selves! We sat up all night. Such a hammering and opening of boxes and piling up of goods on the counter! Cottons, dimities, calicos, broadcloths, silks and satins, ribbons and laces, hats and caps, boots and shoes, hardware, crockery, tea and coffee and spices, sugar and molasses, and last though by no means least in the estimation of the 'boys,' wines, brandies and liquors of every description." Those opening nights saw some jolly times. According to the ideas of the period, for such arduous labors the workers needed to be fortified and stimulated; so, as the weary watches of the night approached the small hours, casks were placed in position, faucets were inserted and the sparkling streams flowed freely. We shall see hereafter that this part of the proceedings possessed few, if any, charms for the young collegian.

This sketch of life amid the primitive conditions prevailing in the early settlements of Ohio would be incomplete without some reference to the great flocks of wild pigeons which then came periodically to that region as a feeding ground. Their numbers were so great as sometimes to extend in a compact mass for many miles, shutting out the sunlight like a dense cloud, while the noise of their wings resembled thunder. When they were observed to be about to settle in the woods in the neighbor

hood of some village or town all the inhabitants went out, armed with guns, pistols and clubs, and slaughtered them in thousands. So great was the noise and confusion that the reports of the fire-arms were often inaudible amid the general clamor, and yet the pigeons continued to take their position on the branches, which sometimes broke beneath their weight.

Some years later, the annual migration of the pigeons ceased and nothing more was seen of them. The change occurred so suddenly as to preclude the hypothesis of a gradual extermination. The matter remained a mystery until a few years ago, when a traveler in South America gave accounts of immense flocks of the birds in South America, precisely resembling the wild pigeons of Ohio and the West. No doubt they discovered better feeding grounds and less dangerous conditions in the great Southern forests, and, as by a concerted arrangement, directed their annual course thither.

About two years of Mr. Richards' youth had passed in the ordinary routine of business. While the lad of eighteen was most conscientious in the discharge of his duties, winning the high respect of all who came to know him, and the strong affection as well as confidence of his employer, he yet remained unaffected by any strong religious feeling or purpose in life.

He had given up the habit of daily prayers, did not entirely eschew profane expressions, and while never an unbeliever or a scoffer, while indeed attending the Sunday services regularly in the old-fashioned Congregational meeting house and singing in the choir, he nevertheless took little interest in the more intense manifestations of religious feeling, and did not hesitate to joke the young men who had taken part in the meetings, asking them whether they had yet got religion. But at this time, he was himself caught up on one of those waves of religious excitement which swept periodically over the community. His conversion to God was sincere and profound, and however mistaken in some of its features, it implanted in his soul an intense religious fervor and determination of will which never failed or slackened throughout his future life and which ultimately brought him into the Catholic Church. The course and circumstances of this change are not only necessary to the full understanding of Mr. Richards' character and life, but they are in themselves so interesting and valuable as a study of religious experience and of mental and moral processes of a kind now less frequent and popular than formerly, that we think it right to give them at length and for the most part in Mr. Richards' own words.

The original Congregational Church of Gran

ville, to which the great majority of the settlers had belonged, had been split in the course of time by the dissensions inseparable from Protestantism into four diverse bodies, the Congregational, the First Presbyterian, the Second Presbyterian, and finally the Episcopalian. This last secession had taken place under the leadership of Dr. Richards, Henry's father, under circumstances which will find a place later in our narrative. The three sections still adhering to Calvinism had consented to reunite under a form of compromise known as the Plan of Union, devised in the year 1801 by the Congregational General Association of Connecticut and the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, and sent forth to the missionaries and missionary churches of the West. By this agreement, the congregation, while retaining substantially its independence of all others both in matters of faith and discipline, and in the appointment of its own ministers, yet acquired a right of appeal to the Presbytery in certain cases, and of representation therein. Of the Presbyterio-Congregational church thus constituted in the little village, the Reverend Jacob Little was pastor at this time and for many years after. Small as was his field of labor, Mr. Little was a remarkable man. A native of New Hampshire, educated at the noted theological school at An

dover and in character and temperament as well as by education a Puritan of the Puritans, plain and rugged, with strongly marked and even somewhat eccentric characteristics, a shrewd observer of human nature, a good manager, possessed of enough order, method and executive ability to qualify him for the successful government of states, Parson Little devoted himself with the utmost diligence, fidelity and earnest zeal to the labors of his narrow ministry. The children were all carefully taught in Sunday School until they were fourteen years of age, when they were transferred to the Bible Class conducted by the Pastor himself. Those who were found suitable finally became Sunday School teachers in their turn. This Bible Class was an interesting thing. Its members occupied the front seats of the gallery which surrounded on three sides the interior of the old-fashioned meeting house. Sometimes the class was numerous enough to fill some rows of seats besides. The Pastor occupied the pulpit, which brought him nearly on a level with the galleries, so that he could survey the whole class, composed of young and old of both sexes, ranged in order around him. That pulpit, by the way, with its unusual height, stiff double stairway and cushioned book stand, deserves especial mention. Once, when preaching from it, Dr. Sparrow, a Pro