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 Eettecia from ISurope to tlje Olfjilticfn. LLn 
 
 Uncle John 
 Upon His Travels. 
 
 Sr. 
 
 Compiled for Publication, with an Introduction, 
 BT A UNT ESTHER. 
 
 LLUSTRATED 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 
 The Lakeside Publishing Company. 
 
 1870. 
 
Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1S70, by 
 The Lakeside Publishing Comi'ANY, 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 LETTER FIRST. 
 Life on Shipboard, ---ii 
 
 LETTER SECOND. 
 Life on Shipboard. — CoNCLyoED, 23 
 
 LETTER THIRD. 
 A London Sunday-school, ..---..32 
 
 LETTER FOURTH. 
 Crossing Mountains, 47 
 
 LETTER FIFTH. 
 The Two Cemeteries, .60 
 
 LETTER SIXTH. 
 Christmas in Paris, 74 
 
 LETTER SEVENTH. 
 The Story of a King, .....---87 
 
 LETTER EIGHTH. 
 The Story of a King. — Concluded, 9S 
 
 LETTER NINTH. 
 The Birds in the Palace Garden, 108 
 
 LETTER TENTH, 
 The Birds in the Palace Garden. — Concluded, - 117 
 
 LETTER ELEVENTH. 
 Th£ Old Soldiers and their General, - - - - 125 
 
6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 In another part of the book vou will find a picture 
 of the Palace and a portion of the Garden, in which 
 you maj perceive the place where we sat. On the 
 right of the picture you will see a fine statue; close 
 to this there are chairs for persons walking in the 
 Gardens who may choose to occupy them We took 
 possession of two chairs close to the statue, and once 
 more witnessed the feeding of the birds, as mentioned 
 in the Letter. Our Heavenly Father's care of the 
 birds encouraged us to trust him anew, for we felt 
 sure that we were of more value to him than many 
 sparrows. 
 
 Returning home, Uncle John was very tired, and 
 went to rest in his accustomed place. After a little 
 time he requested me to bolster him in the bed, and 
 give him pencil and paper, which I did. The Letter 
 entitled "The Birds in the Palace Garden" was the 
 result. 
 
 "The Story of a King" comes to my mind as I 
 gaze upon the picture of the Place de la Concorde. 
 There are two fine fountains, each having twelve 
 statues, every one of which holds a fish in its hands 
 from Avhose mouth pours the water thrown up into 
 the basin above. Between these fountains you will 
 see a tall column which is called an obelisk. It was 
 brought from Thebes, and placed where it now stands 
 in the reign of Louis Philippe. Upon the spot 
 where you see this obelisk stood the scaffold on 
 
INTR OD UC TION: *J 
 
 which Lous XVT. was beheaded, as described in the 
 *' Story of a King." About twenty paces from it, 
 toward the right of the picture, and near the Tuileries 
 gate, his beautiful queen, Marie Antoinette, suffered 
 a like bloody death. If the men who did these cruel 
 things had been taught from the Bible in their child- 
 hood to "fear God" and "honor the King," they 
 would not, I am certain, have stained their hands 
 thus with the blood of those whom they had so many 
 reasons to love and reverence. 
 
 There is another picture which I must tell you 
 about. In the " Story of a Castle," Little Jane, 
 " The Young Cottager," is mentioned. She is here 
 seen learning the verses on the tombstones. Her 
 companions are with her, and Legh Richmond, the 
 pastor, is instructing other children near the church. 
 It is more than seventy years since what this picture 
 represents took place, and this Saturday afternoon 
 school for religious instruction, for there were no 
 Sunday-schools then, has been heard of throughout 
 the world by reason of the conversion of Little Jane. 
 She died at the age of fifteen. 
 
 I must tell you the conversation with her pastor 
 that led him to think her a child of God. She was 
 upon a sick-bed, and had sent for him to instruct and 
 comfort her. She had learned two lines from a tomb- 
 stone near that which you see her studying. They 
 are these — 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 "Hail, glorious gospel, heavenly light, whereby 
 We live with comfort and with comfort die." 
 
 At one time during her illness she quoted these 
 lines to Mr. Richmond, and then said, "I wished 
 that glorious gospel was mine, that I might live and 
 die with comfort, and it seemed as if I thought it 
 would be so. I never felt so happy in all mj life 
 before. The words were often in mj thoughts, 
 
 'Live with comfort and with comfort die.' 
 
 ''Glorious gospel, indeed, I thought." 
 
 "My dear child," said Mr. Richmond, "what is 
 the meaning of the word gospel.?" 
 
 " Good news." 
 
 " Good news for whom } " 
 
 " For wicked sinners, sir." 
 
 "Who sends this good news for wicked sinners?*' 
 
 "The Lord Almighty." 
 
 "And who brings this good news.?" 
 
 " Sir, you brought it to me." 
 
 " Here," says Mr. Richmond, " my soul melted in 
 an instant, and I could not repress the tears which 
 the emotion excited." 
 
 I heard froni a lady who keeps the key of the 
 cemetery, that travelers are often there to look upon 
 her grave. It is like other graves of poor children, 
 only with a beautiful white stone, alwaj's kept clean 
 and legible by those who honor her memory. Thus 
 
INTR OD UC TlOm 9 
 
 is the Scripture verified, "Them that honor me I will 
 
 honor." 
 
