of abode to villages more or less distant, defied the
chiefest of this order of gymnasts to enter the lists. In a
country town of Massachusetts remote from the capital, one of
these wanderers appeared about half a century since, and issued a
general challenge against the foremost wrestlers. The clergyman of
the town, a son of Harvard, whose fame in this particular had
travelled from the academic to the rustic green, was apprised of
the challenge, and complied with the solicitation of some of his
young parishioners to accept it in their behalf. His triumph over
the challenger was completed without agony or delay, and having
prostrated him often enough to convince him of his folly, he threw
him over the stone wall, and gravely admonished him against
repeating his visit, and disturbing the peace of his
parish."--Vol. I. p. 315.

The peculiarities of Thomas Mason were his most noticeable
characteristics. As an orator, his eloquence was of the _ore
rotundo_ order; as a writer, his periods were singularly
Johnsonian. He closed his ministerial labors in Northfield,
February 28, 1830, on which occasion he delivered a farewell
discourse, taking for his text, the words of Paul to Timothy: "The
time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I
have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there
is laid up for me a crown of righteousness."

As a specimen of his style of writing, the following passages are
presented, taken from this discourse:--"Time, which forms the
scene of all human enterprise, solicitude, toil, and improvement,
and which fixes the limitations of all human pleasures and
sufferings, has at length conducted us to the termination of our
long-protracted alliance. An assignment of the reasons of this
measure must open a field too extended and too diversified for our
present survey. Nor could a development of the whole be any way
interesting to us, to whom alone this address is now submitted.
Suffice it to say, that in the lively exercise of mutual and
unimpaired friendship and confidence, the contracting parties,
after sober, continued, and unimpassioned deliberation, have
yielded to existing circumstances, as a problematical expedient of
social blessing."

After commenting upon the declaration of Paul, he continued: "The
Apostle proceeds, 'I have fought a good fight' Would to God I
could say the same! Let me say, however, without the fear of
contradiction, 'I have fought a fight!' How