on tending to social exclusiveness. It proceeded, on the
contrary, from an over-anxiety as to the moral and religious influences
to which his children might become subjected. His ideas of propriety
were very strict. He was, moreover, not only a strenuous Protestant, but
also an ardent "Evangelical," or Low Churchman, holding the Calvinistic
views which then characterized that portion of the American Episcopal
church. I remember that he once spoke to me of the anguish he had felt
at the death of his own father, of the orthodoxy of whose religious
opinions he had had no sufficient assurance. My grandfather, indeed, was
supposed, in the family, to be of a rather skeptical and philosophizing
turn of mind. He fell a victim to the first visitation of the cholera in
1832.

Despite a certain austerity of character, my father was much beloved and
honored in the business world. He did much to give to the firm of Prime,
Ward and King the high position which it attained and retained during
his lifetime. He told me once that when he first entered the office, he
found it, like many others, a place where gossip circulated freely. He
determined to put an end to this, and did so. Among the foreign
correspondents of his firm were the Barings of London, and Hottinguer et
Cie. of Paris.

In the great financial troubles which followed Andrew Jackson's refusal
to renew the charter of the Bank of the United States, several States
became bankrupt, and repudiated the obligations incurred by their bonds,
to the great indignation of business people in both hemispheres. The
State of New York was at one time on the verge of pursuing this course,
which my father strenuously opposed. He called meeting after meeting,
and was unwearied in his efforts to induce the financiers of the State
to hold out. When this appeared well-nigh impossible, he undertook that
his firm should negotiate with English correspondents a loan to carry
the State over the period of doubt and difficulty. This he was able to
effect. My eldest brother came home one day and said to me:--

"As I walked up from Wall Street to-day, I saw a dray loaded with kegs
on which were inscribed the letters, 'P. W. & K.' Those kegs contained
the gold just sent to the firm from England to help our State through
this crisis."

My father once gave me some account of his early experiences in Wall
Street. He had been sent, almost a boy, to New York, to try his fortune.
His connection with Block Is