Oh weary heart, and toil-worn hand,
    At eve comes rest to thee,
  When ply the boats to Pillow-land,
    Across the Sleepy sea.

  Thank God for this sweet Pillow-land,
    Where weary ones may creep,
  And breathe the perfume on the strand
    That girds the Sea of Sleep.”

It is pleasant in this sunset of life, to recall the testimony of my brothers that through all those troublous scenes, father and mother were soothed and consoled by an unfaltering faith in the ultimate triumph of the good and true, that their faces were often illumined as they repeated to each other those priceless words of the sweet singer,

“Drifting over a sunless sea, cold dreary mists encircling me,
Toiling over a dusty road with foes within and foes abroad,
Weary, I cast my soul on Thee, mighty to save even me,
Jesus Thou Son of God.”

At last the “perils by land and perils by sea, and perils from false brethren,” this long, long journey ended and we reached the promised land.  We halted in old Byfield, in the state of Massachusetts, with worldly goods consisting of a bushel of barberries, threadbare toilets, and the ancient equipage dilapidated as aforesaid.

After much tribulation, father took a farm “on shares,” which was found to result in endless toil to us, and the lion’s share of the crops going to the owners, who toiled not, neither did they spin, but reaped with gusto where we had sown.

After a few years of this profitless drudgery, my father bought an old run-down farm with dilapidated buildings in the neighboring town of R——­, mortgaging all, and our souls and bodies besides, for its payment.  We hoped we had rounded the cape of storms which sooner or later looms up before every ship which sails the sea of life, for we had fully realized the truth of the poem—­

  We may steer our boats by the compass,
    Or may follow the northern star;
  We may carry a chart on shipboard
    As we sail o’er the seas afar;
  But, whether by star or by compass
    We may guide our boats on our way,
  The grim cape of storms is before us,
    And we’ll see it ahead some day.

  How the prow may point is no matter,
    Nor of what the cargo may be,
  If we sail on the northern ocean,
    Or away on the southern sea;
  It matters not who is the pilot,
    To what guidance our course conforms;
  No vessel sails o’er the sea of life
    But must pass the cape of storms.

  Sometimes we can first sight the headland
    On the distant horizon’s rim;
  We enter the dangerous waters
    With our vessels taut and trim;
  But often the cape in its grimness
    Will before us suddenly rise,
  Because of the clouds that have hid it
    Or the blinding sun in our eyes.