e in it when I
first became acquainted with it; and younger artists have been brought
into it since, Gray and' Huntingdon and Kensett, and other
non-professional gentlemen interested in art, and the meetings have been
always pleasant. It was a kind of heart's home to me while I lived in
New York, and I always resort to it now when I go there, sure of welcome
and kindly greeting.'

Then, again, I had in William Ware, the pastor of the First Church, a
friend and fellow-laborer, than whom, if I were to seek the world over,
I could not find one more to my liking. Our friendship was as intimate
as I ever had with any man, and our constant intercourse, to enter
his house as freely as my own, his coming to mine was as a sunbeam, as
cheering and undisturbing, I thought I could not get along without
it. But I was obliged to do so. He had often talked of resigning his
situation, and I had obtained from him a promise that he would never do
it without consulting me. Great was my surprise, then, to learn, one day
while in the country, that he had sent in his resignation. My first
word to him on going to town was, "What is this? You have broken your
promise." "I did not consult even [87] my father or my brothers," was
his reply. I could say nothing. The truth was, that things had come to
that pass in his mind that the case was beyond consultation. He
considered himself as having made a fatal mistake in his choice of a
profession. I have some very touching letters from him, in which he
dwells upon it as his "mistake for a life." His nature was essentially
artistic; he would have made a fine painter. He could have worked
between silent walls. He could write admirably, as all the world knows;
I need only mention "Zenobia" and "Aurelian" and "Probus." But there was
a certain delicacy and shrinking in his nature that made it difficult
for him to pour himself out freely in the presence of an audience. And
yet a congregation, consisting in part of some of the most cultivated
persons in New York, held him, as preacher and pastor, in an esteem and
affection that any man might have envied.

[FN: The well-known Century Club of New York is the modern development
of what was first known as the Sketch Club, or the XXI. M. E. D.]

And to repair the circle of my happy social relations, broken by Ware's
departure, came Bellows to fill his place. I gave him the right hand of
fellowship at his ordination; and I remember saying in it, that I would
no