The Hemlocks, July 31st, 1893.

As we entered our rooms, Saturday evening, there was a wrestling match which threw Jonathan and Mr. Davis on the bed, breaking one of the slats, calling up the landlord and rousing the sleeping ladies next door and above, who left their rooms, not knowing what was to happen. When they found that not only one but all of our party were clergymen, you can imagine their relief and their amazement. Some seventy-five were out last night at the church, nearly filling it. After I had preached, I called on each of the others to speak, which they did very impressively. The good brother there, who lives on $300 a year, seemed much helped by our presence. This morning the ladies of the hotel were up to see us off.

Camp Craig. This is an old home of ours and is made especially pleasant by the number of friends camping near us. Chief among these are Mr. and Mrs. Sellig, whom mother will remember my calling on in Philadelphia. They camp on a fine island with a Mr. Dutton, seventy-three years old, who has been coming to the woods since 1858. He hurried on alone this year, as he told them afterwards, that he might lift up his hands to heaven and thank his Maker for sparing him to come here once more.

I must tell you about our Sunday service, the most characteristic of all yet. Word was sent round to all the camps the night before that service would be held here at eleven. There is a rustic house on a rocky point, jutting out into the lake. About half past ten the boats began to come, straggling along from all directions until we had an audience of about fifty in the room and on the porch, with about a dozen boats at the dock. Every one of the clergymen was worked in, and Jonathan preached an excellent sermon.

I thank you, dear mother, for taking all that trouble about the letters, which Lowry and I shall greatly enjoy reading over. It is very sweet to me to think of your all being together. We all went to the little Wesleyan church in the village. At the close, the minister lighted on us four tramps and asked me to preach in the evening. I was the solitary man that had on a white collar, you see.

I am sorry you are not yet out of the woods, but there must be some way which your inventiveness and perseverance will discover. I regret that you have been so hindered in your work on father's Memorial. There is no need of your copying legible letters, and I will help you sort them, and Lowry and I can read some of the letters together. We must care for you and lift your burdens. We need your strength and time for other things.

As you lose your way so in getting about, I might bring you home an Adirondack guide. But his charge is three dollars a day.

I should dislike to break up Mr. Hall's trip, dear mother, but if you feel that it is best for me to come home, don't fail to let me know it. Old Forge, Herkimer Co., Aug. 3rd, 1893. On reaching here, I found your letters awaiting me, and one from Mr. Broughton, desiring me to speak on Crocker Park.

My Dear Sister:

Aug. 3rd. What a household you have! And what problems to solve, not only the boy-problem in Wallace, but the girl-problem in

the kitchen, and the life-problem all round! If we lack wisdom, we may seek it from above. After the ends of life are chosen by love, wisdom is the principal thing.

To-day we ran our two boats down to the old Forge and back, about twenty-five miles, the length of the chain of lakes. There is no exercise like it. You see both may always be employed, one in rowing, the other in paddling. Exercise is thus provided for the chest, the back and the arm, the fore-arm and the whole body. Then we tramp and carry packs on the back. What talks we have on all possible topics from theology and marriage to boat building and Wall Street!

Edward had engaged to preach at Nanepashemet on Aug. 20th and 27th. There had come from Beverly an urgent call for him to supply the pulpit of Washington St. on the preceding Sabbath.

Old Forge, Aug. 4th 1893.

Your three letters of yesterday, my dear mother, came in to-night, and have caused me some perplexity on Mr. Hall's account. If it would trouble him or shorten his stay, I should prefer not to come. But he says, "Go, if that is the better thing, as your mother wishes." So you may write Beverly to that effect. It seems strange to have such mail facilities, and I am making unwonted use of them. But I was always the letter writer of the party. It is pleasant to get news of your comings and goings and doings. We will talk over a great many things when I get home.

Camp Craig, Aug. 7th, 1893. There is not in camp a happier man than I, for I am the owner of a budget of letters just arrived. I have never been better physically in the woods, and could never carry the boat better. I find it difficult to get a sensation of thorough fatigue, no matter how much I may do. Both Mr. Hall and I carried the Nannie O. a mile and three-quarters the other day. Remember that it weighs seventy-seven pounds. Our carrying is over now, as we go out from this lake, every day tramping off to some new lake or pond. And I am expected to make the plans for the party.

Camp Craig, Aug. 10th.

This is my last letter, as the living epistle will set forth to-morrow. I ought to reach you about half past eight in the electric car from Salem. Your company seems to be streaming in. Now I must start out and see what plans are to be made for our last day.