 This, jou see, is not a story book, although there 
 
 are stories in it. But they are true stories. Uncle 
 
 John and I are both perfectly certain that children 
 
 oan be interested in things true, and which are 
 
 intended to instruct as well as to entertain. May you 
 
 find in this little book both pleasure and profit, is 
 
 the wish of 
 
 Aunt Esther. 
 
Uncle John u 
 
 PON HIS Travels. 
 
 LETTER FIRST. 
 
 LIFE ON SHIPBOARD. 
 
 Dear Boys and Girls: 
 
 HEN I was a child, there was a queer 
 little verse which we were very fond 
 of repeating, although I always won- 
 dered, and have not done wondering 
 yet, what it could mean. This is the way it 
 ran: 
 
 *' Uncle John is very sick; 
 
 What shall we send him? 
 A piece of pie, a piece of cake. 
 
 What shall we send it in? 
 In a golden saucer." 
 
12 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 I little thought that one day I should be, 
 myself, Uncle John, and that while tossing and 
 rolling in a ship at sea this funny little verse — 
 at least its first line — would be almost the only 
 thing I could think of. The things, however, 
 which it is proposed to " send" Uncle John were 
 of very little value to me. I would not have 
 given a pin for all the "pies and cakes" on the 
 ship, nor for as many " golden saucers " as could 
 be piled to the top of the mast. One day the 
 stewardess, kind Mrs. Travers, asked me, " Is 
 there not something you would like to have.''" 
 and I answered her, " I believe thai the best 
 thing in all the world for me, just now, would be 
 a good slice of solid ground." I must tell you 
 what a kind friend I found in the man who takes 
 care of the state-rooms. They call him the bed- 
 room steward. His name is Frank Moflat. He 
 was as kind to me as possible; brought me the 
 things I wanted with such a pleasant smile, and 
 would come and ask me so nicely what I pre- 
 ferred to eat, suggesting such little messes as he 
 knew are best when one is sea-sick, that really it 
 seemed as if he thought I was Uncle John, and 
 that all the boys and girls wished him to take 
 
LIFE ON SHIPBOARD. 1 3 
 
 good care of me. I shall never forget Frank 
 Moffat, and I hope that you will not, either. 
 
 After all, I am not sorry that I was sick. It 
 seems so delicious to be well again. Indeed, I 
 think that very often, perhaps generally, when 
 people are getting well they are glad they have 
 been sick. Getting well is almost better than 
 health itself, while I am sure that we appreciate 
 health after sickness as we never did before. I 
 wonder if when we reach heaven — as I earnestly 
 pray we all of us may, in God's good time — we 
 shall not be all the happier for having suffered 
 so much on the earth; if even the holiness of 
 heaven will not be brighter and more blessed to 
 us after having seen and felt the hatefulness and 
 the wretchedness of sin. 
 
 I did not think, at one time, that I should 
 make my first letter to you about our passage 
 across the Atlantic, but wait until I had met with 
 something in England, where I now am, that 
 might interest you. You see, however, that I am 
 in a hurry to be talking to you again, and you 
 have made me believe that you yourselves will 
 be in some haste to hear from us. Besides, I 
 suppose that very few of you haA^e ever seen a 
 
14 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 ship, and none of you perhaps understand very 
 well what a ship is, or how they live and what 
 they do on board of one. So I am going to tell 
 you, and I think we shall find a nice little 
 Sunday-school lesson in it all. 
 
 The name of our ship is "The Nevada." 
 You see that she has the name of that little State 
 away over among the Rocky Mountains, in 
 America; how very far away it seems to me, 
 now! She is a magnificently large ship; I 
 scarcely can tell you, so that you can understand, 
 how large. I suppose that if she were placed 
 along the north side of the Court-House Square, 
 in Chicago, she would reach at least two-thirds 
 of the way from Clark Street to LaSalle, and I 
 am certain that she is as long as almost any of 
 the squares, or blocks, in your smaller towns or 
 cities. Being a steamship, she has a very power- 
 ful engine nearly midway from one end to the 
 other. One way from it, towards the stern, is a 
 mast, and the other way from it, towards the 
 bow, is another. Each of these has four sails, 
 some of them quite large. There is also a sail 
 reaching from the middle of the fore-mast to the 
 bow. Thus there are nine in all, and when they 
 
LIFE ON SHIPBOARD. 
 
 15 
 
 are all set, and the wind blows fair, you may be 
 sure that, what with the sails and what with the 
 steam, the good ship flies like a bird. 
 
