"To write a word of the lost friend, who has been a very pillar of support in times of struggle or affliction, will perhaps relieve a pain at the heart which is hard to bear. It is not as an author justly celebrated, that I must speak of him, but of the private life of one who combined every attribute of mind and heart to endear him to his friends. I have known him as a pastor, laboring assiduously among the members of his flock, dispensing liberal charity among the poor, and lightening everybody's burden. He was a rock to lay hold of when other friendships were borne away by the cruel winds of adversity. Then it was that the genial warmth of his smile, the kindly hand-pressure, and the cheerful encouragement of his voice fettered sore hearts to his. "I have seen him as a hero, struggling in the water and broken ice, bearing in his arms the bodies of children for whom he risked his life. He had heard a cry for help, and that alone was enough to enlist the sympathy and secure the highest sacrifice of which our nature is capable. Then, paying no heed to personal sickness and injury, he strove to comfort the bereaved hearts of mothers, whose boys were drowned, perhaps by exposure laying the seeds of the disease which recently caused his death. "His zealous devotion to his calling, together with exposure to various hardships encountered on frequent lecturing tours made for the purpose of obtaining funds for the erection of a suitable church for his congregation, made such inroads into his naturally vigorous constitution that, having accomplished his task, he was compelled to resign his charge as pastor, after about nine years of faithful service. The beautiful stone Presbyterian church at Highland Falls is a monument to his untiring efforts." CHAPTER IX FRUIT CULTURE AND LITERARY WORK After my brother's resignation from the ministry, he bought a plain, old-fashioned house with considerable ground about it, at Cornwall-on-the-Hudson, two miles distant from his childhood home, and went there to live. It soon became evident, however, that Edward could not depend upon his literary work alone for the support of his growing family. He had for some years taken much interest in the cultivation of small fruits, and after the removal to Cornwall he carried on this work upon a larger scale, finding it profitable as well as interesting.