The following is a letter from Rev. Mr. Davis:—

Mr. Lawrence was the strongest one of our party. After a hard day's row over the lakes, or a steep climb over some mountain, he seemed almost as fresh as at the start. He made an ideal companion for such a trip. He was always ready to be the boy and to enter into all the sports and pleasures that characterize such an outing. He was a born athlete, and a man that could not but be popular with his fellows. No one it has been my pleasure to know seemed to enter more deeply and heartily into the enjoyment of scenery. Well do

I remember the way his face lighted up as with interior sunshine, when we reached the summit of Mt. Marcy! He looked all around the horizon at the panorama of lakes and mountains, and exclaimed, "Beautiful, beautiful!" Some such spiritual vision must have been granted to him when he uttered the same words at the last. He always impressed me as being a man of wonderfully keen intellect. In our theological discussions (and, of course, four clergymen make an itinerant theological school) he seemed always master of the subject, and to say the satisfactory and discriminating word. He seemed to have a fund of sanctified common sense. He was at home in all the subtleties and intricacies of theological debate. His lectures at Yale, which it was my pleasure to hear, are a missionary classic. Mr. Lawrence was above all things else a man of fine Christian character, manly, intelligent, noble and grand. He had consecrated all his powers for the good of the world. He carried a Christian atmosphere with him wherever he went. I can never forget his morning and evening prayers in the woods. We would stop while on the march and read the Bible, and discuss the chapter we read, after which we would have a prayer. Mr. Lawrence's prayers make you feel that out there in the wilderness it was none other than "the house of God, the gate of heaven!" Noble soul! Heaven was richer and earth poorer when you answered the Master's summons. The Lawrence House in Baltimore is as fine a monument as any man could desire. Its Christlike work will be a constant benediction to multitudes, as well as a beautiful memory of him. It was an honor to be the mother of such a son.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

LAST SUMMER VISIT AT LINDEN HOME.

Faith knows omnipotence has heard her prayer,
And cries "it shall be done," sometime, somewhere.
-Browning.

On a Saturday morning, August 12th, there were many friends to give the wanderer a welcome to the home Unter den Linden. According to his appointment, he supplied the Washington St. Church at Beverly the next day. Of this Sabbath Miss Tracy, whose house had long been one of his Beverly homes, writes:

It is interesting to recall that on the last occasion of Mr. Lawrence's holding service in our church, Ex-President Hayes and ExGovernor Claflin were present. In the evening, the discourse was from the words, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." I shall always be grateful for the privilege of listening to that discourse, and Mrs. Flanders, who was there, was also deeply moved by it.

How

At that time he left us with words that were a benediction. little he thought the farewell was a final one! Yet we are richer for having entertained an angel unawares. Whenever I think of him, it is as if an influence from heaven comes to me. He seemed so perfectly to have put on the Lord Jesus, so reflecting the image of his Saviour, so devoted to Christ's work of raising the fallen, so mindful of others and so forgetful of self.

The days that followed were most pleasantly filled up with reading, music, lively discussions on matters aesthetical, political, theological and reformatory, rowing in a boat on the fine harbor, and various little excursions, including a picnic on the rocks of the old fort of revolutionary associations.

The remaining two Sundays of his vacation Edward preached in the little chapel on Marblehead Neck, now called by its Indian name, Nanepashemet, and also spoke at Crocker Park.

From Mr. Frank Broughton, Secretary of the Marblehead Y. M. C. A., who was in charge of the Sunday meetings on Crocker Park:

He was an ideal It always did me good whenever I met your son. Christian minister, and no one could come in contact with him without being blest. When we heard of his sickness, a man who is on the water a great deal, but who attended our out-door meetings, met me and asked anxiously about him, earnestly hoping he would get well, for he said, "I heard him speak at Crocker Park, and he's just the kind of a man I like to hear, and we can't afford to lose no such a good man as that." This man seldom if ever goes to church.

I enclose a copy of the paper published in connection with our work during the summer. The verses were written by a young man who came from England to Marblehead and is learning the blacksmith You, of trade. He became a Christian just before leaving home. course, remember your son's sermon at Crocker Park, "He came unto This so impressed the his own, and his own received him not." young man that he wrote the following verses which I send you :

Though a dull afternoon on Sunday last,

A crowd assembled there

To hear the words of the Gospel preached
By a man in the open air.

He stood on a rock and all could see
When he lifted his hands in prayer,
Then opened his book and read these words
To the people standing there:

"He came, but his own received him not,"
Rose from his voice so clear.

He then explained how once these words
Were said of our Saviour dear.

He told them how he was once called home

To his dying father's side,

And how that his own received his own;

Yet Jesus was cast aside.

Hard was the heart that was not touched

Ere that sermon closed in prayer.

How many there were claimed Christ as their own

Out in the open air!

-T. A. R.

From Mrs. Mary H. L. Whitcomb, whose summer home for many years was on Marblehead Neck, but whose home is now in the heavenly mansions:

Your son, our friend, seemed so identified with our summer life I cannot that we cannot fully realize that he is to be of it no more.