This page has been validated.

[ 35 ]

men would consult God's will and word, more than they do their own predilections and passions, none of these things could possibly exist.

Another view of Mr. Gloucester's history may not be uninteresting, upon which I will direct attention. Mr. Gloucester had considerable labor to undergo during his brief ministerial career: not only the care and burden of the Church, not only the hopes of the people confiding in him filled his heart and soul with much anxiety, but there was his wife and four children in slavery; it was not possible for him to rest quiet and at ease under such a circumstance as that! O no, these must be redeemed from bondage, and hence we account for the reason why it was that he was so often absent from his Church and Presbytery.

He travelled extensively in the States of the Union, in nearly every principal city north and south, raising collections or contributions in order to purchase the freedom of his family, and he met with kind friends who afforded him every assistance, and so near his heart did this matter lie, and to such an extent did it excite him, that when he found that all the means necessary for the redemption of his wife and children could not be obtained in the United States, he crossed the ocean and landed in England, and plead for money to buy his family He was successful, and returned to America, purchased them, rejoiced to have them free, to call them his, to see them settled in Philadelphia, happy and cheerful, and then to give himself again to the labors of the ministry in building up the church : surely, like the great Apostle to the Gentiles, "in labors he was abundant," and in comparison to many ministers, he "labored more abundantly than they." Contemplating him from this standpoint, I might ask did he not