 There are a good many officers and men on 
 such a ship as the " Nevada." Besides the Cap- 
 tain, there is the first officer, the second officer, 
 the third officer, the purser, and some others 
 whose titles I do not know. These are all skill- 
 ful men; but the one I noticed as much as any 
 other was one whom I have not named yet — the 
 boatswain. He is emphatically the man of all 
 work. He seems to be the connecting link 
 between the officers and the crew, as he belongs 
 to both. He commands like an officer, but he 
 works like every other sailor. It is his business 
 to see that what the other officers command is 
 done, and often, in order to make the men work 
 right and with a will, he takes hold and shows 
 them how. If the sails are to be set or taken in, 
 he tells them what ropes to pull, and sometimes 
 lays hold and pulls with them ; if the deck is to 
 be scoured, he tells the men to do it, and if they 
 don't suit him in their way of doing it, he goes at 
 it himself; if a sail is to be mended, you may see 
 him showing how to do it, or perhaps even doing 
 
1 6 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS, 
 
 it. He has a silver whistle hung by a cord about 
 his neck, and often you would hear that whistle 
 sounding through the ship, so shrill that it 
 seemed to cut the air like a knife. While the 
 men drew up the sails, for example, he would 
 blow upon his whistle, giving them the signal ; 
 in one way of blowing it that they should pull, 
 pull harder, harder yet, and in another that the 
 sail was up and they might stop. When the 
 men were in their cabin, he- would blow his 
 whistle, and out they would come. A w-onder- 
 ful thing, when you think of it, is the boat- 
 swain's silver whistle. Our boatswain was a 
 short, thick-set man, not nicely dressed like the 
 other officers, but looking as if all he thought 
 about was getting the work of the ship done. 
 He had a sharp, black eye, and a rugged face, 
 which had a look all the while as if he were 
 saying to himself, " What lazy dogs these men 
 are!" He was not a polite man, by a great deal, 
 and seemed to have but very few words for any 
 body, even his superior officers. His voice was 
 hoarse and rugged, like himself, as if it might 
 have become so by his swallowing so much 
 north wind. I don't know his name, but if 
 
LIFE ON SHIPBOARD. 1 7 
 
 I were to give him one, it would be Jack 
 Rough-and-Ready. I liked him, for my part, 
 about as well as any man on the ship, he seemed 
 so thorough-going and so sturdy. 
 
 Now I must tell you a few things about what 
 they do on a ship. A curious part of it is the 
 way they have of dividing the time. They have 
 clocks and watches to be sure, but for certain 
 purposes they have bells. There are two bells 
 on the ship, one near the stern where the man is 
 who steers, and another forward of the engine. 
 These bells are rung, one after another, at each 
 hour and half hour. For example, in this way : 
 Say they begin to reckon their time at twelve 
 o'clock, noon. At half-past twelve each bell is 
 struck once. At one o'clock each is struck twice, 
 or with one quick double stroke. This is two 
 hells. At half-past one this double stroke is 
 repeated, and followed by one single stroke. 
 At two they give each bell two double strokes; 
 this is four bells. At half-past two the same, 
 with the single stroke as before, for the half 
 At three, there are three double strokes, 
 making six bells^ and at half-past the same as 
 before. At four there are four double strokes, 
 
1 8 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 and this is eight bells. And now they beg'ti 
 agfain and 2:0 the same round: so that five o'clock 
 is two bells, six o'clock is four bells, seven o'clock 
 is six bells, eisfht o'clock is eisfht bells. Then 
 nine o'clock is two bells again, ten o'clock is four 
 bells, eleven o'clock is six bells, and twelve 
 o'clock is eight bells. 
 
 Thus you see that eight bells comes three times 
 in every twelve hours, with intervals of foui 
 bours each between. At each of these eight 
 bells some important things are done, such as 
 permitting those who have had charge of the ves- 
 sel during the four hours to rest, and calling 
 others to take their places; that is changing the 
 watch. So these intervals are called watches. 
 In ancient times they had similar things, not 
 only on ship-board, but in armies and cam^Ds, and 
 so common was this that even other people 
 besides soldiers and sailors would divide the 
 night, especially, in the same way. Don't you 
 remember some places in the New Testament 
 where it speaks about the third and fourth 
 " watclies" of the night.'' 
 
 Another thing I must tell you about is how 
 they ascertain how fast the ship goes, and how 
 
LIFE ON SHIPBOARD. 1 9 
 
 far she sails each day. Of course, it is not, when 
 you are on a ship at sea, as when you are riding 
 in a railway train on land. There are no mile- 
 stones to show you how far you have gone, and 
 how much firther you have to go. At the same 
 time it is quite as important for those in charge 
 of a ship to know where they are, as it is for 
 those in charge of a train. Now they tell how 
 fast a ship goes by what is called casting the log. 
 I can remember when I thought that really they 
 did find this out by throwing a log into the sea, 
 but how that would show it puzzled me, as I 
 think it would almost anybody. 
 
 But the log, it so happens, is just no log at all. 
 It is a long cord, about as large round as a 
 clothes-line, fastened at one end to a kind of 
 reel, or large spool, on which it is wound. This 
 big spool has a smooth round stick running 
 through it lengthwise, about which it turns 
 easily, and each end of this, when the log is in 
 use, is held by a sailor. At the other end of the 
 line, that which is dropped into the sea, is a 
 small cloth bag, perhaps six inches long and four 
 inches broad, with one end open and the other 
 shut. They " cast the log" by dropping this end 
 
20 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 of the line and Its little bag into the sea, with 
 the open end of the bag towards the ship. Of 
 course the bag fills with water, and then begins 
 to drag, being heavier than it was before. It 
 drags just hard enough to make the big spool 
 turn round and the line run off, while it remains 
 very nearly In the same place itself. Now, as it 
 is the motion of the ship that makes the line run 
 off, of course the line goes out just as fast as the 
 ship moves, and if you know how many feet of 
 line have run out In a given time, you know 
 how many feet the ship has gone in the same 
 time. They have a way of knowing this. 
 
