id, in an address at the
dedication of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, that my mother was the most
consecrated Christian person he had ever known. My mother worked very
hard, and when we would come in and sit down at the table at noon, I
remember how she used to look. There were beads of perspiration along
the line of her grey hair, and sometimes she would sit down at the
table, and put her head against her wrinkled hand and say, "Well, the
fact is, I'm too tired to eat."

My father was a religious, hard-working, honest man. Every day began and
closed with family worship, led by my father, or, in case of his
absence, by Mother. That which was evidently uppermost in the minds of
my parents, and that which was the most pervading principle in their
lives, was the Christian religion. The family Bible held a perfect
fascination for me, not a page that was not discoloured either with time
or tears. My parents read out of it as long as I can remember. When my
brother Van Nest died in a foreign land, and the news came to our
country home, that night they read the eternal consolations out of the
old book. When my brother David died that book comforted the old people
in their trouble. My father in mid-life, fifteen years an invalid, out
of that book read of the ravens that fed Elijah all through the hard
struggle for bread. When my mother died that book illumined the dark
valley. In the years that followed of loneliness, it comforted my father
with the thought of reunion, which took place afterward in Heaven.

To the wonderful conversion of my grandfather and grandmother, in those
grand old days of our declaration of independence, I trace the whole
purpose, trend, and energies of my life. I have told the story of the
conversion of my grandfather and grandmother before. I repeat it here,
for my children.

My grandfather and grandmother went from Somerville to Baskenridge to
attend revival meetings under the ministry of Dr. Finney. They were so
impressed with the meetings that when they came back to Somerville they
were seized upon by a great desire for the salvation of their children.
That evening the children were going off for a gay party, and my
grandmother said to the children, "When you get all ready for the
entertainment, come into my room; I have something very important to
tell you." After they were all ready they came into my grandmother's
room, and she said to them, "Go and have a good time, but while you are
gone I want you