TO THE READER.

THE following Memoir was not written for the eye of the critic, but for the hearts of the surviving children and the old friends of Tennessee's first and great Bishop.

The reader will find in it no record of hair-breadth escapes, splendid achievements, or incidents of romance.

It is a simple tribute of friendship, a heart-felt memorial of a noble frontier Bishop, one of the great minds and hearts of the American Catholic Church.

It has been the writer's endeavor neither to extenuate what was amiss, nor indulge in any unmerited eulogy; but to present a plain transcript of the life and labors of one of whom the Church, as well as the world, knows too little,or, in other words, to make a photograph-likeness of his subject, setting it in a plain frame, and hanging it in a clear light.

As for fine writing, or flourish of style, it would have been as unsuited to the writer, now in his eighty-eighth year, as to the noble character which he was seeking to portray.

Thankful would he be if what is here written in memory of the dead shall in any wise benefit the living, by cheering the missionary in his lonely labors, by forwarding the cause of Christian education, or by assuring the young setter-out in life that sooner or later there will come a reward for the true in heart and the patient in well-doing.

W. M. G.

M199843

UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA

MEMOIR OF BISHOP OTEY.

THE County of Bedford in Virginia, lying at the eastern foot of the Blue Ridge, and overlooked by the Peaks of Otter, if without any other claim to distinction, may well boast of having been the birthplace of two of the best and best-beloved Bishops of the American Church. The memory of OTEY and COBBS will be fondly cherished by its citizens, long after the generation which once knew them shall have passed away.

Of the late Bishop of Alabama, Nicholas H. Cobbs, it is hoped that some pen equal to the task will yet make a record of his saintly life, and of his well-known devotion to the duties of his holy calling.

The following Memoir is offered as an affectionate tribute to the memory of Tennessee's first and great Bishop, by one who knew him well, and loved him with more than a brother's love. Through fear of having any features of this portrait set down to a blind partiality, the reader will find that the larger part of it has been given in extracts from the Bishop's diary, in the affecting letters of his own children, and in the ready vouchers of friends and brethren of every degree.

The Oteys, on both sides of the house, were of a