went back to

his school, full of a new zeal and readiness to be all for Christ; saying to his brother, on the way, "I don't know but I shall some time find it is my duty to become a preacher of the gospel."

Six months later, June 28, 1846, this entry was made in his journal :

"For the first time in my life, I have to-day partaken of the holy sacrament. I can scarcely describe my feelings when kneeling at the table of my Lord. They were of a mingled character. I felt that I was unworthy to take even the crumbs that fall from his table. I felt humble and solemn and penitent. At the altar my prayer was for pardon through Jesus' death and sufferings, and a perfect cleansing from all sin through the efficacy of his blood. Upon my seat afterward, my inward prayer was, 'Hereafter, O Lord, enable me to do all thy righteous will.' I do desire to be more holy. I am far from being satisfied with my present situation. I am not filled with all the fulness of Christ, not devoted enough to his cause, not trusting enough in his merits, not enough dead unto sin and alive unto God. Oh that from this time no power of temptation may cause me to fall, no artifice of the Devil may lead me astray from the path of duty and the way of peace!"

There was so little emotion, so little of the frequently attendant joy, at the time of his conversion, that sometimes, in the few years following, he wondered if he could be professing a faith which had no experimental reality. This fear at times was painful to him, when he compared his own experience with the more emotional one of some of his associates. In the fall of 1847 he attended a

camp-meeting at which the power of the Holy Spirit was especially manifest. There he sought a satisfactory evidence that the real work of God was wrought in his own heart. One evening, as he was praying for this in the midst of a little circle in one of the tents, his prayer was suddenly changed to praise. The quiet tones that so uniformly told his desires to God were replaced by hallelujahs and shouts of "Glory!" For some minutes the place was indeed "shaken where we were assembled," as in the olden time, while the presence and power of the Holy Ghost was manifest to all.

In describing afterward his feelings at that time, Calvin said, "I cannot tell how it came: I only know that while I prayed it seemed to fall on me as a shower, and to cover me from head to foot." That experience he always loved to recall as a time when God gave him an especial token and proof of his sonship in revealing to him a little of the power and glory of his grace. It was the only time in all his experience when the manifestation of his emotion could have been called noisy. Though often in later years he was filled with the conscious presence of Christ, he expressed it quietly, sometimes in tears of joy, sometimes in glad songs of praise.

The following New Year's Day, Jan. 1, 1848, his diary has this entry :

66

Believing, as I do, that 'to fear God and keep his commandments is the whole duty of man,' I have thought it best to form some rules for my own government, and to prescribe for myself some duties which it shall be my endeavor to perform.

"1. I will endeavor to be a Christian,— to love God