LETTERS AND CONTRIBUTIONS

RECEIVED AFTER THE JUBILEE.

Letter from Thomas Hastings, Mus. Doct.

NEW YORK, October 22, 1866.

REV. P. H. FOWLER, D. D.:

DEAR SIR:

I had intended following your suggestion to my son, with a brief letter of reminiscences; but was prevented by a temporary dimness of sight, till it became too late for the occasion mentioned. There was, however, little that I could say from personal recollection that would have been of general interest.

The first time I passed through the place where Utica stands, the primitive forest had recently been removed, and the stumps of the trees were thickly shrouded by snow. The place, bating one or two shanties, was an unbroken solitude. In a few years, two rows of wooden houses appeared, with an unpaved street between them, which every spring and autumn would be deluged with mud. During a period of some sixty years, how has the scene changed!

Not living in the place till some thirty years had passed, I had little knowledge of the earlier periods of Sabbath School instruction. I remember, in this connection, the pleasant names of CAMP, MERRELL, OSTROM, CLARK, SKINNER, BRADISH, BRAYTON, PARMELE, &c. The last mentioned gentleman prepared for the school the first list of printed questions, which were afterwards enlarged and reprinted in Philadelphia. Another little item may not be destitute of interest. The hymn, "Now be the Gospel Banner," which has had so wide a circulation in this country. and in England, was composed expressly for use of the Utica Anniversaries.

The first idea of Sunday School efforts was to fasten the Scriptures upon the juvenile mind for subsequent use in riper years. Utica, I think, was among the first to adopt a better system, and I trust it will not be behind other places in realizing the more immediate benefits which may be received that of early gathering the lambs into the fold of Christ.

Mrs. HASTINGS joins me in the pleasant remembrances I am referring to. During a family residence of nearly eight years, ending in 1832, we found many with whom we took sweet counsel, most of whom have left for a brighter world. Of our three children, two are in the paradise above, and one remains as pastor of the people with whom we worship. He was baptised into your church by Rev. Dr. AIKEN, nearly forty years ago. They all became pious in juvenile years, and received their earliest training in Utica. This we can never forget.

Pardon me for detaining you so long. Though the occasion has passed when I would have gladly contributed somewhat to the general interest, I was unwilling to suffer the request to be wholly unnoticed.

Our kindest wishes to the Sunday School, to the congre gation, and to its pastor.

Yours in Christian love,

TH. HASTINGS.

Letter from Rev. Joel Parker, D. D.

NEWARK, November 8, 1866.

SAMUEL E. WARNER:

DEAR SIR:

Yours of the 5th inst. is before me. I do not think I have any thing in my possession touching the action and life of TRUMAN PARMELE at the time of his residence in Utica, that would aid the committee of publication.

I know what all his old friends in Utica know of his prepared lessons that were published, as the first book of Sunday School questions ever published, as I believe.

I served the Oneida Sunday School Union in the year 1826. TRUMAN PARMELE made all the arrangements for employing me at one dollar a day. He purchased the horse, saddle, and bridle for me, and furnished money for my expenses. I sallied forth from Utica late in May or early in June; and PARMELE and WILSON, and a few other kindred pirits stood all grinning on Main street to see their missionary go forth on his hard trotting Rosinante. I organized five County Unions in Onondaga, Tompkins, Cortland, Chenango, and Otsego counties, and after three months returned and rendered an account of my missionary work. I commonly made one address each day in school houses or court houses, and three addresses on Sundays in churches. I commended Mr. PARMELE'S school every where as a model school, with the same lesson for all the classes, and the Superintendent questioning all the classes on the lesson. The questions on St. Matthew's Gospel, and the one same lesson system, were, I think, Mr. PARMELE'S inventions. I had seen him often in his school at Utica, and knew the history of his Sunday School work at Utica and in Oneida county. This intercourse with him led to his joining my Dey street church in New York, where he became an elder. It also resulted in my going to New Orleans. He became an elder there, and built the church on the Square where Dr. PALMER has since preached secession. He built it. It could not have been done without him; and so decided had been his influence in carrying the enterprise through, that when JOSEPH MAYBIN, one of the elders, insisted upon giving Mr. PARMELE a service of plate, the feeling to do so was so strong that nothing prevented it but Mr. PARMELE'S persistent resistance, and his declaration that he would not accept it.

