Those years at Belleville were to me memorable. No vacation, but three
times a day I took a row on the river. Those old families in my
congregation I can never forget--the Van Rensselaers, the Stevenses,
the Wards. These families took us under their wing. At Mr. Van
Rensselaer's we dined every Monday. It had been the habit of my
predecessors in the pulpit. Grand old family! Their name not more a
synonym for wealth than for piety. Mrs. Van Rensselaer was one of the
saints clear up in the heaven of one's appreciation.

Wm. Stevens was an embodiment of generosity. He could not pray in
public, or make a speech; but he could give money, and when he had
plenty of it he gave in large sums, and when monetary disaster came, his
grief was that he had nothing to give. I saw him go right through all
the perturbations of business life. He was faithful to God. I saw him
one day worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. I saw him the next day
and he was not worth a farthing. Stevens! How plainly he comes before me
as I think of the night in 1857 after the New York banks had gone down,
and he had lost everything except his faith in God, and he was at the
prayer meeting to lead the singing as usual! And, not noticing that from
the fatigues of that awful financial panic he had fallen asleep, I arose
and gave out the hymn, "My drowsy powers, why sleep ye so?" His wife
wakened him, and he started the hymn at too high a pitch, and stopped,
saying, "That is too high"; then started it at too low a pitch, and
stopped, saying, "That is too low." It is the only mistake I ever heard
him make. But the only wonder is that amid the circumstances of broken
fortunes he could sing at all.

Dr. Samuel Ward! He was the angel of health for the neighbourhood.
Before anyone else was up any morning, passing along his house you would
see him in his office reading. He presided at the first nativity in my
household. He it was that met me at the railroad station when I went to
preach my first sermon as candidate, at Belleville. He medicated for
many years nearly all the wounds for body and mind in that region. An
elder in the Church, he could administer to the soul as well as to the
perishable nature of his patients.

And the Duncans! Broad Scotch as they were in speech! I was so much with
them that I got unconsciously some of the Scottish brogue in my own
utterance. William, cautious and prudent; John, bold and
venturesome--both so high in my affections! Am