ivorce herself from the
approximate idea and object of her husband's life and death. He had
turned from the comforts of a happy home; had chosen hardships rather
than ease that he might realize the dream of his youth, and the object
of his manly endeavors--the right of suffrage to all. Her children
could not build their play-house of Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, or
Southey. All the instruction Duke William obtained came from his
mother. She was very large and healthy. Her complexion was of perfect
black. She was possessed of excellent judgment, patience, and
industry. She stored the young mind of her boy with useful
agricultural knowledge, of which she possessed a large amount.

An education does not consist in acquiring lessons, obtaining a
simple, abstract, objective knowledge of certain sciences. It is more
than this. It consists, also, in being able to apply and use rightly a
given amount of knowledge. And though D. W. Anderson was never
permitted to enter college, yet, what he got he got thoroughly, and
used at the proper time to the best advantage.

Nature was his best teacher. While yet a very young boy he was awed by
her splendors, and attracted by the complicated workings of her
manifold laws. He began to study the innumerable mysteries which met
him in every direction. He heard God in the rippling water, in the
angry tempest, in the sighing wind, and in the troops of stars which
God marshals upon the plains of heaven. In the study of nature he
exulted. He sat in her velvet lap, sported by her limpid waters,
acquainted himself perfectly with her seasons, and knew the coming and
going of every star.

God was training this man for the great mission which he afterward so
faithfully performed. No soul that was ever filled with such grand and
humane ideas as was that of Duke William Anderson can be crushed. He
knew no boundaries for his soul,--except God on one side and the whole
universe on the other. He was as free in thought and feeling as the
air he inhaled, or the birds in the bright sky over his head. His soul
had for many years communed with the God of nature; had been taught by
the mighty workings of truth, feeling, and genius within, and by the
world without, that he was not to be confined to earth forever, but
that beyond the deep blue sky, into which he so much longed to peer,
there dwelt the Creator of all things, and there the home of the good!
Like the "wise men of the East,"--knowing no other God b