Letters of Rev. John W. Alvord

preaching. This I believe you [illegible]. Then, my relations to the Tract Soc. by certain influences beyond—or, which I did not wish to, control, have been during the last year or two very essentially changed. I was the sen-ior Secretary—now, I am "Secretary" in name, but in fact only the agent in New York, I have not one particle of control—am not consulted on any important measure at Head Quarters, my work is to beg from door to door & church to church for money to be used in Boston, & in a field to which ^we^ have hitherto (bating the time of controversy) had ^scarcely^ any access, & in which for certain reasons we are very unpopular—No one now calls upon me in N. York—No one on that field complains that I am not at the office. Any one after them for "Boston Tr. Soc." as things now are, is but a bove, my absence is not the cause, It is the cause of my continued absence. If any one wanted me I should be there. Mr Frissell can dig in occasionally just as well & a little better than I can.

And then, under such circumstances, if I attempt to act widely upon my field as the supposed secretary for "all South of N England & east of the Alleghany" which it is,—doing for Freedmen, for what remains of soldiers (100,000) col^d concurrently, establishing agencies in the southern states, I am headed off by at all points by correspondence, & orders which go over my head directly from Boston—while I am severely rep-rimanded for not staying in New York, & playing that