AUTHORSHIP Printers' ink stained my fingers in my boyhood; for, at the age of fifteen, I ventured into a controversy on the slavery question, in the columns of our county newspaper; and, in the same paper, published a series of letters from Europe, in 1842.

During my course of study in the Princeton Theological Seminary, I was a contributor to several papers, to _Godey's Magazine_ in Philadelphia, and to the "New Englander," a literary and theological review published at New Haven.

I wrote the first article for the first number of the "Nassau Monthly," a Princeton College publication, which still exists under another name.

Up to the year 1847 all my contributions had been to secular periodicals, but in that year I ventured to send from Burlington, N.J., where I was then preaching, a short article to the "New York Observer," signed by my initials.

This was followed by several others which, falling under the eye of my beloved friend, the Rev.Dr.Cortland Van Rensellaer, led him to say to me: "You are on the right track now; work on that as long as you live," and I have obeyed his injunction.