e productions. During the summer of that year I was
watching the sun rise from the summit of the Righi in Switzerland, and
was accosted by a sandy-haired man in an old oilcloth overcoat who asked
for some explanation about the mountain within our view. At the foot of
the Righi I fell in with him again, and was struck with his original and
vigorous thought. The same evening he marched into my room at the
"Schweitzer-Hoff," dripping with the rain, and introduced himself as
"Gilbert Haven." We ministered to the few Americans whom we could find
in Lucerne, and held a prayer meeting on the Sabbath evening in Haven's
room for our far-away country in her dark hour of distress. On that
evening began a friendship which waxed warmer and warmer until death
sundered the tie for a little while; the same hand that sundered can
reunite us.

I am under a strong temptation to give my reminiscences of many notable
persons whom I was wont to meet at Saratoga, such as the urbane
ex-President Martin Van Buren, and that noble Christian statesman,
Vice-President Henry Wilson, and the cheery old poet John Pierpont, and
the erudite Horatio B. Hackett, of Newton Theological Seminary and the
level-headed Miss Catherine E. Beecher, and the gifted Queen of the
great temperance sisterhood, Miss Frances E. Willard, and General
Batcheler, the able American Judge, at Cairo, and that extraordinary
combination of courage, orthodox faith, and brilliant platform eloquence
the late Joseph Cook, of Ticonderoga. I would like also to attempt a
description of the gorgeous "Floral Festivals," which are celebrated in
every September, when the streets of the town blaze with processions of
vehicles decorated with flowers, and the sidewalks and house-fronts are
packed with thousands of delighted spectators; but if "of making many
books there is no end," there ought to be a proper end in the making of
a book. In the course of my life I may have done some very foolish
things, and quite too many sinful things, but I have always endeavored
to avoid doing too long a thing, if it were possible.

During the last twenty-three years I have spent a portion of almost
every summer at Mohonk Lake Mountain House, a hostlery equally
celebrated for the culture of its guests and charms of its scenery. It
is situated on a spur of the Shawangunk Mountains, about six miles from
New Paltz, on the Wallkill Valley Railway. Its discoverer and proprietor
is Albert K. Smiley, who was for ma