The Scripture passage from which I discoursed on the next Sabbath morning, January 12th, in our Lafayette Avenue Church pulpit—­“At evening time it shall be light”—­seems especially appropriate to an autobiography penned at a time when the life-day is already far spent.  There are some people who have a pitiful dread of old age.  For myself, instead of it being a matter of sorrow or of pain, it is rather an occasion of profound joy that God has enabled me to write in my family record “Four score years.”  The October of life may be one of the most fruitful months in all its calendar; and the “Indian summer” its brightest period when God’s sunshine kindles every leaf on the tree with crimson and golden glories.  Faith grows in its tenacity of fibre by the long continued exercise of testing God, and trusting His promises.  The veteran Christian can turn over the leaves of his well-worn Bible and say:  “This Book has been my daily companion; I know all about this promise and that one and that other one; for I have tried them for myself, I have a great pile of cheques which my Heavenly Father has cashed with gracious blessings.”  Bunyan brings his Pilgrim, not into a second infant school where they may sit down in imbecility, or loiter in idleness; he brings them into Beulah Land, where the birds fill the air with music; and where they catch glimpses of the Celestial City.  They are drawing nearer to the end of their long journey and beyond that river, that has no bridge, looms up the New Jerusalem in all its flashing splendors.

In a previous chapter I have told the story of our bereavement when God took three of our precious children to Himself; but to-day we can chant the twenty-third Psalm, for the overflowing cup of mercies that sweeten our home, and for the two loving children that are spared to us.  Our eldest daughter, Mary, is the wife of Dr. William S. Cheeseman, an eminent physician in the beautiful city of Auburn, the County-seat of my native County of Cayuga.  It is the site of one of our principal Theological Seminaries, from which have graduated many of the foremost ministers in our Presbyterian denomination.  One of the earliest professors of that institution was the revered Dr. Henry Mills, who baptized me in my infancy.  Auburn is also well known as the residence of our celebrated statesman William H. Seward, who was Secretary of State under President Lincoln.  From the window of my daughter’s home I look over at the summer house in which that illustrious patriot meditated some of his state papers; and just beyond is the bronze statue reared to his memory.  Our only living son, Theodore Ledyard Cuyler, Jr., the surviving twin brother of “little Georgie,” fills an honorable position as an officer of the Postal Telegraph and Cable Company in New York.  Since the death of his lovely young wife, several years ago, he has resided with us, and his only son, “Ledyard,” is the joy of his grandparents’ hearts.  The sister and niece of my wife complete our household—­and our happiness.