ormulas of
prayer in use even down to my own boyhood I remember a common petition
for the restoration of Israel; and the Sabbatarian eye of prophecy
looked forward to the day when, in the peace of the millennium,
the Jews in Jerusalem should be the witnesses of the faith of the
Seventh-Day Baptist Church in the keeping alive the observance of the
Eden repose initiated by the Creator. Amongst my own earliest personal
recollections concerning Newport is that of a visit of some Jewish
friends of my mother's girlhood, who lived there, to my father's house
in Schenectady.

My mother's grandfather, on her mother's side, was a clergyman, Elder
Bliss, who, though a non-combatant, was a fiery patriot, two of whose
sons were in the Revolutionary army. His house was in a valley under
the fort held by the British force in occupation, between whose guns
and those of a battery held by the rebels there was occasional firing,
during which the balls sometimes went through the house, so that when
the first shot was heard he used to order all the family down into the
cellar, which afforded a valid protection. The girls of the household
were patriots, in whom zeal often overran discretion, and the pranks
they played on the British officers must sometimes have tasked the
gentlemen in the latter to a point on the limits of endurance. I
remember one incident recounted by my grandmother to my mother, and
by her to me, in which two of the girls stole past the sentry in the
British fort, or battery, for I could never learn exactly what was the
nature of these two outposts of authority and rebellion, and, running
the flag down, tore it into thirteen stripes and ran it up again and
escaped unseen. This insult brought the whole force about their ears,
and the commandant came, with his staff, to question the household if
any clue to it could be found. Fortunately, when the girls had come
back from their expedition and went giggling in their glee to their
mother, she suspected some dangerous venture and peremptorily ordered
them to hold their tongues and not come to her with any of their
mischief. She was thus able to reply to the officer charged with the
inquisition that she knew nothing of the matter, and such was the
rigid obligation of the truth in that Puritan community that even
the danger of a court-martial would not have induced her to tell
a falsehood, however the truth might compromise the family. The
officers, who well knew their sometime