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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