culties and perplexities was
by prayer. Three times each day, after the morning, noon and evening
meals she retired to her own chamber to pray. She read none but
religious books and the Bible. Her Bible was the wedding gift of her
husband--that and one silver spoon marked with his and her initials J.
A. and E. T. intertwined after the manner of silversmiths. My father
appears to have been the owner of but one book, Cotton Mather's, "Essays
to do Good," which I still possess and, alas, could never read through.
Of course the title of the volume at the date of its republication,
1808, had been greatly reduced. No Mather would be satisfied with a
title much less expansive than the contents, nor wanting some Latin
interlardings. The original title was "Benifacias," followed by ten
lines of sub-titles. This was unusual reserve for one of Cotton Mather's
productions. In its day it was as popular as is the worst novel of ours,
and was continually being republished. Even Dr. Franklin read and
praised it and professed that it had influenced his whole life. The
preface is a fine specimen of the manner in which a popular Boston
preacher at the beginning of the eighteenth century expressed himself
when he appeared in print. It has all the airs and attudinizing of a
full dress ball-room. He says that a passage in the speech of a British
envoy suggested the book and declares of it, "Ink were too vile a liquor
to write that passage. Letters of gold were too mean to be the
preservers of it. Paper of Amyanthus would not be precious and perennous
enough to perpetuate it."

A prayerful mother, the Bible and the Rev. Cotton Mather ought to have
been sufficient to turn out good boys from any household. Then there was
Sunday-school where we were much instructed about the nature and
consequences of sin and the end that awaited bad boys. Notwithstanding,
some closer and more practical guidance was needed for a growing lad;
something to put him in the way of preparing to earn his living.
Accordingly in my eighth year I was turned over to an uncle, my father's
only brother, who lived in the next town. He was a boot maker with four
sons of his own. At once I found myself cut off from all the objects and
persons I had ever known, thrown into a strange world, my own lost as
completely as if I had gone to another. I found myself introduced to a
small room up a flight of stairs at the end of the shed of my uncle's
house. The room was full of windows,