Leonidas Polk Family Papers

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fact, he left the seminary before the completion of his senior year, so as to spend some time with his family before ordination, remarking in a letter to his father that "in a theological course ... a few weeks longer or shorter could not be of material consequence."

His ordination to the Disconate on April 9, 1830, was followed by his marriage to Miss Frances Devereux of Raleigh, to whom he had been engaged for several years. His first cure was as assistant to Bishop Moore in the Monumental Church, Richmond, and here he labored so conscientiously that twice within a year his health broke down, and he was obliged to resign his position. In reporting his retirement to the diocesan convention, Bishop Moore said of him, "Mr. Polk evidenced, during his ministry in Richmond, a spirit of the most ardent piety and devotion to duty." An inherited tendency to pulmonary disorders appears to have been the major factor in the physical breakdowns which Polk underwent at this period of his life --