away, and the survivors feel more and more lonely and cold in their own journey to the grave. Who will go first? Who stay until the last? God grant that, from first to last, each may be ready when his summons comes. Then will the separation be but short, and the reunion speedy and eternal.

not.

I was greatly disappointed in not seeing something like a suitable obituary from some of you, immediately after Father's death. I took it for granted that the thing would be done while you were all on the ground together. It must be done yet, at least drawn up, whether published or How thankful we all feel to Robert's active affection, to which we owe it that the image of that dear face has not vanished from the earth forever. Now we have the means not only of perpetuating the yet fresh impression on our memories, but of sharing the pleasure with friends, whose recollections cannot be so vivid, and others who, never having seen him, may learn from us to admire and love him. And shall we not be equally anxious to preserve an accurate delineation of his character, to transcribe, while they are yet distinct in our minds, those features of mental and moral beauty on which we shall never cease to dwell with delight? I propose, therefore, that it be the business of each, until we meet, to call up all those traits which have seemed particularly interesting, and any illustrations of his character which are impressed on the memory, and as far as possible to recall, or ascertain by inquiry, the leading incidents of his life, that a brief record may be made of them for our own future satisfaction and that of our children and friends. I have often wished also to know something more definite about Mother, her traits of mind and character, her manner, her domestic habits, and especially something of her early life. I have long intended to draw from Father some information on these points; but, like a true Raymond, have deferred it till too late.

The record that he wished was never made. The grandfather whose name became a household word of mingled brightness and vagueness was known to most of his children's children only in reminiscences that made up the family traditions. Quaint and pithy sayings, in which he delivered the counsels that had become familiar maxims, told us of a mind of striking originality, while incidents in which he figured gave us glimpses of a character in which strength was united with a womanly tenderness and refinement, a character capable of heroic sacrifice and almost stoical devotion to duty. A family portrait had preserved his outward. features, and in the light that shone from them we fancied we could see the play of pathos and humor that was reflected in all we knew of him, so small a part of all that we desired to know. How we longed for a more perfect image of the life within, of "those features of mental and moral beauty" that remained to us only in shadowy outline!

Far more imperfect was the knowledge of our grandmother, the cherished wife whom he had mourned for a quarter of a century before his own death. From childhood we had heard of the constancy with which, every year as the anniversary of her death approached, he gradually withdrew from the family circle, a gentleness and gravity of manner becoming more and more apparent, until the day itself was marked by his absence from table and fireside. Locked in his own room, whose door was at no other time closed to his children, he spent the day in the seclusion of a grief which was the only experience he ever failed to share with them. The memory so faithfully cherished for twenty-five returning years made an indelible impres

sion upon hearts to whom the lost mother was the embodiment of all things pure and high in womanhood. Faintly remembered by the oldest of her little family, to us of the third generation she existed but as a far-off ideal, a vision of that Past whose voices bring only gentle and loving reports, whose dreamy distance softens all its figures into lines of beauty and perfection.

In the motherless group which she had left was a boy of ten, on whose spirit this first shadow fell. Standing midway in the family of five, he received the confidences of a younger brother and sister, and the devoted care and sympathy of the brother and sister older than himself. For fifty-four years after the mother's death the fraternal band remained unbroken, knit together by ties of uncommon intimacy. For fifty-four years the question so often asked remained unanswered "Which of our number shall go first?" It was not strange (if the loving testimony of brothers and sisters may be accepted) that the life most tirelessly consumed with unselfish labors should be soonest spent; that the circle should be shaken at its center when he who had been brother, friend, and counselor was cut down. A life so ripe and sweet needed not the allotted threescore years and ten for its full rounding. It has ceased on earth. Shall it be left to fade from the remembrance of those who come after us? More powerfully than any living voice my father's plea for a knowledge of his father has appealed to me, forecasting the time when others may be seeking him, too, among the shadows of the Past; and I have pledged myself to a picture of his life-drawn chiefly by his own hand-which shall preserve its distinctive features

to a large circle of kindred and friends. It is their earnest wish that the image now so clear should not be lost, nor become to later generations the vague and distant vision of a character which does not need the idealizing touch of time to give it grace.

I1

CHAPTER II.

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

T was impossible to begin the narrative of my father's life without meeting certain difficulties. All knowledge of his birthplace, early days, and the scenes in which he moved before his marriage, was in a most nebulous state. It was easy to understand his own regret at the want of a father's memoir. Great was our rejoicing when, after unsatisfactory efforts to obtain the desired details, there was one day discovered in the recesses of a book-case an undreamed-of treasure, the story of those early years written in his own words, of whose existence he had never spoken. When a young college professor, he had been requested to write a sketch of his personal history for a literary society, to which each member had contributed, in turn, in the same manner. He thus unconsciously anticipated our questions, and to our floating and confused ideas gave unity and distinctness.

He had been heard to say that he was sent to school when three years of age, and from that time had never been out of school except on regular vacations, passing without intermission from pupil to teacher, tutor, professor, president. It is not strange that a history of his life should be a history of schools and educational systems. With what delight we seized upon the story of his various teachers, and to their influence traced the tastes and pursuits of his lifetime.