they were doing, and always had done.

We ministers living in Philadelphia at this time may have felt the need
for combating indolence, for we had a ministerial ball club, and twice a
week the clergymen of all denominations went out to the suburbs of the
city and played baseball. We went back to our pulpits, spirits
lightened, theology improved, and able to do better service for the
cause of God than we could have done without that healthful shaking up.

The reason so many ministers think everything is going to ruin is
because their circulation is lethargic, or their lungs are in need of
inflection by outdoor exercise. I have often wished since that this
splendid idea among the ministers in Philadelphia could have been
emulated elsewhere. Every big city should have its ministerial ball
club. We want this glorious game rescued from the roughs and put into
the hands of those who will employ it in recuperation.

My life in Philadelphia was so busy that I must have had very little
time for keeping any record or note-books. Most of my warmest and
life-long friendships were made in Philadelphia, however, and in the
retrospect of the years since I left there I have sometimes wondered how
I ever found courage to say good-bye.

I was amazed and gratified one day at receiving a call from four of the
most prominent churches at that time in America: Calvary Church of
Chicago, the Union Church of Boston, the First Presbyterian Church of
San Francisco, and the Central Church of Brooklyn. These invitations all
came simultaneously in February, 1869. The committees from these various
churches called upon me at my house in Philadelphia. It was a period of
anxious uncertainty with me. One morning, I remember, a committee from