Pardon my history of my co-operation with Mr. PARMELE. It is not to your purpose, but I was led to it as the only means of adding anything of my own knowledge about him. He was always my beau ideal of a perfect Sunday School man. Yours truly,

JOEL PARKER.

Letter from James W. Tillman.

DETROIT, December 10, 1866.

REV. P. H. FOWLER, D. D.:

MY DEAR FRIEND:

Some little time ago I received a newspaper, sent, I sup pose, by you, containing an account of your Sunday School celebration, for which I thank you, though I should have felt much more and better pleased had you sent me an earlier notice, that I might have been present, as I certainly should have been, had I been asked.

My first experience in Sunday School was there in the old Lancaster school room in Catharine street. My first attempt as teacher, was in connection with that school, trying to teach an old, gray-headed colored woman her letters. My impression is that this was in Mrs. CLARKE's school room. How well I remember her. She seemed to me at that time the very embodiment of the stern Christian professor. PARMELE and WINSTON were loving and winning in their ways, and I remember them with feelings of peculiar pleasure. FRED. WINSTON, as we used to call him, I meet in New York occasionally, and together we talk over old Utica days, and very early days they must have been, for I left there in 1824 and went to live in Geneva. But I was there a great deal after that, and in 1833 was married there. In this way I kept up a running acquaintance, somewhat intimate with Utica friends, until 1836, when I came here to live.

In looking over your proceedings, and reading the familiar names, I go back to Utica and early days, and recall the people of whom I have such very pleasant recollections, and with whom I kept up a most agreeable intercourse for many years after I had ceased to be one of them. Now how very, very few of them are left. I could go to Utica and find hardly a score that I once knew, and probably not five that would know me. Judge WILLIAM J. BACON, WARD HUNT, J. WATSON WILLIAMS, HORATIO SEYMOUR, PALMER V. KELLOGG, Mrs. CORNELIA GRAHAM nee COOPER, Mrs. DEAN, THOMAS R. WALKER, Mrs. GEORGE S. DANA. Mr. HANDY, I frequently see, as you know, and

HOVEY CLARKE is with us here. HOYT I do not remember to have seen since I left Utica, but the sister-of whom he speaks in his letter to your committee of invitation— Mrs. HUMPHREY, whom you must remember as the wife of FRIEND HUMPHREY, of Albany, I used often to meet. Toм SEWARD, as we used to call him, was here for several years. How well I remember him. GURD. BURCHARD too. How familiar are these names, and how many more could I recall of Utica boys. STOCKING, and Pony CLARKE. The HITCHCOCKS, COOPERS, BREESES, WILL. MALCOLM, GEORGE and JAMES WALKER, JOHN A. WELLES, recently dead, who spent most of his life here. ALF. WELLS, the LOTHROP boys, Hadley BACON, whose name was FRANK, a brother of the Judge, AMOS G. HULL, and a host of other boys, most of whom, I think, must have been, at some time, connected with your school. We have still here several of them, and all yet in good keeping, none of them yet being old men as HOYT says.

How well I remember MARY WALKER, tall and stately, earnest and sincere in manner. SARAH MALCOLM, bright and happy, and Miss VAN RENSSELAER, so beautiful as I then thought. Though but a very youngster at that time, I can remember their faces perfectly. The events with which they were associated seem as things of yesterday. But here I must stop. I had no thoughts of writing such

letter; but it would spin itself out, and I find it hard work to bring it to a close. One of these days, I hope to spend a day or two in Utica and look after old friends, you among the number.

How are you and yours, my dear Friend! I hear of you occasionally, and see you only now and then. But I think of you often, and then my thoughts and affections turn to Geneva with its pleasant associations and sacred memories. On Thanksgiving day we had at our table four generations, -my mother, myself, son, and grand-daughter. Surely I have cause to be grateful to the dear Lord for His goodness, new every morning, and fresh every evening. He has blessed me abundantly, and I would ever render thanks to