no hobbling on crutches with what polite society terms rheumatism in the feet, but what everybody knows is nothing but gout.  Death came, not to fell the gnarled trunk of a tree worm-eaten and lightning-blasted, but to hew down a Lebanon cedar, whose fall made the mountains tremble and the heavens ring.  But physical health could not account for half of this sunshine.  Sixty-four years ago a coal from the heavenly altar had kindled a light that shone brighter and brighter to the perfect day.  Let Almighty grace for nearly three-quarters of a century triumph in a man’s soul, and do you wonder that he is happy?  For twice the length of your life and mine he had sat in the bower of the promises, plucking the round, ripe clusters of Eshcol.  While others bit their tongues for thirst, he stood at the wells of salvation, and put his lips to the bucket that came up dripping with the fresh, cool, sparkling waters of eternal life.  This joy was not that which breaks in the bursting bubble of the champagne glass, or that which is thrown out with the orange-peelings of a midnight bacchanalia, but the joy which, planted by a Saviour’s pardoning grace, mounts up higher and higher, till it breaks forth in the acclaim of the hundred and forty and four thousand who have broken their last chain and wept their last sorrow.  Oh! mighty God!  How deep, how wide, how high the joy Thou kindles” in the heart of the believer!

“Again:  We behold in our father the beauty of a Christian faith.

“Let not the account of this cheerfulness give you the idea that he never had any trouble.  But few men have so serious and overwhelming a life struggle.  He went out into the world without means, and with no educational opportunity, save that which was afforded him in the winter months, in an old, dilapidated school-house, from instructors whose chief work was to collect their own salary.  Instead of postponing the marriage relation, as modern society compels a young man to postpone it, until he can earn a fortune, and be able, at commencement of the conjugal relation, to keep a companion like the lilies of the field, that toil not nor spin, though Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these—­he chose an early alliance with one, who would not only be able to enjoy the success of his life, but who would with her own willing hands help achieve it.  And so while father plowed the fields, and threshed the wheat, and broke the flax, and husked the corn, my mother stood for Solomon’s portraiture, when he said, ’She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household.  She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.  She is not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household are clothed with scarlet.  Her children arise up and call her blessed, her husband also, and he praiseth her.  Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.’  So that the limited estate of the New Jersey farmer never foundered