Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 13.

‘[p. 71] fast day, April 15, 1773.’ Another hand continued the journal for two years longer, when death terminated the labors of a pastor signalized by having such an annalist, who was a highly respectable, intelligent, and pious man, a true specimen of the old Puritanic stock, whose unfailing attendance upon public worship, unless forbidden by uncontrollable circumstances, and his perseverance and care in performing the humble task he imposed upon himself, running through the period of forty-six years, are a perfect marvel, and probably without parallel. Commencing the record of every Sabbath's text and the name of the preacher, with frequent brief notices of passing events in the church, the town, and the country, in the year 1727, he continued it, without the intermission of a single Sabbath, fast, or thanksgiving day, till the year 1773, when death alone stopped his untiring hand. When, in some few instances, he was unable to attend the church himself, he procured some one to report to him the text and the preacher, while he, with his own hand, made the entry.

But if the industry and perseverance of the recorder are a matter for wonder, how much more so the immense labor of the minister who furnished the materials! The record contains a list of no less than five thousand five hundred and eighty-two sermons, giving two for every Sunday in forty-six years, with an excess of a dozen and more for every year for preparatory lectures, funeral sermons, etc. The mere thought of 5,582 sermons, carefully thought out, studied out, and written out, by the same individual, and an hour long at least in the delivery, as they were in those days, absolutely startles one in the contemplation of the labor, both intellectual and mechanical. It has been my fortune to gaze upon the pyramids of Egypt, yes, and to climb them: but my back did not ache so much, nor my mind wonder so much, as in contemplating this huge pyramid of sermons, of which every sermon was a tier, a stratum, a step. It might well reach the heavens, and I trust did, and conducted many gazers and listeners there. Still, while the Egyptian pyramids remain firm,