“A quarter of a century ago, looking at a pile of manuscript sermons, I said again and again to my wife:  ’Those sermons were not made only for the people who have already heard them.  They must have a wider field.’  The prophecy came true, and every one of those sermons through the press has come to the attention of at least twenty-five million people.  I have no reason to be morose or splenetic.  ’Goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life.’  Here I am at 61 years of age without an ache, a pain, or a physical infirmity.  Now closing a preaching and lecturing tour from Georgia to Minnesota and Wisconsin, I am to-morrow morning to start for my residence at the seaside where my family are awaiting me, and notwithstanding all the journeying and addressing of great audiences, and shaking hands with thousands of people, after a couple of days’ rest will be no more weary than when I left home.  ’Bless the Lord, O my soul!’”

My ordinary mode of passing vacations has been to go to East Hampton, Long Island, and thence to go out for two or three preaching and lecturing excursions to points all the way between New York and San Francisco, or from Texas to Maine.  I find that I cannot rest more than two weeks at a time.  More than that wearies me.  Of all the places I have ever known East Hampton is the best place for quiet and recuperation.

I became acquainted with it through my brother-in-law, Rev. S.L.  Mershon.  The Presbyterian church here was his first pastoral settlement.  When a boy in grammar school and college I visited him and his wife, my sister Mary.  The place is gradually submitting to modern notions, but East Hampton, whether in its antiquated shape or epauletted and frilled and decorated by the hand of modern enterprise, has always been to me a semi-Paradise.

As I approach it my pulse is slackened and a delicious somnolence comes over me.  I dream out the work for another year.

My most useful sermons have been born here.  My most successful books were planned here.  In this place, between the hours of somnolence, there come hours of illumination and ecstasy.  It seems far off from the heated and busy world.  East Hampton has been a great blessing to my family.  It has been a mercy to have them here, free from all summer heats.  When nearly grown, the place is not lively enough for them, but an occasional diversion to White Sulphur, or Alum Springs, or a summer in Europe, has given them abundant opportunity.  All my children have been with us in Europe, except my departed son, DeWitt, who was at a most important period in school at the time of our going, or he would have been with us on one of our foreign tours.

I have crossed the ocean twelve times, that is six each way, and like it less and less.  It is to me a stomachic horror.  But the frequent visits have given educational opportunity to my children.  Foreign travel, and lecturing and preaching excursions in our own country have been to me a stimulus, while East Hampton has been to me a sedative and anodyne.  For this beautiful medicament I am profoundly thankful.