in the Geary and Stockton church for more than twenty-three
years, and then concluded it was time to move from a business district
to a residential section. We sold the building with the lot that had
cost $16,000 for $120,000, and at the corner of Franklin and Geary
streets built a fine church, costing, lot included, $91,000. During
construction we met in the Synagogue Emanu-El, and the Sunday-school was
hospitably entertained in the First Congregational Church, which
circumstances indicate the friendly relations maintained by our
minister, who never arraigned or engaged in controversy with any other
household of faith. In 1889 the new church was dedicated, Dr. Hedge
writing a fine hymn for the occasion.

Dr. Stebbins generally enjoyed robust health, but in 1899 he was
admonished that he must lay down the work he loved so well. In September
of that year, at his own request, he was relieved from active service
and elected Minister Emeritus. Subsequently his health improved, and
frequently he was able to preach; but in 1900, with his family, he
returned to New England, where he lived with a good degree of comfort at
Cambridge, near his children, occasionally preaching, but gradually
failing in health. He suffered severely at the last, and found final
release on April 8, 1901.

Of the later history of the church I need say little. Recollections root
in the remote. For thirteen years we were served by Rev. Bradford
Leavitt, and for the past eight Rev. Caleb S.S. Dutton has been our
leader. The noble traditions of the past have been followed and the
place in the community has been fully maintained. The church has been a
steady and powerful influence for good, and many a life has been
quickened, strengthened, and made more abundant through its ministry. To
me it has been a never-failing source of satisfaction and happiness.

I would also bear brief testimony to the Sunday-school. All my life I
had attended Sunday-school,--the best available. I remember well the
school in Leominster and the stories told by Deacon Cotton and others. I
remember nay teacher in Boston. Coming to California I took what I could
get, first the little Methodist gathering and then the more respectable
Presbyterian. When in early manhood I came to San Francisco I entered
the Bible-class at once. The school was large and vigorous. The
attendance was around four hundred. Lloyd Baldwin, an able lawyer, was
my first teacher, and a good one, but very soon