A plot was consummated for keeping us apart. The family to whose care he
was committed very soon removed to what was then regarded as the Far West.

After his removal a letter was read to my little son, informing him that
his mother was dead and buried. Without my knowledge a guardian was
appointed him, and I was then informed that my son was lost. Every means
within my power was employed to find him, but without success. We never met
again until he had reached the age of thirty-four, had a wife and two
children, and by a strange providence had learned that his mother still
lived, and came to see me in Massachusetts.

Meanwhile he had served as a volunteer throughout the war for the Union,
and at its expiration was appointed United States Marshal of the Territory
of Dakota.

It is well to know, dear reader, that our material, mortal history is but
the record of dreams, not of man's real existence, and the dream has no
place in the Science of being. It is "as a tale that is told," and "as the
shadow when it declineth." The heavenly intent of earth's shadows is to
chasten the affections, to rebuke human consciousness and turn it gladly
from a material, false sense of life and happiness, to spiritual joy and
true estimate of being.

The awakening from a false sense of life, substance, and mind in matter, is
as yet imperfect; but for those lucid and enduring lessons of Love which
tend to this result, I bless God.

Mere historic incidents and personal events are frivolous and of no moment,
unless they illustrate the ethics of Truth. To this end, but only to this
end, such narrations may be admissible and advisable; but if spiritual