to me: "It would be within bounds to say that your four
thousand articles have been printed in at least two hundred millions of
copies." The production of these articles involved no small labor, but
has brought its own reward. To enter a multitude of homes week after
week; to converse with the inmates about many of the most vital
questions in morals and religion; to speak words of guidance to the
perplexed; of comfort to the troubled, and of exhortation to the saints
and to the sinful--all these involved a solemn responsibility. That this
life-work with the pen has not been without fruit I gratefully
acknowledge. When a group of railway employees, at a station in England,
gathered around me to tender their thanks for spiritual help afforded
them by my articles, I felt repaid for hours of extra labor spent in
preaching through the press.

My first attempt at book-making was during my ministry at Trenton, New
Jersey, when I published a small volume entitled "Stray Arrows." This
was followed at different times by several volumes of an experimental
and devotional character. In the spring of 1867 one of our beautiful
twin boys, at the age of four and a half years, was taken from us by a
very brief and violent attack of scarlet fever. We received a large
number of tender letters of condolence, which gave us so much comfort
that my wife suggested that they should be printed with the hope that
they might be equally comforting to other people in affliction. I
accordingly selected a number of them, added the simple story of our
precious child's short career, and handed the package to my beloved
friend and publisher, the late Mr. Peter Carter, with the request that
they be printed for private distribution. He urged, after reading them,
that I should allow him to publish them, which he did under the title of
"The Empty Crib, a Book of Consolation." That simple story of a sweet
child's life has travelled widely over the world and made our little
"Georgie" known in many a home. Mrs. Gladstone told me that when she and
her husband had read it, it recalled their own loss of a child under
similar circumstances. Dean Stanley read it aloud to Lady Augusta
Stanley in the Deanery of Westminster; and when I took him to our own
unrivalled Greenwood Cemetery he asked to be driven to the spot where
the dust of our dear boy is slumbering. Many thousands have visited that
grave and gazed with tender admiration on the exquisite marble medallion
o