"The first week in September, 1879, will long be remembered by the Riggs family, and by one or two who were not Riggses. From the east and the west, from the north and the south, and from across the mighty Pacific, they gathered at the eldest brother's house, at Santee Agency, Nebraska, for a family reunion. It was forty-two years last February since Stephen Return Riggs married Mary Ann Longley and came out as a missionary to the Dakotas; and now in his sixty-eighth year, his step still light, and his heart still young, he walks in to his son's house to find himself surrounded by nine children, three sons-in-law, two daughters-in-law, and nineteen grandchildren; with himself and wife making a company of thirty-five, and all present except one son-in-law. "This roll may never be as interesting to universal mankind as that in the tenth chapter of Genesis, but it is almost extended enough to evolve a few general truths. If we were to pick these up, our first deduction would be that _like begets like_. This man has certainly given more than his proportion of missionaries. And why, except that like begets like? He was a missionary, his children partook of his spirit, and became missionaries. We heard some mathematical member of the company computing the number of years of missionary service the family had rendered. The amount has slipped our memory, but we should say it was over one hundred and fifty. "Our other deduction would be that the missionary profession is a healthy one. Here is a family of no uncommon physical vigor, and yet not a single death occurred among the children, who are in goodly number. True, the mother of the family has finished her work and crossed the river to wait with her longing smile the coming children, but another ministers in her room, who has added little Aunt Edna to the list, to stand before her father when the rest are far away." Next, we have the observations of Rev. Joseph Ward of Yankton:-- "Families have their characteristic points as well as individuals. The family of Rev. S. R. Riggs, D.D., is no exception to this. Their characteristics all point in one direction. It is notably a missionary family. It began on missionary ground forty-two years ago at Lac-qui-parle, Minn. From that time until the present the name of the family head has always appeared in the list of missionaries of the American Board. One after another the names of the children have been added to the list, until now we find Alfred, Isabella, Martha, Thomas, Henry, attached to the mission; and doing genuine missionary work, though not bearing a commission from the board, are two more, Robert and Cornelia.