cited almost to frenzy, and the chairman at length, no longer able to control himself, arose, and rushing to the leader of the opposition, who held a commission under the king, seized him by the collar, and demanded, with a loud voice, that he should at once, and on the spot, renounce king and Parliament. The officer refused to do so, and, scoffing at his threats, denounced him as a rebel. Stung to madness by the insulting epithet, the chairman cried out, "Away with him to the grave-yard-let us bury him alive!" The proposition was received with loud shouts, and the people, rising en masse, rushed on their terrified victim, and hurried him away.

They were in earnest; and would soon have had the trembling wretch under ground; but the counsels of a few of the more temperate, backed by the urgent solicitations of the pastor, calmed their passions, and they released him. Humbled and terrified, the trembling official turned and fled, escaping from an opposition he saw he was not only unable to stem, but which threatened to bear him away in its fury. The parson was found to be more powerful than the king in Harpsburg.

Some two months after, Falmouth, now Portland, was burned by the enemy. The country was at once aroused, and messengers were dispatched in every direction to summon the people to arms. A recruiting officer was sent to Harpswell to raise volunteers, but, to his surprise, found the people backward in responding to his call. Discouraged and sad he, as a last resort, repaired on Sunday morning to Mr. Eaton, to

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beg him to use his influence in his behalf. Meeting him on his way to church, he laid his case before him, and besought him to speak to the people, and urge them to come to the rescue. "Sir," said the pastor, "it is my communion Sabbath, and I must not introduce secular subjects during the day. I will think of the matter, and see what I can do. Perhaps I will invite the people to assemble in front of the meetinghouse at the going down of the sun." So, after service, he told the congregation that he wished to see them after sunset on the church green. He then dismissed them to their homes, and retired to his study.

It was a warm August evening, and as the sun stooped behind the western hills, closing the New England Sabbath, and while his beams still lingered on the glittering spire, men singly and in groups were seen bending their steps towards the meeting-house. Some, surprised at the strange invitation, were wondering what it meant, while others, knowing their pastor's patriotism, more than suspected its object. When the crowd had all assembled, and early twilight was gathering over the landscape, Mr. Eaton left his study, and proceeded thoughtfully to the meeting-house. The crowd gave way respectfully as he approached, and passing through it he mounted the horse block standing near the door. Pausing a moment, and casting his eye over the crowd, he said: "Let us look to God in prayer." It was a strangely solemn scene-that venerated pastor in the gray twilight, with head uncovered, lifting his voice to the heavens, while the assembly, with bowed heads and motionless forms, stood

and reverently listened. When he had closed, he stood for a minute as if lost in thought, and then burst forth, "Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood!"-Jeremiah, xlvi. 10.

A sudden thunder peal breaking from the clear heavens would not have startled those quiet farmers more than the unexpected deliverance of this fearful anathema. Coming from the minister of God, and uttered there under the shadow of the sanctuary, on the evening of the solemn Sabbath, it carried with it a strange, resistless power. A silence profound as that which rested on the neighboring grave-yard followed. He then went on to describe briefly the circumstances under which it was pronounced-drew a parallel between them and the present oppressed and perilous state of God's people in the Colony, and making a direct application of the subject to those present, closed with a powerful appeal to them as men, as patriots, to gird on the sword without delay, and strike for God and liberty.

The minister effected what the recruiting officer failed to accomplish, and that night forty men enrolled their names as volunteers.

After the termination of the war, his life moved on in the even tenor of its way to its close in 1822. Courtly in his manners, faithful in his duties, never failing to warn, rebuke, and instruct the highest as well as the lowest whenever a proper occasion presented itself, he lived to the good old age of eighty-five, and, like a shock of corn fully ripe, was gathered to his fathers in peace.

CHAPTER XI.

WILLIAM TENNENT.

HIS BIRTH AND EDUCATION.-SETTLED AT NORWALK, CONN.-REMOVES TO CHARLESTON, S. C.-HIS PERSONAL APPEARANCE. — HIS ELOQUENCE-H18 BOLDNESS AND ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF THE COLONIES.-MAKES PATRIOTIC APPEALS ON THE SABBATII.-IS ELECTED MEMBER OF THE PROVINCIAL CONGRESS OF SOUTH CAROLINA.- SENT WITH HENRY DRAYTON TO THE BACK SETTLEMENTS TO BAFFLE THE TORIES.--HIS LETTERS TO HENRY LAURENS AND THE CONGRESS.-AGAIN SENT TO CONGRESS.-HIS CHARACTER AND DEATH.

THE Tennents seemed to be of the Aaronic line, and William was a favorite name in the various branches of the family. There were three William Tennents who early devoted themselves to the cause of their Master, and when the Revolution broke out made the cause of their country one with it. The clergyman, whose name stands at the head of this sketch, is sometimes called William Tennent (Third), to distinguish him from the other celebrated William Tennents, and was born in Freehold, N. J., in 1740. Gifted with a fine intellect, he made such rapid progress in his early studies that he graduated at Princeton when but eighteen years of age. He was licensed to preach in 1761, and labored as an itinerant for six months under the direction of Hanover presbytery of Virginia. In 1765 he was settled at Norwalk, Conn., where he remained a little over six years. At the end of that period, he received a call from an independent

church in Charleston, S. C., and though for a time the church at Norwalk refused to part with him, they finally gave a reluctant consent, and he was installed pastor of the former church. He was laboring here when the storm of the Revolution broke over the land.

The contest at once enlisted his whole heart, and he threw himself into it with a boldness and zeal that astonished and troubled some of even his best friends. He was of a manly presence, vivid imagination, great beauty of person, and lofty genius. Consciousness of his great powers made him bold and enterprising, and he became a great favorite with the people. Said one who knew him well, over his dead body: "His honest, disinterested, yet glowing zeal for his country's good demands from us a tribute of respect. Impressed with a sense of the justness, greatness, and vast importance of the American cause, he engaged in it with an ardor and resolution that would have done honor to an ancient Roman. For this he was indeed censured, and perhaps too liberally, by his friends. Early in the contest he magnanimously stepped forth as an advocate for this continent. Here was a field suited to his great abilities, and here his abilities shone with increasing lustre. He first endeavored to rouse his fellow-citizens to a just sense of their inestimable rights and a willingness to contend for them, and to his spirited exertions, among others, may in a great measure be attributed that noble, patriotic zeal which soon blazed forth to the immortal honor of this State."

Being at the center of influence in the province, his