ed his belief that not more than one soul
in two thousand would be saved. Seeing a knot of his parishioners in
debate, he asked them what they were discussing, and was told that they
were questioning which of the Medford people was the elected one, the
population being just two thousand, and that opinion was divided whether
it would be the minister or one of his deacons. The story may or may not
be literally true, but it illustrates the popular belief of those days,
that the clergyman saw a good deal farther into the councils of the
Almighty than his successors could claim the power of doing.

The objects about me, as I am writing, call to mind the varied
accomplishments of some of the New England clergy. The face of the
Revolutionary preacher, Samuel Cooper, as Copley painted it, looks upon
me with the pleasantest of smiles and a liveliness of expression which
makes him seem a contemporary after a hundred years' experience of
eternity. The Plato on this lower shelf bears the inscription: "Ezroe
Stiles, 1766. Olim e libris Rev. Jaredis Eliot de Killingworth." Both
were noted scholars and philosophers. The hand-lens before me was
imported, with other philosophical instruments, by the Reverend John
Prince of Salem, an earlier student of science in the town since
distinguished by the labors of the Essex Institute. Jeremy Belknap holds
an honored place in that unpretending row of local historians. And
in the pages of his "History of New Hampshire" may be found a chapter
contributed in part by the most remarkable man, in many respects,
among all the older clergymen preacher, lawyer, physician, astronomer,
botanist, entomologist, explorer, colonist, legislator in state and
national governments, and only not seated on the bench of the Supreme
Court of a Territory because he declined the office when Washington
offered it to him. This manifold individual was the minister of
Hamilton, a pleasant little town in Essex County, Massachusetts,--the
Reverend Manasseh Cutler. These reminiscences from surrounding objects
came up unexpectedly, of themselves: and have a right here, as showing
how wide is the range of intelligence in the clerical body thus
accidentally represented in a single library making no special
pretensions.

It is not so exalted a claim to make for them, but it may be added
that they were often the wits and humorists of their localities. Mather
Byles's facetie are among the colonial classic reminiscences. But these