stranger in a strange land, far from home and kindred. There were then no missionary funds to aid the itinerant in planting the Gospel in destitute places, and all the support upon which he could rely was the naked promise, "Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world." He shared largely in the labors, privations, and reproaches incident to his calling, as a minister; but he realized the fulfillment of the promise in the presence of his Master, and the consolations of his grace. Occasionally the bright and happy scenes of home would fit across his memory, and the temptation to return to the loved ones he had left would be presented to his mind. "Surely," would the tempter say, "Your God is not a hard master, and he does not require you to preach the Gospel to those who will neither receive nor support it."

"The vows of God were on him,

And he dare not turn aside to

Pluck terrestrial fruit, or play with

Earthly flowers.”

But

What if they did not receive him; they also rejected his Master, and the servant must not be greater than his Lord; so in faith, and patience, and hope he labored on in the service of his King and Savior.

In the year 1806 he was appointed presiding elder of the Mississippi district. New laborers were brought into the field, which, while it proved a source of mutual encouragement, enabled them to present a stronger front to the enemy. The strongholds of sin and infidelity were attacked; errors, incrusted by time and fortified by custom, were destroyed; prejudices, the most inveterate, were driven away; and the light of the Gospel began to shed its cheering beams upon the long night of darkness. which had reigned. Sinners were awakened and converted to God, houses of worship were erected, Churches organized, and the institutions of religion established; in

fine, "the wilderness and solitary places were made glad, and the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose," through the instrumentality of these faithful, self-denying heralds of the cross. In all the bounds of his present field of labor, when he first entered upon his work, there were but seventy-four whites and sixty-two colored members; and after three years' labor he was permitted to see embraced in the same field an entire district, with five circuits and a large increase in the membership.

But the itinerant system required him to cultivate other fields, and he left the lowlands of Mississippi, where he was beloved and respected by a numerous host of friends, whom God had raised up as the fruits of his labors, and went to Tennessee to preside on the Holston district. Here he continued two years, and from thence was removed to the Cumberland district, where he also remained two years, and at the expiration of which time he was placed, by the authorities of the Church, on the Nashville district. On all these fields he was in labors more abundant, and God crowned those labors with success, by making them effectual in bringing into the Church a rich harvest of souls. Perhaps under the labors of no one, in his day, were the borders of Zion more enlarged in the lengthening of her cords and the strengthening of her stakes. In the year 1815 he was reappointed to the Cumberland district. In the mean time he had married; and desirous of visiting his relations in Ohio, among whom was brother Collins, who had married his sister, he took a few days of spare time for that purpose.

1

He was again at his home and surrounded by the scenes of his youth-surrounded by the friends of other days, whose presence called up hallowed associations. After enjoying their society for a short time-for he could spare but a little while to turn aside and greet his

friends-he bade them adieu and started for the field of his labors. Many tears were shed at parting, but none knew that they were the tears of a last farewell. None knew that in a few hours that tall, graceful form would be cold in death, and that dark but kindly eye, which beamed with such happiness, would close its light on earth forever. But the ways of God are inscrutable; "Impervious shadows hide

The mystery of heaven."

The minister and his young, blooming bride, on their return, reached Cincinnati. Here they must cross the Ohio; but no proud steamer, as now, with its spacious guards spread out to the beach, is waiting to receive the passengers and ferry them over. A crazy craft, with sails and paddles, in that olden time, was all the means possessed for keeping up a communication between Ohio and Kentucky. Alighting from the carriage, the horses were driven into the flat, and it was pushed from the shore. Brother Blackman stood in front of his horses to hold them. When all was clear, and the boat was a short distance from the shore, the ferryman commenced hoisting his sails, the sight or flapping of which frightened the horses. Blackman made every effort to hold them, but before assistance could be had they plunged overboard, taking him with them. He had a strong arm and was a good swimmer; but, alas! neither strength nor skill can avail when the work of man is done. Till that hour he was immortal, but the time had come for the termination of his labors and his release from earth. He sank to rise no more a living man, till Jesus shall wake his saints from the sleep of death and call them up to heaven. Thus ended the laborious life of the young and talented Learner Blackman; and though the waters of the river, which roll yonder, quenched his life and drowned his dying words, yet we believe he sleeps in Jesus.

CHAPTER XV.

LOST CHILD; OR, "THE CAMP OF LYDIA."

To a denizen of a large city the words which stand at the head of this article produce but a faint impression when compared with that produced upon the mind of the villager. To the former it is a familiar sound, and he is accustomed by day and by night to hear the bellman's voice rising above the din of the city, or ringing out on the clear night air, "Lost child!" But when these words fall upon the ear of the dweller in the woods, or the inhabitant of the wilderness, a thousand frightful images at once rush upon the mind, rousing all to the most intense excitement. Once, while returning home about eleven o'clock on a cold winter's night, in a large city, we heard, at the corner of a square, an alarm bell, and we stopped to listen. Presently a despairing ery arose, "Lost children," accompanied by a description of their persons, and directions where to take them if found. Knowing it was not the old bellman, whose voice had become familiar to us in crying, "Lost child," we waited till the crier came up. When he reached the corner where we stood, he rung his bell and cried again. Just as he concluded, a whiskered animal, dressed in gentleman's clothes, coming along, exclaimed, "Try it again, old fellow!" "You heartless wretch!" said we, but he passed without noticing us. We then asked the crier whose children were lost. "Mine," said he, "and the child of a poor widow living close by me. We are not able to pay the bellman, and I started out myself to hunt

the children." "O, God," we thought, "what a heartless world! Here is a poor man seeking his lost child at the dead hour of night, in the streets and alleys of a vast city, and not a soul to sympathize with or help him !" But to our story.

In the year 1805, when all the region of country bordering upon the Ohio river was a wilderness, and only here and there were villages, which had sprung up in the vicinity of forts-such, for instance, as Marietta, at Fort Harmar, and Cincinnati, at Fort Washington-and the savages roamed unmolested over the broad prairies and through the dense forests of the west, a scene occurred at a settlement about thirty miles north-east of Cincinnati, which produced the most astonishing excitement throughout the whole surrounding country. There lived at this settlement a family by the name of Osborn, which consisted of the father, and mother, and two daughters, the elder of whom was about eleven years of age, and the about seven. younger In those days of backwoods life every member of the family was employed, from necessity, in farming pursuits, and almost as soon as a child was able to walk it was taught to engage in some employment connected with rural life. While the father was engaged in attending his small patch of corn, and the mother was attending her domestic concerns, of cooking, knitting, spinning, or weaving, the children would be employed, if sons, in assisting the father in the field or barn; and if daughters, in helping the mother in domestic duties.

It was usually the duty of the younger boys to hunt the cows, which were left to run in the woods, and sometimes were difficult to find. As there were no boys in this family, it devolved upon the girls to search the ranges of the cattle, and drive home the cows. One afternoon in the latter part of summer, the little girls of the Osborn

.