receiving into it this additional child with its nurse, resulted from
conjugal tenderness and considerateness. It must be confessed that
there are some indications of well-arranged management in the
foregoing account. The friend who happened to call at the house the
"next day," and who was able to supply what the "poor babe" needed,
certainly came very opportunely; and there was altogether a remarkable
concurrence and sequence of circumstances. But all that he saw was a
case of suffering, helpless innocence, and an opportunity for
benevolence and charity; and in these, with a true theology, he read
"a providence of God." That child continued, to the hour when he took
his last farewell of his family, beneath his roof, and was an object
of affectionate care, and in her amiable qualities a source of
happiness to him and his good wife. It is stated that the children,
thus from time to time domesticated in the family, called him father,
and that he addressed them as his children. While they were infants,
he was "a tender nursing father" to them. When fondling them in his
arms, in the presence of his wife, he would solemnly take notice of
the providence of God that had "disposed of them from one place to
another" until they had been brought to him; and "would present them
in his desires to God, and implore a blessing upon them."

The picture presented in the foregoing details is worth rescuing from
oblivion. Such instances of actual life, exhibited in the most private
spheres, constitute a branch of history more valuable, in some
respects, than the public acts of official dignitaries. History has
been too exclusively confined, in its materials, to the movements of
states and of armies. It ought to paint the portraits of individual
men and women in their common lives; it ought to lead us into the
interior of society, and introduce us to the family circles and home
experiences of the past. It cannot but do us good to know Thomas