Part 44 (1/2)

I have so found ymen I have known, the exceptions too few to remember In spite of the opulence we see about us let us not take to ourselves too much conceit May every pastor ee preacher of whom it ritten that:

_Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, And fools who came to scoff, remained to pray_

_Arich with forty pounds a year_

_His house was known to all the vagrant train, He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain; The long-re swept his aged breast; The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud, Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed; The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, Sate by the fire, and talked the night away; Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done, Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields on

Pleased with his guests, the good ot their vices in their woe; Careless their an_

IV

I have lived a long life--rather a happy and a busy than a ht, but, letno needful labor or duty The result is soratitude and vanity in me to set up exclusive ownershi+p of these They are the joint products and property of my dear wife and myself

I do not know just what had befallen if love had failed me, for as far back as I can remember love has been tofor or possessing in this cross-patch of a world of ours

I had realized theof it in the beautiful concert of affection between olden wedding My wife and I have enjoyed now the like conjugal felicity fifty-four--counted to include two years of betrothal, fifty-six years

Never was a young fellow more in love than I--never has love beenbereave the War of Sections--amid its turmoil and peril--and when at its close ere , the future an adventure It was at Chattanooga, the winter of 1862-63, that fate brought us together and riveted our destinies She had a fine contralto voice and led the church choir Doctor Palmer, of New Orleans, was on a certain Sunday well into the long prayer of the Presbyterian service Bragg's arht of an attack Bang! Bang! Then the bursting of a shell too close for coments on the roof

On the other side of the river the Yankees were upon us

TheHe did not hurry He did not vary the tones of his voice He kept on praying

Nor was there panic in the congregation, which did not budge

That was the longest long prayer I ever heard When it was finally ended, and still without changing a note the preacher delivered the benediction, the crowded church in the most orderly o forhad becoeneral We had to traverse quite half aa place of safety Teeks later ere separated for nearly two years, when, the war over, we found ourselves at hoain

In the ht, and in the far South I had buried hiether the best beloved of the Tennesseeans of his day, Andreing, who, though a De Nashville district in Congress and in the face of assured election declined the Deovernor of the state A foremost Union leader in the antecedent debate, upon the advent of actual war he had reluctantly but resolutely gone with his state and section