these quiet years before the war. He makes and he spends, labors where work is not toil, loves and is loved, is in perfect health of body and of mind, and to him the world is bathed in sunlight. Little Martha, the first-born, begins to toddle about the house.

Husband, father, master, neighbor-he is kind to everybody. He loves to see bright faces about him. He loves to give pleasure to others. He would no sooner hurt the feelings of any mortal, wilfully, than he would steal.

Never fretting, scolding, worrying; never clouding the sunniness of to-day by forebodings about to-morrow; never souring the milk of human kindness by scowls, sarcasms, reproaches, wrangles, or malicious gossip, he drew on the bank of the present for every legitimate pleasure that stood to his credit. He believed that the surest way to happiness was the making of others happy. This gospel he preached and practised. Serenely confident and contented, he hums softly as he paces about his mountain home, measuring everything with a tape line, weighing everything with steelyards, probing everything with questions, calculating everything with pen or pencil, seeing to everything with his own eyes; and then, at night, or at some odd hour during the day, jotting it down in those faithful books.

A variedly industrious, widely intelligent, emi

nently companionable, nobly aspiring, warm-hearted, benevolent, bright-tempered man.

Just the kind of man a stranger would apply to, a beggar hunt up, a cynic shun, a bigot hate, a sharper pursue, a scholar delight in, a patriot trust, a neighbor love and impose on, a shyster outwit, visitors make a convenience of, overseers bankrupt, philosophers esteem, fellow statesmen respect, enemies ridicule as often as they hated; friends blindly follow, sincerely respect, and goodnaturedly joke at; children adore; and a pure, highminded wife worship with boundless affection.

Mixed sunlight and shadow was in this character as in all others, flaws, foibles, follies—the gold not wholly free and pure; but as nearly deserving unmixed affection and admiration as any son of Adam whose hands were ever given from youth to age to the molding of better laws, better institutions, better conditions for the human race.

CHAPTER IX

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS

THE Stamp Act Congress of 1765, called at the instance of Massachusetts, had taken a conservative position. In the Declaration of Rights then is sued, the colonies merely claimed local self-government and self-taxation, together with trial by jury in the colonial courts.

In the Congress which met at Philadelphia, September 5, 1774, the Petition to the King for Redress of Grievances was couched, as in 1765, in the language of loyal subjects; and the Declaration of Rights made no marked advance over that of 1765, so far as assertion of principles was concerned. They tightened the bands of the boycott against the mother country; organized to enforce this boycott; and resolved to ostracize all such American citizens as continued to deal with Great Britain. In fact, the attitude taken by Washington, Lee, Henry, Adams, Sherman, Jay, Dickinson, and Rutledge was substantially that of a labor union of the present day during a struggle with a capitalistic trust. Those Americans who would not join the association and boycott Great Britain were “ene