me that is
a synonym in all the business world for ability and integrity. His
success did not come by accident, or by any so-called good fortune, but
as the result of patience and perseverance, steadily following the
principles and the rules he laid down for himself very early in life. He
speaks with gratitude of the fact that he had to learn by force of
circumstances "the blessedness of drudgery and the value of time and
money in his long hours of work and in the closest practice of economy."

We have seen how different were the outward circumstances of their early
lives. In temperament also Mr. and Mrs. Bemis differed much; but in
sympathy on all great matters, in their ideals of life, and their
unfailing recognition of their own personal obligation and duty, they
were always one. In the reminiscences he has written for his
grandchildren, Mr. Bemis says: "Parents can lay the foundation for each
child by their own life. They are giving daily examples by their actions
and by word of mouth. If parents are living well-ordered and Christian
lives, their children will be likely to follow their example. They will
know nothing else. Good boys and girls make good men and women. An
educated and scientific carpenter will hew and mortise the timbers to
fit the keys that bind the frame to a complete and solid house, so that
storm and winds pass it by unharmed. So with boys and girls; if their
characters are moulded in truth, mortised and keyed together with
obedience to God and man, when they become men and women they will
withstand the environment of bad persons and escape unscathed. Hence
their young lives, founded on the bedrock of Christian characters, are
well qualified to work out their own destiny and make their lives
whatever they will."

* * * * *

[Illustration]

Mr. and Mrs. Bemis were married at the home of Mr. and Mrs. George B.
Roberts, in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, on November 21, 1866, and went
directly to their new home in St. Louis. There the oldest son, Judson
Cogswell, was born in December of the following year; and there they
remained until they returned to Boston in 1870, when for business
reasons it became necessary for Mr. Bemis to have his headquarters in
that city. After the birth of the second son, Albert Farwell, they moved
to Newton, Massachusetts, where their three other children were born:
Maude, now Mrs. Reginald H. Parsons, Lucy Gardner, who lived less than
th