went right on and rocked for Phoebe the first, and for DeWitt the last.

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 equipages and
postilions, but the most of them were sure only of footmen. My father
started in life belonging to the aristocracy of hard knuckles and
homespun, but had this high honour that no one could despise: he was the
son of a father who loved God and kept His commandments. Two eyes, two
hands, and two feet were the capital my father started with.

Benignity, kindness, keen humour, broad common sense and industry
characterised my mother. The Reverend Dr. Chambers was for many years
her pastor. He had fifty years of pastorate service, in Somerville,
N.J., and the Collegiate Church, New York. He said, in an address at the
dedication of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, that my mother was the most
consecrated Christian person he had ever known. My mother worked very
hard, and when we would come in and sit down at the table at noon, I
remember how she used to look. There were beads of perspiration along
the line of her grey hair, and sometimes she would sit down at the
table, and put her head against her wrinkled hand and say, "Well, the
fact is, I'm too tired to eat."

My father was a religious, hard-working, honest man. Every day began and
closed with family worship, led by my father, or, in case of his
absence, by Mother. That which was evidently uppermost in the minds of
my parents, and that which was the most pervading principle in their