They round the ingle form a circle wide:
The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,
The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride."

A grave, thoughtful face his was, lifted up so grandly amid that
blooming semicircle of boys and girls, all gathered silently in
the glow of the ruddy firelight! The great family Bible had the
look upon its leathern covers of a book that bad never been new,
and we honored it the more for its apparent age. Its companion
was the Westminster Assembly's and Shorter Catechism, out of
which my father asked us questions on Sabbath afternoons, when
the tea-table had been cleared. He ended the exercise with a
prayer, standing up with his face turned toward the wall. My most
vivid recollection of his living face is as I saw it reflected in
a mirror while he stood thus praying. His closed eyes, the
paleness and seriousness of his countenance, awed me. I never
forgot that look. I saw it but once again, when, a child of
six or seven years, I was lifted to a footstool beside his coffin
to gaze upon his face for the last time. It wore the same
expression that it did in prayer; paler, but no longer care-worn;
so peaceful, so noble! They left me standing there a long time,
and I could not take my eyes away. I had never thought my
father's face a beautiful one until then, but I believe it must
have been so, always.

I know that he was a studious man, fond of what was called "solid
reading." He delighted in problems of navigation (he was for many
years the master of a merchant-vessel sailing to various European
ports), in astronomical calculations and historical computations.
A rhyming genius in the town, who undertook to hit off the