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So it was not until late in autumn that the sound of the ax was heard on the three hundred and fifty acres that was to be my childhood's home.

"Where 'mid song of birds and bloom of flowers,

Were spent so many, many happy hours."

Nearly a year had now elapsed since my dear mother left her father's house and so weary had she grown of unsettled life that she hardly waited until the rude log cabin was covered with its clapboard roof and sufficient puncheon floor laid to stand their bed upon when she commenced her housekeeping in their rude home, a mile from any inhabitant, without either door, window or chimney.

Late in the evening of the first night, as father had ceased his work hewing and laying the puncheon floor (in the framing of which the woodman's axe took the place of both saw and plane), and they were preparing to retire for the night, surrounded, as they were, by the wild men of the forest, and the still wilder bear and wolf, they were startled by a sudden growling, barking, snapping, snarling of a pack of timber wolves, which announced the fact that they had built their cabin in their favorite runway. This was no pleasant intelligence, as a quilt hung over the doorway was the only obstacle to their entrance, but my father, who had been somewhat acquainted with such unpleasant visitors in the mountains of the East, soon allayed the fears of his timid wife, for one loud halloo from the doorway silenced all but the crackling of the brush beneath their fast flying feet.

By diligent application, in the course of a few days the rude home was so far finished that the roughly constructed floor was laid, and a few stones piled up against the logs inade the fireplace, and the broad opening in the roof through which the smoke curled at will, admitted the only light in their dwelling, for it was months before even a six-light window of 7x9 glass was obtained. From this rude commencement my parents were privileged to see the forests disappear

until a large, well cultivated farm yielded to them its abundance of the good things of earth, and their rude log cabin had been exchanged for a commodious dwelling. While all this had been going on, the little ones had been coming to them, one by one, to the number of four, of whom I was the second, following my elder sister so closely that there was but sixteen and one half months between us. And now, after sixty-eight years, I look back with the tenderest sympathy for my mother, as there in the midst of the forest she not only cared for the little ones, but plied her spinning wheel and loom, thus supplying almost every article of clothing and bedding. To her, surely, would apply: "The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands." And while I am not unmindful of the labor of my father as he felled and cleared the heavy timbers in order to get at the soil, out of which to provide for his household; not forgetful of his counsel and tender care of his family; yet somehow my heart turns to my mother with an indescribable, unutterable tenderness and love because of what she bore for me.

Having thus opened my eyes to the light in the midst of the forest, where the settler could see out but one way-and that, I have often thanked God, was straight up—spending my years, which should have been spent in school, hunting the brown nuts, angling in the stream, wading a little deeper and climbing a little higher than my almost twin sister dared to, until I had attained the little height I ever did attain before I had the privilege of even a district school, save as occasionally my father could secure a teacher to come to our own house for a few months.

I trust the reader will regard with lenience the lack of scholarly merit in my attempt to hand down to those who come after, as much of my life's story as may be calculated to inspire them with courage to struggle with the sins of earth no matter how formidable they may seem.

Thus shut out from the written thoughts of the great and wise earth, I was alone with my own thoughts, save the Book of Books and the biographies of a few of the pioneers of my own church which composed the whole library of my father's house. Add to this, the careful Christian teaching of my parents and it is no wonder that I so early believed on the Lord Jesus as my Saviour and accepted and undertook to obey the admonitions of the gospel, that I have no story to tell of conversion, yet can tell of many battles fought, of defeats at times, and again victories, ere I at last attained that perfection of Christian life, which seemed in my very childhood, both the privilege and duty of all who professed to be followers of the Lord Jesus.