 One of the sailors, while the rest are man- 
 aging the line, holds in his hand a glass, made 
 like an hour-glass, but so arranged that the sand 
 In it runs from one of the broad ends Into the 
 other, through the little passage In the middle, 
 in a mucl^ less time than one hour. We will 
 say that it is half a minute, or fifteen seconds. 
 There are knots made In the line at certain dis- 
 tances; suppose it to be twenty-two feet. Two 
 hundred and forty of these knots, with the twenty- 
 two feet between each of them, would make just 
 a mile, or 5,280 feet. Two hundred and forty 
 
LIFE ON SHIPBOARD. 21 
 
 times fifteen seconds, too, is 3,600 seconds, or 
 the number of seconds in an hour. So fifteen 
 seconds is the same part of an hour that twenty- 
 two feet is of a mile. Thus, you see, if the 
 ship went only fast enough so that one of these 
 knots would run oflf — one of these spaces of 
 twenty-two feet — in fifteen seconds, it would be 
 going at the rate of just one mile an hour. The 
 sailor would call that one "knot" an hour, be- 
 cause only one knot of the line had run out. 
 That would be very slow sailing indeed. But 
 suppose twelve of the knots run off* in fifteen 
 seconds, — you come along then and you notice 
 that Jack's face looks very bright, and you ask 
 him, "How does she go now.'"' and he says, 
 " Twelve knots, sir." He means that the ship 
 is going at the rate of twelve miles in an hour; 
 and his face looks bright because the sailors all 
 like to have the ship go fast. 
 
 Now, you see that by casting the log several 
 times, and comparing the results, they can in 
 any case know what is the average rate of 
 sailing. These several results, with the sum 
 of them for each day, they put down in what 
 is called the " log-book." I will tell you what 
 
22 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 our log-book showed as to our rate of sailing: 
 On the first day we sailed 237 miles, on the 
 second 265, on the third 270, on the fourth 
 281, on the fifth 274, on the sixth 270, on the 
 seventh 292, on the eighth 284, on the ninth 
 300, on the tenth 315, on the eleventh 240. The 
 sum of all these numbers is 3,028. The distance 
 from New York to Liverpool is, I believe, about 
 that. So you see that they can know pretty 
 nearly how fast a ship sails every day. 
 
 There will be something more to tell you 
 in the next letter. 
 
LETTER SECOND. 
 
 LIFE ON SHIPBOARD CONCLUDED, 
 
 Dear Boys and Girls: 
 
 TILL another thing it is very im- 
 portant to know, and that is where- 
 abouts on the ocean the ship is; that 
 is, its latitude and longitude. I will 
 try to tell you how they find this, and in as 
 few words as possible. Some of you know 
 already, that if a person is standing somewhere 
 in that part of the earth where the equator is 
 • — that is the line that is supposed to run round 
 it from east to west — he will see the sun at 
 noon directly over his head. If he then walks 
 away from that place and comes north a few 
 miles, he will see the sun, as he looks up to it 
 at noon, not exactly overhead, but a little to 
 
24 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS^ 
 
 the south of him, as if the sun had moved, 
 and not he. And the sun seems to move just 
 as fast in one direction as he does move in the 
 other. Suppose, then, that he wants to know 
 how far north he has come. If he can find 
 how far the sun has seemed to move south, 
 that will tell him, and that will be his lati- 
 tude^ that is, it will show him how far he is 
 from the equator. Now the Captain of a ship 
 has an instrument which he calls a quadrant 
 — a very curious one, but I must not describe 
 it — by means of which he can always tell, 
 when the sun is in sight, how far the sun is 
 from the point in the sky directly overhead. 
 We will suppose that our Captain some day 
 finds, after taking an " observation," as they 
 call it, that the sun is fifty degrees down from 
 that point towards the place where the sea and 
 sky seem to meet, or the horizon. He knows, 
 then, that his ship is at the fiftieth degree of 
 north latitude. That is, he is fifty degrees north 
 of the equator; that is where he is, reckoning 
 north and south. 
 
 How can he tell where he is, reckoning east 
 and west.'' You know that every circle has 
 
LIFE ON SHIPBOARD. 
 
 25 
 
 three hundred and sixty degrees. The sun, 
 every da}^, in consequence of the earth turning 
 fair!}' over just once in that time, secms^ itseH', 
 to have gone round the earth in a circle. Of 
 course, in that circle there are 360 degrees. It 
 takes it 24 hours to go through that number 
 of degrees. Divide 360 by 24 and it will show 
 you how many degrees it passes over each hour. 
 You will find that it is just fifteen. Now, 
 the earth revolving from west to east, the sun 
 seems to move, in consequence, from east to 
 west, and this it is that makes the h'me of day^ 
 as you know; and in making the time of day 
 it goes, as I showed you, just fifteen degrees 
 of distance in one hour of time. 
 
