Thus, my dear reader, I have related to you the story of the exodus of our people to Kansas and other States, as it passed before our eyes about the years 1879 and 1880, as I very well remember. It was a wonderful object lesson set before the whole nation, and an outgrowth of slavery, and the war, and the violent passions of the vanquished. But good has come out of evil. The poor, oppressed pilgrim refugees were not forsaken in the days of their distress, for they were tenderly cared for by the most loving of mankind, and underneath them were the everlasting arms of the merciful God. CHAPTER XVIII. _My Daughters’ Weddings—Departure for England for the Honeymoon—The Voyage—Letter to the Rev. Mr. Carroll—The City of Liverpool—England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland—Return Home to America—Benefits of Travel._ This chapter will introduce the kind reader to my life and times in the eventful year 1876—eventful in the history of my own family, because my two dear daughters had now almost reached their twentieth year, were, therefore, come to the age when the fair sex turn their hearts to the thoughts of love, courtship and marriage; and, in short, my dear children were engaged to be married in the month of May, in the spring of the year 1876. The bridegrooms were both Christian, industrious and highly-respectable young men, and such as we knew would promote the happiness of the two dear girls as well as their own. All four candidates for matrimony were well matched in every way, having been brought up in schools and colleges where the most select members of the Anglo-Saxon race themselves have received their polish. Indeed, freedom and all the advantages that flow from a brilliant education, have polished our young men and maidens, until now they are as smooth as a mirror, and you can see your face in that mirror as well as the best looking-glass! Thus these young people had been trained and polished till training and polishing could not be carried much further; because they had had all the advantages that money and talent could give; they shone in the best society, and no company of refined young Christian people was considered perfect unless they were invited, enhancing the happiness of all by their presence. But the best thing of all was the pure, unadulterated Christianity that grew and flourished like the green bay-tree in every heart. My own dear husband and I were most profoundly thankful to see our dear children so well inclined by grace and training to every good thought and deed; and no less so to see, in their prospective husbands men who could encourage such dispositions instead of being obstacles in their way, like so many others.