his latter days. When Whitefield preached in Roxbury he entertained him in his home. In his interleaved almanac, written for himself alone, he gives us an account of his impression of the great evangelist.

"Mr. Whitefield is without doubt a most extraordinary man, full of zeal to promote the Kingdom and interest of our Lord Jesus and in the conversion of souls. His preaching seems to be much like that of the old English Puritans. It was not so much the matter of his sermons as the very serious, earnest and affectionate delivery of them without notes that gained him such a multitude of hearers. The main subjects of his preaching while here were the nature and necessity of Regeneration and Justification by the Righteousness of Christ as received by faith alone."

But while Dudley adhered to the traditional faith of New England with his whole soul, he did not cease to think freely about some questions and even to reason about them in such a way as might have become dangerous if he had carried it out to the end and applied it all round. Judge Sewall relates, in 1714, that while they were on the circuit together and were stopping one night at the house of Mr. Thomas, they had a discussion about the resurrection body in which Mr. Dudley maintained that "the Belly would not be raised because he knew no use of it." To this Sewall demurred, and said: "I dare not part with my Belly. Christ has redeemed it. You may cut my hand and foot some day -obsta principiis." Judge Sewall was right. When a man begins to ask too earnestly what is the use, in theological matters, there is no telling where he will end. But in Dudley's case it ended apparently with this single application, and he still continued to listen, in his pew, next to the ministers, in the great meeting house in Roxbury, to Nehemiah Walter's old-school sermons, with intellectual satisfaction.

There are some instances that have come down to us of the public spirit of Paul Dudley. He erected milestones. between Roxbury and Dedham, and placed his initials,

P. D., upon them, and some of them may be seen to-day. He built a stone bridge over Smelt Brook, for which the selectmen were instructed to give him thanks, and to name it hereafter" Dudley's Bridge." This has long since disappeared. He and his brother were proprietors of the town of Leicester, which was named in compliment to Gov. Joseph Dudley. The town of Dudley was so named as a token of respect to William and Paul Dudley, "who were principle proprietors of the soil and great benefactors to the first settlers." The records of Roxbury for 1742 tell us that Hon. Paul Dudley gave a good handsome bell for the use of the Latin School. By his will he left seven pounds to the poor of Roxbury and to the church. In fact he seems to have been the magnate and benefactor of his native place.

Perhaps the deference which was paid him may have unconsciously developed the dominant spirit which shows itself in the portrait of him which has fortunately been preserved. But not everybody was submissive to his authority. One day when he had driven some distance from home he stopped and demanded of a laboring man that he should go to his house and fetch a law book he had left behind.

The man seemed astonished, and asked, "Can one fetch it?"

"Oh, yes," said Dudley.

"Then go yourself." replied the man.

In his will Paul Dudley bequeathed to Harvard College £133, 6s. and 8d.-about $666 to maintain four lectures, one of which was to be delivered each year to the undergraduates. The subject of one was the defence of natural religion; of another, the defence of the great articles of the Christian Faith; and of still another, the validity of non-episcopal orders. All these are themes of permanent importance, and are capable of being treated with

profit and without offence. The fourth, however, was to concern itself with "the detecting and convicting and exposing the idolatry of the Romish church, their tyranny, usurpations, damnable heresies, fatal errors, abominable superstitions and other crying wickednesses in their high places, and finally that the church of Rome is that mystical Babylon, that man of sin, that apostate church spoken of in the New Testament."

It is this lecture which causes Paul Dudley's name to be remembered by those who know nothing else about him and which, at times, makes Harvard wish that one of her graduates had forgotten her in his will. In our consideration of this matter, however, it ought always to be kept in mind that the terms in which the subject of the lecture is stated were not peculiar to him, but were the natural expressions of the Protestant feeling the world over, and especially in Massachusetts. Paul Dudley was no more to be censured for giving money for such a lecture than was the Harvard of that time for accepting it. No objection. seems to have been made to the conditions of the lecture; nor was there for generations any hesitation about fulfilling them. No doubt, when the lecture was founded, it was acceptable, and to most of the constituents of the college seemed desirable.

The conflict between the forces of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism was indeed over, but men's nerves still quivered at the remembrance of it. The deeds of Queen Mary and Phillip II. seemed recent, and the revocation of the edict of Nantes was not so far away. Popery was the one thing which the average Englishman of that time could not tolerate. Here the Churchman and the Dissenter were on common ground. Even John Milton, who indeed belonged to a somewhat earlier time than Dudley, but whose ideas of liberty were centuries in advance, could tolerate Lutherans, Calvinists, Ana-baptists, Arians, Socinians, Arminians - everybody except Roman Catholics,

who were excluded because of what he considered their idolatry.

Then we must remember that the theologians of that time thought of God's revelation to man as a systematic statement of the absolute truth. So the system of Calvin was opposed to that of Roman Catholicism. There could be no wavering between them. If the one was true, the other must be false; if the one was the way to God, the other was the way to the devil. Paul Dudley was, therefore, true to the spirit of his time and to his own ideal of duty when he established his lecture. For doing so he deserves neither ridicule nor blame. It was not his fault, only his misfortune, that he did not live in a time when men are judged not so much by the standards they adopt as by their fidelity to them, when it is no longer our duty to denounce but to understand faiths that are not our own. But we are blameworthy if we, with our light, condemn him for not accepting our ideals, or if we fail to consider his conduct in view of his antecedents and circumstances. He was faithful to his vision. What more can we ask of a man than that? No doubt his gift has caused his alma mater some anxiety and annoyance; but he is not to be held responsible for that process of evolution which leads us to-day to deal with religious differences in a way other than that which seemed best to him. He has been dead one hundred and forty-four years, while all that time Harvard has been alive and advancing in knowledge. The living spirit must always outgrow the dead letter of the past. Yet with all the advances of almost a century and a half, it would not be difficult for Harvard University even now to find men of character and ability who could and would give that lecture in a way that would fulfil the earnest desire of Paul Dudley's heart.

But, whatever we think of this particular act of his, Paul Dudley must impress every one who studies his career as

The above represents the old Stone Guide-post still standing at the junction of Roxbury and Centre Streets, Roxbury, which was placed there by Paul Dudley, one hundred and fifty-one years ago. Upon the Northerly side of the Stone are the words, "Cambridge," "Watertown," upon the Southerly side are the words, "Dedham,"-"Rhode Island."