Rev. GILES BAILEY, born in Acworth, N. H., in 1815, was a diligent scholar and an able preacher. He acquired considerable knowledge of the classics, receiving instruction from Hon. Horace Maynard. At the age of seventeen he began a successful career as a school teacher in Vermont and New Hampshire, and was through life warmly interested in educational movements. After pursuing his theological studies with the late Rev. Lemuel Willis, he was ordained in Winthrop, Me., in 1840. He was settled in Winthrop for two years, then moved to Brunswick, where he remained seven years, then lived three years in Oldtown, three in Dexter, two in Claremont, N. H.; then returned to Maine, and lived eight years in Gardiner and two in Belfast, and finally, in the fall of 1869, he removed to Reading, Pa., where after nearly nine years of faithful labor, he closed a noble and useful life.
Adherence to right and principle was a marked feature in the character of this "good minister of Jesus Christ." He was strongly interested in all reform movements, and the energetic boldness of his position on the anti-slavery question is well remembered by his associates. His addresses on that subject were so filled with burning indignation and tender pathos, that all hearts were stirred by his eloquence. In addition to his regular work as a preacher and pastor, he was a frequent and valuable contributor to our denominational papers. He wrote, many years ago, a series of letters over the signature of "Lucius," for the "Christian Ambassador," which attracted much attention. They revealed unusual literary ability and grasp of thought, and excited much curiosity in regard to their authorship. For a time he occupied the editorial chair of the "Universalist." He has left a clean, manly, and luminous record.
Rev. JOHN E. PALMER, who lived to the great age of ninety years, was a native of Portsmouth, N. H. He was by trade a printer, and became a convert to the doctrines of the "Christian Baptists," under the ministrations of the noted Elias Smith. He began to preach in the fellowship of that sect, and was ordained in 1809. The earlier years of his ministry were spent in Warren, N. H., and Danville, Vt. It was while living in the latter place that he outgrew his early belief in endless punishment, and came to an undoubting faith that God will have all men to be saved. He was suddenly arrested by a circumstance which called his attention to a comparison of his own faith with that of the "more excellent way" in which afterwards his footsteps were directed. A very respectable young man, who had never been converted, while on a fishing excursion, was drowned. It was a deeply afflictive blow to the surviving family and friends. Mr. Palmer knew that he should be called upon to preach the funeral sermon. He was greatly distressed. What could he do? The apostles, he saw, had a faith which enabled them to comfort those who were "in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith they themselves were comforted of God." Had he that faith? He says: "I slept not a wink that night. I walked the house, I read my Bible, I prayed for light; and I never preached the doctrine of endless woe again."