blessed, her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done
virtuously, but thou excellest them all.' So that the limited estate of
the New Jersey farmer never foundered on millinery establishments and
confectionery shops. And though we were some years of age before we heard
the trill of a piano, we knew well about the song of 'The Spinning-wheel.'
There were no lords, or baronets, or princes in our ancestral line. None
wore stars, cockade, or crest. There was once a family coat of arms, but
we were none of us wise enough to tell its meaning. Do our best, we cannot
find anything about our forerunners, except that they behaved well, came
over from Wales or Holland a good while ago, and died when their time came.
Some of them may have had fine equipage and caparisoned postillion, but the
most of them were only footmen. My father started in life belonging to the
aristocracy of hard knuckles and homespun, but had this high honor that no
one could despise. He was the son of a father who loved God, and kept His
commandments. What is the House of Hapsburg or Stuarts, compared with
being son of the Lord God Almighty? Two eyes, two hands, and two feet,
were the capital my father started with. For fifteen years an invalid, he
had a fearful struggle to support his large family. Nothing but faith in
God upheld him. His recital of help afforded, and deliverances wrought,
was more like a romance than a reality. He walked through many a desert,
but every morning had its manna, and every night it's pillar of fire, and
every hard rock a rod that could shatter it into crystal fountains at his
feet. More than once he came to his last dollar; but right behind that
last dollar he found Him who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and out
of the palm of whose hand all the fowls of heaven peck their food, and who
hath given to each one of His disciples a warrantable deed for the whole
universe in the words, 'All are yours.'

"The path that led him through financial straits, prepared him also for
sore bereavements. The infant of days was smitten, and he laid it into the