 Let us now imagine two men standing, one 
 towards the east and the other towards the west, 
 and in a straight line, from one to the other. 
 The one at the west calls out: 
 
 *' Halloo, over there, my friend, you early 
 bird, always farther along in the da}^ than I 
 am, let me try how I may. Do you know how 
 far apart we are ? " 
 
 "Why, no," says Early Bird, "I declare I do 
 not; but I think it must be a good piece, a 
 2 
 
26 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 thousand miles or so, for I can hardly hear you 
 call." 
 
 " Well, then," says the other, " tell me, at 
 any rate, what time it is by your watch. The 
 sun always reaches you before it does me, and 
 they taug-ht me, when I was a boy, that he 
 goes round the world at the rate of fifteen 
 degrees, or nine hundred miles, as there are 
 sixty miles in a degree, in an hour. So, if we 
 compare our watches, and see what the differ- 
 ence in time is, I guess we can tell what the 
 difference in place^ or the distance, is." You 
 see that as he is towards the West he is a 
 Yankee, and so he says " / guessT 
 
 Early Bird looks at his watch, and it is just 
 two o'clock. Yankee looks at his, and it is 
 exactly one o'clock. "Just an hour's differ- 
 ence," calls out Yankee, " and so the distance 
 is fifteen degrees, or nine hundred miles." 
 
 " Well," says Early Bird, " I thought it must 
 be not far from a thousand miles, your voice 
 sounded so faint. You know men can't talk 
 to each other at a distance of much more than 
 a thousand miles apart." 
 
 So you see there is always a difterence of 
 
LIFE ON SHIPBOARD. 2*J 
 
 fifteen degrees in distance, east and west, be- 
 tween places for every hour's difference in time, 
 as shown by the sun. Now, if there should 
 be some one place on the earth's surface agreed 
 upon from which distance should be reckoned, 
 and if a person sailing on the ocean could know, 
 at any time of day, exactly what time it was 
 at that place, he could tell his distance from it. 
 The captain of a ship >^a5 something that tells 
 him this, exactly. It is called a chronometer, 
 and it shows, always, what time it is in Lon- 
 don, the place from which distance east and 
 west is usually reckoned. Suppose, then, that 
 one day our Captain looks at his chronometer 
 and finds that in London it is just eleven o'clock. 
 Then he says, "If I can find out what time it 
 is here, I shall know whei'e I am, and I shall 
 know this," he adds, " if I can find how high 
 the sun is." So he takes his quadrant, as be- 
 fore, and measures by it, not this time how 
 low down the sun is, but how high up it is. 
 He finds that where his ship now is it is ten 
 o'clock. There is, therefore, a difference of one 
 hour of time, and so his distance from London 
 is fifteen degrees, or nine hundred miles, lu 
 
28 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS, 
 
 other words, his longitude, or distance west from 
 London, is fifteen degrees. Thus he has ascer- 
 tained that his distance north is fifteen degrees, 
 and his distance west fifteen degrees. He finds 
 the place on the map where these lines of lati- 
 tude and longitude meet, and that shows him 
 just where he is. 
 
 I ought to add that the Captain's map, or 
 chart, shows him always where he ought to be. 
 If, then, he finds that in this case he is where he 
 ought not to be, he goes to his compass, and 
 directs the course to be changed; that is, com- 
 mands the man at the wheel, or helm, to turn 
 it, so that the ship will move in the way it ought 
 to go. 
 
 There are other things which I might tell 
 you, but this must suffice now, and I am afraid 
 I have been too long already. But, f'ear boys 
 and girls, what may it all remind us of .^ Sup- 
 pose we say it reminds us of the ship " Salva- 
 tion." In this ship Jesus is the Captain ; and 
 the wonderful thing about him is that he is 
 not sometimes on deck and sometimes in the 
 cabin, sometimes in the forward part of the 
 ship, sometimes in the after-part, sometimes 
 
LIFE ON SHIPBOARD. 29 
 
 awake, and sometimes asleep. lie Is at each 
 moment in every part of the ship ahke. His 
 "eyes are in every place, beholding the evil 
 and the good." The officers in this ship of 
 which Jesus is the captain, are his ministers; 
 but they are not, as officers frequently do, to 
 think themselves better than the rest. They 
 must be more like the boatswain, " ready to 
 every good word and work," than like the 
 first, second, and third officers, who walk the 
 deck In gentlemen's clothes. Then again, in 
 the ship which Jesus commands there are no 
 passengers, or 'at least there ought to be none; 
 no one whose business It simply Is to enjoy 
 himself, be waited upon, walk about the deck, 
 eat, drink, and sleep ; all must help work the 
 ship. The compass Is God's word, and it always 
 points straight to heaven. Casting the log is 
 examining ourselves, whether we be in the 
 faith. Taking observations is studying the his- 
 tory of God's dealings, whether with us, or with 
 the church at large; with his gracious, un- 
 changing purpose as the sun by day and the 
 star by night. How happy. If we all sail In this 
 good ship, " looking unto Jesus," our Captain, 
 
30 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TEA VELS. 
 
 *' the author and the finisher of our faith ! " 
 How happy if, on a much fairer morning than 
 that on which our ship sailed into Livei*pool, 
 you and I, dear young reader, sail into the 
 heavenly port, safely arrived from the long 
 voyage ! 
 
