A verse of one of her hymns, which I never heard anybody else
sing, resounds in the farthest corner of my memory yet:"--
"Whither goest thou, pilgrim stranger,
Wandering through this lowly vale?
Knowest thou not 't is full of danger?
And will not thy courage fail?"
Then a little pause, and the refrain of the answer broke in with
a change, quick and jubilant, the treadle moving more rapidly,
also: -
"No, I'm bound for the kingdom!
Will you go to glory with me?
Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!"
I began to go to school when I was about two years old, as other
children about us did. The mothers of those large families had to
resort to some means of keeping their little ones out of
mischief, while they attended to their domestic duties. Not much
more than that sort of temporary guardianship was expected of the
good dame who had us in charge.
But I learned my letters in a few days, standing at Aunt Hannah's
knee while she pointed them out in the spelling-book with a pin,
skipping over the "a b abs " into words of one and two syllables,
thence taking a flying leap into the New Testament, in which
there is concurrent family testimony that I was reading at the
age of two years and a half.
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