extends its life-giving power, flowing
on and on, as rivers of water, into the boundless ocean of God's love.

Your grandfather, my beloved children, was a great man. Not as a
warrior, nor as a statesman, nor in any sense which is simply of the
earth, earthy. But he was great by being the possessor of a rare
combination of moral worth and Christian excellence, which made him a
blessing to his race. In other words, he was great because he was
truly good. In the midst of his days of usefulness he was cut off from
the land of the living. His precious remains rest quietly in the fresh
made grave; his immortal spirit has winged its flight to the mansions
of the blessed, for "blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they
rest from their labors, and their works do follow them."

While endeavoring, in much weakness, to put together for your perusal such
facts as may present to your minds a faithful likeness of the noble man
from whom you have descended, I sincerely pray that you may be stimulated,
by the grace of God, to follow him even as he followed Christ.

Affectionately yours, GRANDMA.

BELMONT, January 7, 1860

Letter Two

MY DEAR GRANDCHILDREN:

If you will look in your mother's Bible, you will find that your
grandfather, JOSEPH CHARLESS, was born in Lexington, Kentucky, on the
17th of January, 1804; that his father, whose name was also Joseph
Charless, was born July 16th, 1772, in Westmeath, Ireland, being the
only son of Captain Edward Charles, whose father, (or paternal
ancestor, John Charles), was born in Wales and emigrated to Ireland in
the year 1663.

Your great-grandfather, Jos. Charles, fled from his native country to
France, in consequence of his having been implicated in the Rebellion of
1795, "at the head of which figured the young and noble
Emmet, who fell a sacrifice for loving too well his enslaved country."
After remaining a short time in France, he sailed for the United States
of America, where he arrived in 1796, landing at the city of New York.
Upon his arrival in the United States he added an s to his name to
secure the Irish pronunciation of Charles, which makes it two syllables
instead of one, as pronounced by us.

He settled in Philadelphia, and being a printer by trade, he
secured a situation with Matthew Carey, "who, at that time, did the
largest publishing business in the Quaker City." He often boasted of
having printed the first quarto edition of the Bible