 I must tell you in a word about the children 
 on board. There were seven of them. They 
 gave me their names, and I have them down 
 in my note-book. They took a great liking to 
 Aunt Esther, at which I am not the least sur- 
 prised — are you? One evening they made her 
 tell them a story for every letter in the alphabet. 
 After she had got through she came into the 
 state-room where Uncle John was and said, 
 "Oh dear!" and when she told me what she 
 had been doing, I am sure I did not wonder she 
 should say, "Oh dear!" 
 
 But now. Good-bye. I am like all other talk- 
 ative old men ; I never know when to leave off. 
 It is as when we were at the harbor of Qiieens- 
 town, in Ireland, and the pilot wanted them to 
 stop the ship. " Stop her," he called out, but 
 they did not seem to understand. '-'-Stop her!" 
 he vociferated once more, with all his strength. 
 
LIFE ON SHIPBOARD. 
 
 31 
 
 The reader of this description, I am sure, has 
 been saying, for some time, "Stop her;" and 
 now he says, ''Stop her!'' Well, I will stop 
 her. And now she stops. 
 
 Uncle John. 
 
>LETTER THIRD. 
 
 A LONDON SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 
 
 Dear Boys and Girls: 
 
 AM veiy glad that 1 am able to 
 describe to yon, in this letter, a Lon- 
 don Sunday-school, and to tell you 
 something about the Sunday-schools 
 generally of this great city. Last Sabbath, in 
 the aftemoon, I went with Col. J. T. Griffin, 
 who once lived in Chicago, and was Superin- 
 tendent of the North Baptist School, to the 
 Sunday-school of Regent's Park chapel, where 
 Rev. Wm. Laadels, D.D., a veiy able and 
 excellent man, is pastor. You see that I say 
 "chapel," and not '^ church," as we should say 
 in America. To "• attend church," in this coun- 
 try, is to go to some of the places of worship 
 of the Church of England, that is the church 
 
A L OND ON S UNDA T- S CHO OL. 33 
 
 supported by the Government, the Established 
 Church. This is a way of speaking which peo- 
 ple have, although Baptists, Methodists, and 
 other bodies, think that their churches ai-e 
 churches, jus? >.b much as those connected with 
 the Establishment. There is a church at Re- 
 gent's Park chapel, and it is a Baptist church, 
 and a good one too. I will tell you more about 
 the Sunday-school further on. Just here I must 
 deliver a message from the children, and in 
 order to come at it easily, perhaps I had best 
 tell how they came to send it. 
 
 Uncle John was invited to address the school, 
 but at first declined because he thought every- 
 thing would be so strange to him that he should 
 be embarrassed, and frightened, and not know 
 what to say. But as he went round among 
 the classes he found that the boys and girls 
 looked just as boys and girls do in America, 
 and they were so pleasant, and seemed so much 
 interested in trying to learn good things out of 
 the Bible, that finally he concluded he should 
 not be so much afraid of them, after all. And 
 then, as he told them in a little speech which 
 he made, he wished to write to his young friends 
 
34 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 in America about this, the first Sunday-school 
 which he had visited in London, and it did not 
 seem quite fair to do this without asking their 
 consent. So he said to them, 
 
 "Are you wilHng that I should write about 
 you to the boys and girls of the Northwestern 
 S ates in America ? If so, just raise your right 
 hands, that I may know." 
 
 And every hand came up; they seemed very 
 willing, and very much pleased. 
 
 Then he said : " Now the Sunday-school chil- 
 dren in America will, I am sure, be greatly 
 interested in learning about this school in Lon- 
 don, that wonderful city of which they have 
 heard so much. If they had known that I was 
 going to meet you here, they would all have 
 sent their love to you. Would you not like to 
 send this message to them? Shall I say to 
 them that the boys and girls in the Regent's 
 Park Sunday-school in London, send their love 
 to the Sunday-schools in the Northwestern States 
 of America?" 
 
 And ever}^ hand came up again. This is how 
 
 *it happened that I have this message to send 
 
 you. Of course, they did not know that I was 
 
A LONDON SUNDAl'.SCHOOL. 
 
 35 
 
 Uncle John until I told them, nor did they 
 realize that Sunday-school children in England 
 could love Sunday-school children in America, 
 and send pleasant messages to them, until they 
 had been reminded of it; but then they found 
 that they could. And this led Uncle John to 
 mention another thing which he will repeat 
 here, because he would like to have his own 
 boys and girls think about it. He said: 
 
 "It seems almost singular that we should 
 be able to love persons whom we have never 
 seen, and yet I am sure that we can. The 
 children of America can love the children of 
 England, and those in England can love those 
 in America, although they should never see 
 each other in this world. Can any of you tell 
 me of some one whom none of us have ever 
 seen, yet whom we all ought to love?" 
 
 A little boy answered very promptly, "Jesus!" 
 " Yes, Jesus ; we all ought to love him though 
 we have never seen him, and many of us, I 
 hope, do so. But we do not love him all at 
 once, nor just so soon as we begin hearing or 
 reading about him. What must we first be-' 
 come, that we may love Jesus as we ought?" 
 
