made a
characteristically kind proposition in connection with the little fund.
Instead of giving me the money, he gave me two railroad bonds, one
for one thousand dollars, the other for five hundred dollars, and each
drawing seven per cent. interest. He suggested that I deposit these
bonds in the bank of which he was president, and borrow from the bank
the money to go abroad. Then, when I returned and went into my new
parish, I could use some of my salary every month toward repaying the
loan. These monthly payments, he explained, could be as small as I
wished, but each month the interest on the amount I paid would cease.
I gladly took his advice and borrowed seven hundred dollars. After
I returned from Europe I repaid the loan in monthly instalments, and
eventually got my bonds, which I still own. They will mature in 1916.
I have had one hundred and five dollars a year from them, in interest,
ever since I received them in 1878--more than twice as much interest
as their face value--and every time I have gone abroad I have used this
interest toward paying my passage. Thus my friend has had a share in
each of the many visits I have made to Europe, and in all of them her
memory has been vividly with me.

With my return from Europe my real career as a minister began. The year
in the pulpit at Hingham had been merely tentative, and though I had
succeeded in building up the church membership to four times what it had
been when I took charge, I was not reappointed. I had paid off a small
church debt, and had had the building repaired, painted, and carpeted.
Now that it was out of its difficulties it offered some advantages to
the occupant of its pulpit, and of these my successor, a man, received
the benefit. I, however, had small ground for complaint, for I was at
once offered and accepted the pastorate of a church at East Dennis, Cape
Cod. Here I went in October, 1878, and here I spent seven of the most
interesting years of my life.

V. SHEPHERD OF A DIVIDED FLOCK

On my return from Europe, as I have said, I took up immediately and most
buoyantly the work of my new parish. My previous occupation of various
pulpits, whether long or short, had always been in the role of a
substitute. Now, for the first time, I had a church of my own, and was
to stand or fall by the record made in it. The ink was barely dry on
my diploma from the Boston Theological School, and, as it happened,
the little church to which I was called was