and by the
candle-light and the star-light after the sunny hours had been toiled
away, he pressed patiently and perseveringly forward in his own chosen
methods, until he became an accurate historian, and a practical
astronomer. At the age of seventeen, he manufactured, for the most
part with his own hands, a reflecting telescope, which his friends
came from near and far to see, and gaze through, at the wonderful
worlds unthought-of before.

The ambitions of farm-life were not sufficient to occupy the head and
hands of this searcher for knowledge. To explore the fields of the
firmament with his telescope, gave him intenser pleasure than the most
faithful farmer ever realized from furrowing his fields in the dewiest
spring mornings. To follow the footsteps of heroes through the world's
annals, as they struggled up through conflicts to glorious liberty,
thrilled him with a livelier enthusiasm than ever sprang from the
music of marching harvesters. While other young men of his age and
neighborhood idled their rainy days and winter nights in trifling
diversions, there was one who preferred the higher joy of communion
with Humboldt in his "Cosmos," Macaulay in his "England," Irving in
his "Columbus," or Burritt in his "Geography of the Heavens."

Owing to this decided preference for science and literature, the
father found it advisable to indulge his son in the desire to enter a
field more consonant with his wishes. He accordingly qualified
himself, by close study at home, and without a tutor, for the
profession of teaching. In this honorable avocation he labored with
industry and promise, until he felt constrained by love of country to
quit the desk and the children, for the tent and the hosts of armed
men.

During his career as teacher, he was, for awhile, associated with the
writer in the publication of the _School Visitor_, then issued at
Cleveland, Ohio. The enterprise was, at that time, (1857-8,) to the
great outer world, an unnoticed and insignificant one; yet to those
whose little all was enlisted in the mission of a Day School paper, it
was, indeed, something that lay close upon their hearts. That was a
cheerless, friendless time in the history of the little _Visitor_, to
at least two inexperienced adventurers in the literary world. But
these were hidden trials, and shall be unwritten still.

The never-forgotten teachings of his mother, together with the
unconscious tuition resulting from observation and experi