animals between two and four years of age, and all were bought for the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars. My father was then the overseer of the almshouse, and the purchase was primarily for that establishment, but some of the animals were sold to the neighbors. The result of the purchase was to me a short experience as a drover.

As I recollect the experiences of my life on my father's farm, there were many amusements and relaxations mingled with the hardships. In the winter the house was cold, with only open fires for warming rooms. We had, however, an abundance of wood, and in the evenings a supply of cider, apples and nuts for ourselves and for the neighbors. There were always one or two poor families in the neighborhood who enjoyed the moderate comforts of our house. I recall one man, who after a visit would stop at the pile of wood, near the house, and carry a backload to his home. My father often saw the stealing, but the culprit never knew from any word or act that he had been discovered or suspected.

The ponds and brooks in the vicinity gave us a chance for fishing, and there was some shooting, especially of pigeons in the autumn. The oak forests had not then fallen, and the pigeons were abundant in September and until there were heavy night frosts, when they would leave for milder regions. For several years my father baited pigeons, and caught them in a net. To do this we were in the bough-house by daylight. A wicked advantage was taken by soaking the grain in anise-seed cordial, which made the birds noisy and active, thus attracting other pigeons to the stand. The device of taking pigeons in a net and wringing their necks is a brutal business, as is all slaughtering of animals.

From 1820 to 1830 religious controversies were violent and universal. No one of the towns in Massachusetts was free from them. Under the colonial system each town was a religious corporation as well as a political one. There was one church and one meetinghouse in each town, and the parochial expenses were paid from the municipal revenues. In 1780 when the constitution was adopted, some progress had been made, but by the Third Article of the Bill of Rights, every citizen was required to be a member of some religious society. As a result, new societies were formed, and in many instances there were so organized and managed as to avoid expenses. About the same time attacks were made upon the Third Article of the Bill of Rights, and after an excited controversy covering many years, the constitution was changed in that respect, by an amendment in the nature of a substitute, which was adopted by the people at an election held in the month of November, 1833. By that amendment each citizen was authorized to file a certificate of non-membership with the clerk of the society of which he was a member and thereafter he was free from any contract or obligation of such society thereafter made.

The little town of Lunenburg participated actively in the contest. My father advocated the amendment. At the ancient meetinghouse the ancient doctrines of future punishment were preached and the literal inspiration of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation was not questioned. Those who denied the one or doubted the other were denounced as infidels. Religious topics were the leading subjects of conversation, and the fruitful source of personal and neighborhood controversies. My father rejected the doctrine of physical punishment in another state of existence, and he came to regard the Bible as a record of events, and the expression of human thought and feeling, rather than as a message of the Divine will.

Perhaps as early as 1820 the Methodists had organized a church and secured a place of meeting in the north part of the town on a by-road. The building was not as good in quality or style as is a modern barn. My father separated himself from the old society and joined the Methodist society. In that organization each one paid what he chose. I recollect attending meetings in the old barn, but the distance was great and the inconveniences were numerous. The converts could endure the inconveniences, but as my father was not a convert nor a believer his interest was slight. Afterwards, however, the Methodists built a meetinghouse in the village, and for several years we had seats and attended the services. Once in two or three years the denomination held camp meetings in the autumn and the work of conversions would go on rapidly. The scenes were such as are now reported of the negro race in the states of the South. Young girls would shout, crying out that they had found Jesus, fall down, and lie senseless, or at least speechless, for many minutes. After brief periods of excitement many of the converts returned to their old ways of life, neither better nor worse.

During these years the Universalists held meetings at Shirley Village, quite eight miles away. My father attended occasionally, and not infrequently I went with him. I had therefore the opportunity to hear the great preachers of the denomination—Russell Streeter, Sebastian Streeter, brothers; Thomas Whittemore, the editor of the Trumpet, the organ of the sect, Hosea Ballou, Walter Balfour, and others whose names I do not recall. Balfour was a Scotchman, preaching with an accent, and rolling his scalp, from his eyes to the nape of his neck. The sermons had two peculiarities. First the text was examined carefully and so construed as to show that the author, whether Jesus, Peter, or Paul, taught the doctrine of universal salvation. Then came a process of reasoning designed to show that God could not punish his creatures in a lake of fire and brimstone. First, he was all-powerful; next, he was all-wise; then he was infinitely just, and finally his mercy was without limit. Could a being endowed with these attributes consign his children to unending misery? From the first I saw the defect in the process of reasoning. The premises were not faulty, but given a being with infinite faculties, could another being, with finite faculties only, forecast the result of the exercise or operation of the infinite?

The little town was made notorious by the career of the physician, Dr. Aaron Bard. He was born in Jaffrey, N. H., about the year 1770. He obtained his medical education in part at least, at Troy, N. Y., from which place he fled to avoid arrest upon the charge of robbing graves. His parents were rigid believers in the old faith, and in that faith they had trained the son. Against that faith the son rebelled, dropped the second "a" in his baptismal name, and rejected the Scriptures as not containing divine truth. As the mass of the people believed implicitly in the divine origin and plenary inspiration of the Bible, a disbeliever was denounced as an infidel and punished by social outlawry.

Bard was not a quiet doubter. He attacked the Bible, ridiculed much of the Old Testament, accepted controversies with the clergy, although he attended their families without charge. His reputation as a physician was considerable, and although his enemies, who were many, made repeated efforts to secure a competitor, the wary declined their invitations, and the credulous were soon driven away by poverty, or the fear of it. Bard was a bachelor, lived economically, never presented a bill, and when he died, about the year 1850, his books were free of charges. Before the repeal of the Third Article in the Bill of Rights, Bard organized a society which by some art of logic was so far recognized as a religious body as to exempt its members from taxation in the old parish. It flourished until the Third Article was annulled, when it disappeared. Bard purchased a Hebrew bible, lexicon and grammar, and proceed to translate parts of the Old Testament, especially the early chapters in Genesis, and in such manner as to throw doubt upon the received version. His Sundays were devoted to talks in his office, where were gathered a few hearers, some