E-text prepared by Joseph R. Hauser and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 22134-h.htm or 22134-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/1/3/22134/22134-h/22134-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/1/3/22134/22134-h.zip) GATHERING JEWELS. JAMES KNOWLES. [Illustration: THE LITTLE ORPHAN'S PRAYER When only eight years old and left an orphan, at her father's death, she went to the corner of the house and asked God to be a father and a mother to her--Page 85] GATHERING JEWELS; Or, The Secret of a Beautiful Life. In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. "They shall be Mine in that day when I come to make up My Jewels." Edited by Rev. Duncan Mcneill Young. New York: William Knowles, 104 East Thirteenth Street. 1887. Copyright, 1887. By Wm. Knowles PREFACE. The present volume is a purely pastoral attempt, emanating from a fraternal affection for two of God's honored saints, and an increasingly growing desire for the glory of God in the salvation of souls. In presenting the following pages to the friends, acquaintances, and co-laborers of our departed brother and sister I desire to record my appreciation of the good achieved by two whose example among us was as beneficial as that of the angel at the pool of Siloam, stirring up the sluggish waters to fresh life and utility, and teaching us that Beyond this vale of tears There is a life above, Unmeasured by the flight of years; And all that life is love. While a proper and very natural sentiment demands that the memoirs of the beloved ones should not appear until some time has passed away, it is also proper that their publication should not be put off till all trace of the facts recorded and the impressions there from made have been forgotten. During the preparation of these memoirs nothing has been more clearly manifest to me than the steady recurrence, throughout their lives, of a deep and earnest unison of feeling between man and wife, in such unfailing sweetness as to find its way at once to our hearts and clothe it with the freshness of a living, loving presence. The subjects whose earthly career we are about to delineate, were whole-souled enough to elicit the respect of all who knew them, hence they made lasting friends, whilst to their own immediate family their loss is irreparable, and it is hard to realize that they are no more; for who is there among us who does not know what it is to be united by a fond and passionate affection to those who are no longer with us--ever to think of the beloved ones, and to feel ourselves constantly under the influence of the vanished presence?