with those of all the others, and there was such perfect unanimity of sentiment existing between them with regard to their private as well as their public affairs, that it is hardly possible to separate them.  Since, however, it is not consistent with the design of this work to relate the history of the “house,” it is the purpose of the writer to select the eldest of the brothers as the representative of the group, and to offer him to the reader as a type of the American publisher.

The grandfather of JAMES HARPER came to this country from England about the year 1740, and was one of the first of the American Methodists.  His son Joseph was born in 1766.  He married Elizabeth Kollyer, and settled at Newtown, on Long Island, as a farmer.  It was here that James, their eldest child, was born, on the 13th of April, 1795.  He grew up with a vigorous constitution, and the pure influences of his home, together with the sound religious training which he received from his parents, laid the foundation of those simple and steady habits for which he was noted through life.  In the winter he attended the district school, and in the summer he worked on his father’s farm.  Thus his life passed away quietly and healthfully until he had completed his fifteenth year.

It now became necessary for him to make some choice of a profession in life, and when the matter was presented to him he promptly decided to become a printer.  His father cheerfully seconded his wishes, and he was accordingly apprenticed to a printer in New York.  On the morning of his departure from home, when the family assembled for “prayers,” his mother, who was a woman of superior character, took the father’s place and led the worship.  With trembling tones she commended her boy to the love and protection of the Saviour, and when the moment of leave-taking came she sent him forth into the world with the tender warning never to forget his home or his religious duties, or “that he had good blood in him.”

The change from his happy home to the place of “devil” in the printing office was one which tried the lad’s fortitude to the utmost.  His position was but little better than that of a menial, and not only was all the drudgery and disagreeable work put upon him, but he was made the sport of the workmen, some of whom used him even roughly.  He bore it all good-naturedly, however, devoting himself to his trade with the determination to master it.

The printing office in which he was employed was located near Franklin Square, then occupied by the best people of the city.  Often, as young Harper passed across the square to and from his work, his rough “country clothes” drew upon him the ridicule of the children of these “goodly citizens.”  They teazed and insulted him, and sometimes carried their cruelty to the extremity of offering him bodily violence.  He bore it patiently for a time, but at length determined to put a stop to it.  He was physically the superior