heard sobbing and crying in the daughter’s room, and they went in and found her praying for the salvation of God, and her daughter Phoebe said, “I wish you would go to the barn and to the waggon-house for Jehiel and David (the brothers) are under powerful conviction of sin.”  My grandparent went to the barn, and Jehiel, who afterward became a useful minister of the Gospel, was imploring the mercy of Christ; and then, having first knelt with him and commended his soul to Christ, they went to the waggon-house, and there was David crying for the salvation of his soul—­David, who afterward became my father.  David could not keep the story to himself, and he crossed the fields to a farmhouse and told one to whom he had been affianced the story of his own salvation, and she yielded her heart to God.  The story of the converted household went all through the neighbourhood.  In a few weeks two hundred souls stood up in the plain meeting house at Somerville to profess faith in Christ, among them David and Catherine, afterward my parents.

[Illustration:  David Talmage.  Catherine Talmage. (The Parents of Dr. T. DeWitt Talmage)]

My mother, impressed with that, in after life, when she had a large family of children gathered around her, made a covenant with three neighbours, three mothers.  They would meet once a week to pray for the salvation of their children until all their children were converted—­this incident was not known until after my mother’s death, the covenant then being revealed by one of the survivors.  We used to say:  “Mother, where are you going?” and she would say, “I am just going out a little while; going over to the neighbours.”  They kept on in that covenant until all their families were brought into the kingdom of God, myself the last, and I trace that line of results back to that evening when my grandmother commended our family to Christ, the tide of influence going on until this hour, and it will never cease.

My mother died in her seventy-sixth year.  Through a long life of vicissitude she lived harmlessly and usefully, and came to her end in peace.  We had often heard her, when leading family prayers in the absence of my father, say, “O Lord, I ask not for my children wealth or honour, but I do ask that they all may be the subjects of Thy converting grace.”  Her eleven children brought into the kingdom of God, she had but one more wish, and that was that she might see her long-absent missionary son, and when the ship from China anchored in New York harbour, and the long-absent one passed over the threshold of his paternal home, she said, “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.”  The prayer was soon answered.

My father, as long as I can remember, was an elder in churches.  He conducted prayer-meetings in the country, when he was sometimes the only man to take part, giving out a hymn and leading the singing; then reading the Scriptures and offering prayer; then giving out another hymn and leading in that; and then praying again; and so continuing the meeting for the usual length of time, and with no lack of interest.