Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. THE ITINERANT MINISTER. In the brief space at our command, we cannot follow Wilbur Fisk in any detailed exhibition of his ministerial labors. We shall try only to show in what spirit and with what success he performed the ordinary work of the ministry, and how these soon conducted him to the special educational activity of his subsequent career. The pastoral life of Mr. Fisk was very brief, covering less than three years in all, since he became the presiding elder of the Vermont district at the conclusion of his stay in Charlestown. Three years he was a presiding elder, and then began the educational work which was to fill all his remaining years. As he had no foresight of the brevity of his pastoral career, he set about it with such earnestness and care as would have become a life set apart solely to such duties. His first appointment, in 1818, was to Crafts- bury circuit m Vermont, about thirty miles from his home. His first preaching-place there was in a private house. The population then was small and scattered, and at first his message seemed to make no impression. This bred in him greatsearchings of heart. He thought that where so much careful and painstaking labor had been put forth by his predecessors, he might properly look for speedy results of his labors. As Father Taylor once said of another, " He carried both seed- basket and sickle to the field together." But so faithful was he in visiting his flock, in house-to- house conversation with all classes of his hearers, and so plain and impressive were his sermons, that his expectation of finding a chance to use his sickle proved well founded. A removal of the public services to the court-house became necessary; a revival of religion spread far and wide, and drew in many of the best citizens as conv...