esteemed there. His influence was extensive and salutary. A church was built in the village of Johnstown, through his instrumentality. He was mild, dignified and energetic. During this year, those afflictions commenced (a partial paralysis of his lower extremities), which laid him aside from his labors, and attended him more or less through the remainder of his days. During the last half of the year, he was able to perform but little labor. The year was, to him, one of great afflic tion and temporal embarrassment, perhaps the most so of his whole life. While physically prostrated, he had a large family of young children dependant upon him."

At the close of this year, the colleagues set off together, to attend the session of the conference, in the city of New York. They rode to Coeymans, and then took the steamboat for New York. In getting on board, they were obliged to take a small boat from the shore, to meet the small boat of the steamer. Brother Moriarty was heavy, and had but little use of his lower limbs. As he was getting from one small boat to the other, they were separated by the waves, and he was with the utmost difficulty saved from a watery grave. Brother Bates remarks: "I love to cherish the recollections of my association with John D. Moriarty, as my colleague. I was then but in the third year of my ministry, and his kind, communicative, gentlemanly and Christian deportment, was, to me, alike pleasing and profitable." At the close of this conference, his name was announced in connection with Saratoga circuit. To this charge he removed with beclouded prospects, and a heavy heart. Here closed his itinerant labors. His failing health continued to decline, and ended in confirmed prostration.

In the month of April, 1831, he removed his family to Saratoga Springs, to try the healing power of its

mineral fountains. He went there a confirmed invalid, so utterly prostrated that he was unable to move, except on crutches. He hired a small dwelling, and with his family entered it. At the close of the first year, he purchased that dwelling, which afterward expanded into the proportions and character of the Congress Spring Temperance House, of which he was proprietor, eighteen years. Here he was appointed to take charge of the Springs congregation, and often in his own house held class and prayer meetings, and sometimes public preaching. He often officiated in the pulpit, sitting in a chair, after having been borne there by his brethren. Gradually he recovered the use of his limbs, but was never afterward able to take an appointment, and sustained, up to his death, a superannuated relation.

The society at the Springs was feeble at that time. Methodism was comparatively unknown, or unfavorably regarded, and but few attended upon its ministrations. Identifying himself with this feeble society in all his feelings and interest, he labored assiduously and successfully, to promote the welfare of the church of his choice. He saw the place of her tents enlarged and "the curtains of her habitation stretched forth" until "the little one became a thousand." Whatever apper. tained to the interests of the church was of paramount importance to him. The interest of the cause of God was his interest, the prosperity of the church a cause of deep rejoicing, and whatever conduced to this result received his cooperation and support.

During the winter and spring of 1848, a gracious revival of religion visited the place, in which some of his family were converted, and he himself shared largely in labors and in blessings. It was observed by many, who had been long acquainted with him, that he manifested

an unusual interest and engagedness in religion, and an evident ripening for heaven.

The last sabbath but one that he spent on earth, was in the house of God, and one of unusual interest to him. He bowed for the last time at the sacramental board, and there commemorated the sufferings and death of our divine Redeemer. When that table was approached shortly after by some of his children, who had lately found redemption in the blood of atonement, his heart was too full to speak, and the tears coursing down his cheek, told of strong emotion and joy within.

His death was sudden and unlooked for, but the messenger found him ready. His illness was of such a character as to admit of but little converse, but that was satisfactory. To an aged friend, who stood by his bed side as the lamp of life burnt feebly in its socket, and inquired the prospect before him, he replied, "Glory to God, all is clear," and his last testimony, uttered in presence of his brethren, respected the preciousness of religion, and the glorious prospect it opened to his vision of immortality beyond the tomb. On the morning of June 18th, 1849, in the presence of his family, he fell asleep, in holy tranquility, and now rests forever from his labors.

As a citizen, in the community where he was best known, he was highly respected, and his loss deeply felt. As a Christian, he was esteemed and honored, and his faithful admonitions and counsels, his prayers and entreaties, have had an impressive effect upon the minds of many with whom he had intercourse.

As a minister, he was laborious and successful, with fearless heart uttering the startling truths of the Bible, or administering discipline in the church. He never shrank from, responsibility, and whether his duty was pleasant or painful to himself, he did it fearless of re

sults. Many will long remember him for his earnest and faithful pulpit ministrations; many for his faithful Christian labors, after disease had laid him aside from active life; many for his gentlemanly and Christian deportment as the proprietor of an extensive boarding house; and many no doubt will be the stars in his crown of rejoicing, in that day when God shall make up the number of his jewels.

REV. WILLIAM RYDER.*

"These are they which came out of great tribulation."

Religion never appears more lovely than when, as an angel of light, she waits on suffering humanity, soothing the sorrows, and calming the anguish of the afflicted one, by placing the cup of divine consolation in his hand, and pointing him to the blessed regions where sighing never comes. Some of the finest exhibitions of the divinity and power of Christianity with which the world has been favored, have been seen in its power to sustain the spirit, and inspire submission and hope, in the midst of severe, complicated, and protracted sufferings.

Rev. W. Ryder was emphatically a son of affliction. Some idea of what it pleased God to call him to pass through, may be derived from the following graphic, sketch by the author of the Superannuate.

* For a more full account of this extraordinary victim of disease, the reader is referred to his life, entitled the Superannuate, from which much of this article is derived.

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"A hard sabbath-day's labor, and a long ride on horseback, in a damp, heavy snow-storm, were, one year later, the precursors of a second appearance of those excruciating pains, that thenceforth entrenched themselves in the hips, and gradually extended their conquests until every part of the system, except the strongholds of life, acknowledged submission to their terrible sway. Severe as were these tortures, there were not, at this period, any outward signs of their existence, there was no swelling, no external inflammation; but in the difficult process of lying down or rising up, the joints.' to use the invalid's own language, 'would crack and snap as if breaking.' In a few weeks the affection passed, sympathetically, to the stomach and lungs, respiration became difficult, expectoration constant, attended with various symptoms of consump tion. At a later period, the spine curved, the knees and hips bent, the neck stiffened, and an erect posture was no longer possible. Each of these localities was the seat of heavy throbbings and of pains, shooting, zig-zag, and radiating. The arms and shoulders next became victims, and the sensations were those of the criminal upon the rack when strong cords are cutting the flesh, and rending every limb from its socket; one arm was actually dislocated, and the other prevented. only by a cruel counteracting force from sharing the fate of its fellow. The hips were filled with daggers,' and transient, fugitive pains and aches pursued each other across the breast and over the neck and arms, like the restless lightnings of a summer evening horizon. At times it seemed that a strong cord was twisted about his waist, above which the pains were darting and incessant, while below there was a sense of excessive fullness, hard throbbings, and dull, heavy aches. A year later, his spasms, previously occasional, became

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