“What I was going to speak of was the effect upon my young mind of observing my father’s conduct under trying circumstances. I never once saw him flinch before the cold, or look as though anything was hard, or as if there was a reason for not pitching in and holding on when things were difficult. I have seen the time when we had to cut a twenty-five-foot tunnel outward from the kitchen-door, carrying the snow through the house; and such tunnels would sometimes remain a month before they would break down. I have seen the children around the house crying with cold, and slapping their hands, and stamping their feet, when father had to go and dig wood out of the snow-bank, and cut and split it; and his alacrity and vigor infused themselves into the children. I recollect particularly that if, on such nights as this, when to the high wind severe cold and thick darkness were added, my father had appointments, he always fulfilled them. It was customary to have preaching-places all around the neighborhood, here, there, and everywhere; and I never knew him to think of shrinking from an appointment, or holding himself back for a moment, on account of the weather. There never was a snow so deep, or a wind so high, or a rain so driving, or a night so black that the thought seemed to enter his head that he must give up a meeting. I have many times seen him, on cold, bitter nights, take out his old silk handkerchief and put it on, and go forth into the storm without seeming to dread it; and often, as I have remembered it, I have wished I could put on his spirit in the same way. He did it as a matter of course. And such was the effect of his example on his children that there was not one of them that would not be ashamed to show the ‘white feather’ in the presence of external difficulties. “When I was a boy I learned some hymns, and committed to memory an indefinite number of texts, and waded a certain distance into the catechism, never getting through it; and I forgot them again very quickly. But I do not think all of them put together exerted any material influence upon me one way or the other—they did not remain in my mind to be understood when I was older; but a great many things which my father did, but which neither he nor anybody else spoke of, have had a strong influence on my whole life. For instance, his defying the elements, making himself master in every condition and under all circumstances, and exhibiting an indomitable pluck which did not pause nor shrink—that made a powerful impression upon me, and has been one of the reasons of the success of my life; not just here and now, but in my earlier career, when I was in the West on the frontier, and when I was very poor and had to do a great deal of rough work under circumstances of discouragement. I had an ideal of what a man should be and should do, and it stood me in stead better than any amount of catechetical instruction could have done.”