mission, and at the same time studied
in the Wesleyan Academy on High Street. A fellow student, who became and
continued through a long life one of his most intimate friends, the Rev.
George H. Whitney, said that young Vincent differed from most of his
classmates in his eager desire for education, his appetite for
book-knowledge leading him to read almost every volume that came his
way, and his visions, then supposed to be mere dreams, of plans for the
intellectual uplift of humanity. It was his keenest sorrow that he could
not realize his intense yearning for a course in college; but perhaps
his loss in youth became a nation's gain in his maturer years.

In 1853 he was received formally as a member "on trial" in the New
Jersey Conference, at that time embracing the entire State. His first
charge as pastor was at North Belleville, later known as Franklin, now
Nutley, where a handsome new church bears his name and commemorates his
early ministry. His second charge was at a small suburb of Newark, then
called Camptown, now the thriving borough of Irvington. His ministry
from the beginning had been marked by an interest in childhood and
youth, and a strong effort to strengthen the work of the Sunday School.
At Camptown he established a definite course of Bible teaching for
teachers and young people. Near the church he staked out a map of
Palestine, marked its mountains and streams, its localities and
battlefields, and led his teachers and older scholars on pilgrimages
from Dan to Beersheba, pausing at each of the sacred places while a
member of the class told its story. The lessons of that Palestine
Class, taught on the peripatetic plan in the fifties, are still in
print, showing the requirements for each successive grade of Pilgrim,
Resident in Palestine, Dweller in Jerusalem, Explorer of other Bible
Lands, and after a final and searching examination, Templar, wearing a
gold medal. At each of his pastoral charges after this, he conducted his
Palestine Class and constructed his outdoor map of the Holy Land. May we
not find here the germ destined to grow into the Palestine Park of the
Chautauqua Assembly?

After four years in New Jersey young Vincent was transferred in 1857 to
Illinois, where in succession he had charge of four churches, beginning
with Joliet, where he met a young lady teacher, Miss Elizabeth
Dusenbury, of Portville, N. Y., who became his wife, and in the after
years by her warm heart, clear head, and wise