g day, he enjoys the consciousness of a well
spent life, as a source of comfort and consolation to sustain and
strengthen, until the recording angel shall proclaim, the gracious
benediction, "Well done good and faithful servant, enter thou into the
joy of thy Lord."

HAYSTACK MEETING

The use of the shadow of the oak tree, and later of the arbor near it,
as a place for prayer and worship, reminds one of the historic prayer
meeting that was held near Williamstown, in 1806, when Samuel J. Mills,
and four other students of Williams college, Newell, Nott, Hall and
Judson, met in the shadow of a haystack and united in prayer, that God
would fit them and prepare the way for them to carry the gospel into
heathen lands.

After making two tours to the southwest as far as New Orleans,
distributing and selling Bibles and organizing Bible societies, Mills
made the suggestion, that led to the organization of the American Bible
society in New York, May 11, 1816; and to the Synod of New York, the
plan of educating negroes to carry the gospel to Africa. In 1817 he was
sent as a missionary to Western Africa, including Sierra Leone. He died
on the homeward voyage and like his friend Adoniram Judson, who went to
farther India and translated the Bible for the Burmese, was buried in
the sea.

XLV

TRIBUTES TO OTHER MINISTERS AND ELDERS

BUTLER.--COLBERT.--GLADMAN.--BRIDGES.--STARKS.--MEADOWS.--AND ELDERS
CRITTENDEN.--SHOALS.--FOLSOM.--BUTLER.

"Walk about Zion and go round about her; tell the towers thereof.
Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye may tell it
to the generation following."--David.

REV. WILLIAM BUTLER

"The kindly word, how far it goes along life's way!
The kindly smile, how it lights up a sad, gray day;
The kindly deed, how it repays the doer."

--Mary D. Brine.

Rev. William Butler (B. 1859), pastor of St. Paul Presbyterian church at
Eagletown, and of Forest church near Red River south of Millerton, is a
native of the community in which he still lives. His parents, Abraham
and Nellie Butler, were the slaves of Pitchlyn and Howell, Choctaws; and
William was about seven, when freedom was accorded the family in 1866.
His home and work as a minister until recently have been in localities
remote from the railway and good schools. The short period of one and a
half months was all the time he ever went to school. He learned to read
by a regular attendan