36 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 The answer was, very j^^'O'^^'pt^y again, 
 " Christians." 
 
 This was a right answer, and Uncle John 
 told them he hoped they might all become 
 Christians, and might all love Jesus, even now 
 while they cannot see him, that at last they 
 may rejoice the more, when they shall '' see 
 him as he is." 
 
 This nice and pleasant school at Regent's 
 Park has upon its list of scholars 756 names; 
 the average attendance is 513. There is, besides, 
 a branch school, what we should call a mission 
 school, with an average attendance of 240. In 
 the two schools there are just about one thousand 
 scholars, all told; which is certainly a very good 
 number indeed. Some things about "the home 
 school," or the one at the chapel, are different 
 from what is customary in America. There are 
 three departments in it, instead of two, as with 
 us. These are called the " Senior School," the 
 "Junior School," and the " Infont School." 
 Tliey meet in separate rooms, but rooms that 
 oi^en into each other in a very convenient 
 way. In the senior school are the largest schol- 
 ars, in the junior school those younger, and in 
 
A LONDON SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 37 
 
 the infant school the Httle bits of folks. I 
 visited all three, and was delighted to see how 
 orderly, attentive, and earnest they seemed to 
 be, with very few exceptions. 
 
 Anotlier thing which they have, and we do 
 not, is the Sunday -morning service. It is the 
 custom in London for the schools to meet 
 twice on each Lord's day; in the morning at 
 ten o'clock, and in the afternoon at three. I 
 find, upon inquiry, that the afternoon school is 
 always much better attended than the morning 
 one, by both scholars and teachers. Indeed, I 
 think a good many are beginning to doubt if 
 they can keep up the morning school at all. 
 Now, at the Regent's Park chapel, the Sunday- 
 school workers, some months ago, began to ask 
 themselves if they could not find some way to 
 make the morning session more attractive to 
 the children. So they determined that they 
 would have what they call a " Sunday-morning 
 service " — not lessons, as in the afternoon, but 
 what we Americans term " a good time gen- 
 erally," in singing, prayers, and addresses. They 
 find that the plan works very well indeed. 
 The children like it, the teachers like it, and 
 
38 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 they have no difficulty now in securing a full 
 attendance. They meet at ten o'clock, spend 
 about half the time till half-past eleven in 
 singing and praying, and the remainder in 
 addresses. 
 
 I w^Ill tell you something more about these 
 addresses. They are given, mostly, by those 
 connected w^ith the school as officers and teach- 
 ers, and other members of the church. If 1 
 give you some of the subjects you w^ill see a 
 little w^hat they are. On the first Sabbath in 
 October, for example. Col. Griffin, who is a 
 greatly beloved member of the church, and has 
 an exceedingly interesting Bible class in the 
 afternoon, addressed the children at their morn- 
 ing service upon the word '' Up." On the first 
 Sabbath in the present month (November) he 
 addressed them upon the letters " H. H. H." — 
 by which he meant the words, " Hark, Heed,- 
 Hold." On the first Sabbath in December his 
 subject will be "Rest." Mr. S. Shirley, a 
 former superintendent, who was very kind in 
 showing Uncle John the different rooms, is to 
 give the address upon the third Sabbath in 
 December. His subject will be, " A Little 
 
A LONDON SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 39 
 
 Child." I think I know what Httle child he 
 will talk about. Mr. Holman, the present super- 
 intendent, speaks at these services quite fre- 
 quently. One of his subjects has been, " Making 
 a Curtsey," another, " Fallen Leaves," another, 
 " A Story of a November Fog." Next nionth 
 he is to speak upon "A Burning Village." Other 
 subjects have been, " A Bunch of Keys," Mr. 
 Brady; "Links in a Chain," Mr. Bailey; "Les- 
 sons from the Life of Moses," Mr. Cluck; 
 "Snakes," Mr. Bompar; "House-Building," 
 Mr. Cluck. These are just specimens. You 
 see that they are what the grown people some- 
 times call "suggestive;" that is, they are things 
 that make us think, almost whether we will 
 or no. 
 
 I asked some of the brethren if this Sunday 
 morning service did not interfere with that of 
 the congregation up stairs. They said it did 
 not, for the children meet half an hour before 
 the congregation does, and so get all through 
 with their singing before the up-stairs' service 
 begins, and after that are very quiet. They are 
 dismissed at half-past eleven, and are gone home 
 before the congregation to whom the pastor has 
 
40 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 been preaching begins to come out. It seemed 
 to me, however, that I should myself prefer to 
 have the children of the families in the con- 
 gregation sit w^ith their parents, at the regular 
 service; but I was told that very few of these 
 children in the Sunday-school are children in 
 families of the congregation. They are mostly 
 of families who perhaps do not attend service 
 regularly anywhere, and many of them, I pre- 
 sume, would be running in the streets if this 
 provision were not made for them. With us, 
 you know, the Sunday-schools are made up 
 very largely from the families of the church 
 and the congregation. I do not think that in 
 America we need such an arrangement so much 
 as it is needed here, and perhaps could not 
 make it work well, anyhow. But I could not 
 help feeling sorry that the children of the 
 regular congregation did not attend the schools 
 here more than they do, both for their own 
 sake and for that of the wandering children 
 whom they might influence by such a good 
 example. 
 
