In presenting the following pages to the public, without the trace of
an excellent scholar or eloquent orator, I fully realize my inability
to compete with writers of the nineteenth century. With this
incompetency in view, I have hesitated and delayed until three-score
and thirteen years are closing over me. Yet as I am still spared to
toil on a little longer in the great field so white to harvest,
praying the Lord of the harvest to arm and send forth more laborers,
because they are too few, I ask an indulgent public to allow my deep
and abiding sympathies for the oppressed and sorrowing of every
nation, class, or color, to plead my excuse for sending forth simple,
unvarnished facts and experiences, hoping they may increase an
aspiration for the active doing, instead of saying what ought to be
done, with excusing self for want of ability, when it is to be found
in Him who is saying, "My grace is sufficient for thee, for my
strength is perfect in weakness."

LAURA S. HAVILAND.

OCTOBER, 1881.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER I.

EARLY LIFE.