during those long night watches that he learned by heart two
books of Milton's "Paradise Lost," and so firmly were they fixed
in the boyish memory that at this day, Dr. Conwell can repeat them
without a break. Many a time as the shadows lightened and the dim,
misty dawn came stealing through the forest, would the small boy step
outside the rude sugar-house and repeat in that musical, resonant
voice that has since held audiences enthralled, Milton's glorious
"Invocation to the Light." Strange scene--the great shadowy forest,
the distant mist-enfolded hills, the faintly flushing morning sky,
the faint splash of a little mountain stream breaking the brooding
stillness, and the small boy with intent, inspired face pouring out
his very heart in that wonderful invocation:

"Hail, holy light, offspring of Heaven, Firstborn
Or of the Eternal, co-eternal beam,
May I express thee Unblamed? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity--dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
Or hear'st thou, rather, pure Eternal Stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun,
Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God as with a mantle didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless Infinite!"

Later in spring there was plowing, though the farm was so rocky and
stony, there was little of that work to do. But here and there, a
sunny hilltop field made cultivation worth while, and as he followed
the patient oxen along the shining brown furrow, he looked away to the
encircling hills so full of mystery and fascination. What was there?
What was beyond? Then into the the morning and well into the afternoon
they pried and labored. They dug away earth and exerted to the utmost
their childish strength. Charles would soon have given up the gigantic
task, but Russell was not of the stuff that quits, and so they toiled
on. The father and mother at home wondered and searched for the boys.
Then as they began truly to get alarmed, from the woods to the south
came a crash and roar, the sound of trees snapping and then a shock
that made the earth tremble. The rock had fallen, traversing a mile,
in its downward rush to the river bed. Flushed and triumphant the
boys returned, and the neighbors who had heard the noise, when it was
explained to them, went to see the wreckage. It had dropped first a
fall of fifteen feet, where it