g juleps, grave and bleared--
But no more their household servants at the court-house auctioneered;
And the county clerk will prove it by the records on his shelves,
That the fathers of the province were no better than ourselves.

PREACHERS' SONS IN 1849.

When I admit that these reminiscences are real, it will at once be
inferred that I am a preacher's son. The general reputation of my
class has been bad since the day of Eli; but I affirm and maintain
that reason does not bear out this verdict, however obstinate
experience may be. For why should the best parents have the worst
children? and that our itinerant sires were godly and self-sacrificing
men the most prodigal of their boys must confess. No flippant or
errant example rises before me when I take my father's portrait in my
hand and recall the humility and heroism of his life. A stern and
angular face, out of whose saliences look two ruddy windows, lit by a
steadfast cheerfulness, is thinly thatched by hairs of iron-gray, and
around the long loose throat a bunch of frosted beard sparkles as if
the painter's pencil had fastened there in reverence. I do not need to
study the bent, broad shoulders and thin sinewy limbs to measure the
hardness and steepness of his path; he climbed it like a bridegroom,
humming quaint snatches of hymns to lull his human waywardnesses, and
all the fever and errantry of our own vain career shrink abashed
before his high devotion.

That I have turned out a rover is not odd; for the travelling
preacher's son is cradled upon the highway. Three months after my
birth we "moved" a hundred miles; by my sixteenth year we had made
eleven migrations.

We children little sympathize with our weak and sickly mother on these
occasions, but look forward to a change of abode as something very
novel and desirable. We count the days between Christmas and April,
after which the annual "Conference" assembles in the distant city, and
we see our father, in his best black suit, quit the parsonage door
with an anxious face, cut to the heart by his wife's farewell, "May
they give you a good place, Thomas!"

Then come letters--one, two, three: "The bishops are friendly;" "The
Presiding Elder has promised to do the best for us that he can;" "The
influential Doctor Bim has praised our missionary sermon, and Brother
Click, the Secretary, has applauded our Charge's large subscription to
the _Advocate_;" "Our character has passed even the sev