With a keen consciousness of the eye of infinite purity ever resting upon me-with an earnestness of soul to so walk at all times and in all places as to meet divine approval, the sin of impurity became to me so the sin of sins that I not only abhorred it, but had the courage to grapple with it wherever I met it, while from the depths of my soul condemnation rested on the aggressor, my sympathies, even in early childhood, were drawn out to unfortunate motherhood by the peculiar circumstances of a romance in real life that came to the daughter of an inebriate father living near my home. In his sober moments the father seemed to have pity for his unfortunate child, but, in a fit of intoxication, he drove her, with all his family from the house, and actuated by the spirit of the demon within, he kept them out all night. A cold, thus contracted, brought her to the close of her sad life, in a few days. Accompanying my mother to the funeral, the sad, sad picture of the lifeless form of the young mother and the wailing, helpless condition of the infant in a home of such squalid poverty was so stamped upon my child heart as never to be erased, The thoughts and sympathies that had their birth with this. my first knowledge of the sad consequence that come to woman through man's lust and appetite, grew with my growth and strengthened with my strength, until at the early age of

sixteen the foundation of character was laid that enabled me to stand, in after years, a wall of defense for injured womanhood and with a face of flint against the aggressive lust of manhood, when the church and the world, so accustomed to excuse the man and stone the woman, would at times come down upon me with judgment that would have crushed me but for the help of the infinite One, who had, not only chosen and fashioned me for the work, but sustained me in it.

Truly the providence of my father had not only been preparing me to fight battles for others, but for myself as well. For I was but a little past sixteen when my father, who had been to his household a tower of strength to provide for our natural wants and to protect us against the invasion of evil in every form, was suddenly stricken with the hand of disease, with which he struggled but a few days until the King of Terrors had done its work, and the heart that had so loved us was stilled in death. And our dear mother, whose health had been delicate for months previous, was so illy prepared to bear the shock that she never rallied to take an interest in anything of earth; so sister and I were suddenly called upon to meet all the responsibilities not only of our financial affairs, but to nurse day by day our slowly sinking mother, over whom we watched tenderly for seven months and then laid her beside our father. We had never known what the world was before, and the dangers to which young womanhood is exposed when there is no father or big brother for protection; but ever be praised our Father in heaven for His providence which interposed to our relief in the persons of two young farmers, who proffered themselves as our protectors and the sharers of our joys and sorrows through life. Thus safely sheltered myself under a husband's loving care, I soon found a field of labor foreshadowing that which became my life work, "woman's work for woman"-extending a voice of warning to those likely to get into trouble through man's lust, and uplifting and shielding from the cold criticisms of the world those who had been victimized. I had not

yet attained nineteen years when I came into close contact with the enemy of all good, in the person of a very fine looking gentleman, as to the outward, but a fiend and a seducer at heart. He had professed conversion at a revival meeting, and was thus brought into close contact with several young and beautiful girls in whom I was deeply interested. By looking to the Lord for aid and guidance, I was soon able to break the spell and help those young and innocent ones to see him-monster as he was-and to bar him from their society.

My twenty-third year was marked by the coming, and my twenty-fourth by the departure of our first child. Here are volumes spoken in a few words. An experience of the depths of mother love, and of the agony of a mother bereft. While crushed beneath this weight of mortal woe, I first heard the voice of the Spirit's call to the ministry of the gospel. Having, from my birth, a membership in the church that recognizes woman as man's equal in every department of work, I was privileged to exercise the gift that God had bestowed upon me, and notwithstanding the narrow limits of my education save in the school of Christ, I ventured to obey. In my twenty-sixth year I was first called to stand in the presence of the suffering of maternity where the young mother was not a wife. Although all her surroundings were antipodes to Christianity, as I presented the little one to the young mother of only sixteen years (and she a cripple in both her feet), this came to me to say to her, it must have been by the Spirit, "Samantha, all that is sinful, and all that is shameful, is past. The blood of Jesus alone can pass upon that. The honorable part remains to be done. Take this child, be a mother to it and raise it for the Lord as best thou canst." I never think of the seed sown with such improbable surroundings without thinking of its likeness to the handful of corn planted on the top of a mountain, for, as the years went by, the fruit of this seed sowing was alike wonderful. As I was then about to leave my native State, ten years passed

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