e add, that the first public address I ever delivered was at a
great temperance gathering (with Father Theobald Mathew) in the City
Hall of Glasgow during the summer of 1842. My mother's discipline was
loving but thorough; she never bribed me to good conduct with
sugar-plums; she praised every commendable deed heartily, for she held
that an ounce of honest praise is often worth more than many pounds of
punishment.

During my infancy that godly mother had dedicated me to the Lord, as
truly as Hannah ever dedicated her son Samuel. When my paternal
grandfather, who was a lawyer, offered to bequeath his law-library to
me, my mother declined the tempting offer, and said to him: "I fully
expect that my little boy will yet be a minister." This was her constant
aim and perpetual prayer, and God graciously answered her prayer of
faith in His own good time and way. I cannot now name any time, day, or
place when I was converted. It was my faithful mother's steady and
constant influence that led me gradually along, and I grew into a
religious life under her potent training, and by the power of the Holy
Spirit working through her agency. A few years ago I gratefully placed
in that noble "Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church" of Brooklyn (of
which I was the founder and pastor for thirty years) a beautiful
memorial window to my beloved mother representing Hannah and her child
Samuel, and the fitting inscription: "As long as he liveth I have lent
him to the Lord."

For several good reasons I did not make a public profession of my faith
in Jesus Christ until I left school and entered the college at
Princeton, New Jersey. The religious impressions that began at home
continued and deepened until I united, at the age of seventeen, with the
Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. As an effectual instruction in
righteousness, my faithful mother's letters to me when a schoolboy were
more than any sermons that I heard during all those years. I feel now
that the happy fifty-six years that I have spent in the glorious
ministry of the Gospel of Redemption is the direct outcome of that
beloved mother's prayers, teaching example, and holy influence.

My preparation for college was partly under the private tutorship of the
good old Dutch dominie, the Rev. Gerrit Mandeville, who smoked his pipe
tranquilly while I recited to him my lessons in Caesar's Commentaries,
and Virgil; and partly in the well-known Hill Top School, at Mendham,
N.J. I entered Prince