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"Alas, and did my Saviour bleed, And did my Sovereign die?"

And when they reached the third line of the fourth stanza,

"Here Lord, I give myself away,"

my very soul was flooded with a celestial light. I sprang to my feet, shouting "hallelujah," and then for the first time I realized that I had been trying to hold the world in one hand and the Lord in the other.

But my growth in grace was very slow from the beginning. The next Thursday evening I gave a public testimony at our class meeting; when I finished the tempter said to me, "Well, Fanny, you made a good speech, didn't you?" and I realized at once that this was the old pride returning again to reign in my heart. For a few days I was greatly depressed until a kind friend suggested that I must "go back and do the first works quickly," which meant that I had not made a com-plete surrender of my will; and then I promised to do my duty whenever the dear Lord should make it plain to me.

But not many weeks later Mr. Stephen Merritt asked me to close one of our class meetings with a brief prayer. My first thought was "I can't"; then the voice of conscience said, "but your promise"; and from that hour, I believe I have never refused to pray or speak in a public service, with the result that I have been richly blessed.

CHAPTER XII
LITERARY AND MUSICAL MEMORIES

NOW and then during the early forties I con-tributed poems to the "Saturday Evening Post" and the "Clinton Signal," for which paper Mr. J. F. Chamberlain and Mr. F. J. Warner also wrote; and the compositor was con-tinually confusing the initials of our names, so that it was sometimes difficult for our friends to tell just which of us wrote a certain piece. Mr. William Wye Smith wrote for the "Saturday Emporium," under the name of "Rusticus," and I answered him, using my own name. He afterwards became a Congregational clergyman and the translator of the Bible into the old Scotch language; and he is still living in St. Catherines, Ontario. I also wrote occasionally for the "Fireman's Journal," a weekly supported by the volunteer companies of New York, in which I took an ardent interest. Most of my poems, in those years, were imaginative and sentimental; and one of them, which I now happen to remember, begins like this,

"Let me die on the prairie, and o'er my rude grave
'Mid the soft winds of summer, the tall grass shall wave;
I would breathe my last sigh, when the bright hues of even
Are fading away in the blue arch of heaven."

"So little the change in her dear, kind face
We scarce can believe it true
That she numbers today her four score years,
Her four score years and two.

"Her winter of age, though the snowflakes fell,
Has never been dark and drear,
She moves with the vigor of younger feet,
And her mind is bright and clear.

"She merrily talks of the olden time,
Of the friends in youth she knew;
She is sprightly and gay, though she numbers today
Her four score years and two.

"And now as we come with our birthday gifts,
When she views them o'er and o'er,
And the earnest God bless you, my children deal;
Is breathed from her lips once more.

"We think how devoted our mother's love,
What a sunshine of joy she gives,
And we feel as we tenderly kiss her cheek,
What a comfort that still she lives!"

During these years we received visits from a large number of literary men and women, among them Thurlow Weed, Mrs. Sigourney and Bayard Taylor.

One bright morning in April, when the violets were opening their tiny buds to the warm sunshine of early spring, the Mayor, Common Council, and a part of the Legislature came to make their annual call. With them also came Martin F. Tupper, the English poet, who at that time was a very popular author of a proverbial philosophy in verse. He was asked to make an address; but, not being an adept at extempore speaking, he told us that he would rather recite one of his poems; and he chose one entitled, "Never Give Up," the first stanza of which runs as follows:

"Never give up, it is wiser and better
Always to hope than once to despair,
Throw off the yoke with its conquering fetter,
Yield not a moment to sorrow or care.
Never give up, though adversity presses,
Providence wisely has mingled the cup;
And the best counsel in all our distresses
Is the stout watchword,
Never give up."

But when Mr. Tupper reached the third line of his poem he broke down; and as I happened to be familiar with it, and was sitting directly behind him, I prompted him. Then he began again, and this time reached the third line of the second stanza, when his memory failed a second time. I repeated the line; but, evidently not wishing to continue, in spite of his title -- "Never Give Up" -- he turned to the audience and said:

"It is of no use; this lady knows my poem better than I do myself; and therefore I will sit down."

"William Cullen Bryant is coming to our musical" was the watchword that passed through the Institution one day in 1843; and teachers, as well as pupils, could hardly restrain their impatience until the hour of the evening entertainment. We knew Mr. Bryant by reputation, as the able editor of the "Evening Post" for almost twenty years; and we had been delighted by the stories of travel in foreign lands which he occasionally wrote. For about twenty-five years he had been recog-nized by all classes as the foremost living American poet; and he was frequently called "the first citizen of the Republic." "Thanatopsis" was a household classic, and is said to be the sweetest apology for Death that our literature affords. And the very hand of Death had been stayed and the gray haired patriarch spared to enjoy the plaudits of his countrymen. But the mind of a man of the calibre of Bryant is never turned aside, either by the world's censure or its praise.