 They are very active, and very systematic, I 
 should think, in this Regent's Park school. 
 
A LONDON SVND AT- SCHOOL. 4 1 
 
 They have the work of each three months laid 
 out in advance, and printed upon cards. Thus 
 on one of the cards I found this : 
 
 Thursday., Nov. 4. — Old Scholars' Meeting. Tea at 
 7 o'clock, 
 
 Tuesday., Nov. 9. — Scholars' Missionary Working 
 Party at 3 o'clock. 
 
 Tuesday., Nov. 16. — Scholars' Missionary Meeting, 
 with Addresses. 
 
 Tuesday, Nov. 23. — Teachers' Business Meeting. 
 Chair to be taken at 3 o'clock. 
 
 On another card, which Is intended to be 
 given to each teacher at the beginning of the 
 month, there is stated what particular service 
 each one is to perforin on each Sabbath of the 
 month. Perhaps it is " sit with the children ; " 
 perhaps " attend at quarter to three," for singing 
 or some other purpose, I suppose ; perhaps 
 " open '* or " close the Senior School," with 
 prayer; perhaps "-open" or "close the Junior 
 School." Then, under this, I find the follow- 
 ing: 
 
 " It is essential., in order to secure efficient teaching 
 and good order., for tack Teacher — 
 
 I. To prepare the lessons before entering the 
 class. 
 
42 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 2. To attend early, and in case of absence to fur- 
 nish a substitute. 
 
 3. To visit scholars at their homes. 
 
 4. To punctually fulfill school engagements; and 
 
 5. To insist upon silence immediately the Super- 
 intendent strikes the bell." 
 
 They are doing a good deal of work, evi- 
 dently, in the Regent's Park church and school. 
 Just see how many societies they have. There 
 is the " Domestic Mission Society," which raised, 
 last year, about fifteen hundred dollars. The 
 branch, or mission school, is sustained by this 
 society; it provides preaching, also, in some 
 of the destitute parts of the city; it has a 
 " Mother's Class," a " Medical Friends' Club," 
 a "Mutual Aid Society," a "Loan Library," 
 and a " Penny Bank," by means of which poor 
 persons are enabled to save a little money. 
 There is besides a Young Men's Association, 
 which has lectures, holds meetings for discus- 
 sions and devotional purposes, and a Sunday 
 conversation meeting, or Bible class, of which 
 I spoke before, and over which Col. Grifiin 
 presides. This meeting, or class, is held every 
 Sunday afternoon, and is made up of all who 
 can l>e induced to attend it. The young men 
 
A LONDON SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 43 
 
 and young ladies of the church and school go 
 out upon the street half an hour before the 
 time, with tracts, and invite, " compel," all 
 they can to " come in ; " and a good many 
 come. Sometimes there are as many as a 
 hundred present. Conversions, too, frequently 
 occur; and there have been instances of care- 
 less ones, brought in from the street, convicted 
 of sin at their first meeting with the class, and 
 soon after brought to Christ. What a truly 
 blessed thing this is! 
 
 Besides these organizations alread}^ named, 
 there are the " Benevolent Society," whose object 
 is to visit and relieve cases of sickness and ex- 
 treme necessity among the poor, at their own 
 habitations;" the "Dorcas Society," which pur- 
 chases and makes up clothing for poor women 
 in the neighborhood ; and the " Missionary 
 Society" which raises money for foreign mis- 
 sions. As nearly as I can ascertain, these several 
 organizations, including the Sunday-schools, raise 
 for the purposes named, at least $4,500. 
 
 I have given you all these particulars that 
 you and the teachers in Sunday-schools, and 
 the members of churches, so far as such may 
 
44 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 care to read what I write, may see something 
 of the way London Baptists work. Probably 
 other churches are equally systematic and faith- 
 ful. I do not wonder that the Lord blesses 
 them. 
 
 I must now tell you that there is in London 
 a Sunday-school Union, in which the faithful 
 w^orkers in different denominations are united 
 for promoting the good cause. Some of the 
 gentlemen connected with this society, especially 
 Mr. Fountain J. Hartley, have been very obliging 
 to me in furnishing me the means of informa- 
 tion regarding this work. I wish I had more 
 room than I have to tell you about it. The 
 exact number of teachers and scholars connected 
 with all the schools of London I have not been 
 able to ascertain, as not all the schools of the 
 city are represented in the Union. As nearly 
 as can be ascertained, however, there were m 
 1867, three years ago, about 986 schools in the 
 city — almost a thousand — with 216,151 scholars 
 in them. I presume there must be now over 
 a thousand schools, with perhaps nearly or 
 quite a quarter of a million of scholars. Of 
 schools connected with the Union there v/ei^, 
 
A LONDON SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 45 
 
 in 1866, or three years since, 652, with 160,158 
 scholars. Of the schools 534 have libraries, con- 
 taining in all 147,284 volumes; 128 of the 
 schools, however, have no libraries. It was 
 supposed, at the time just mentioned, that there 
 were, in England and Wales, 3,000,000 of 
 scholars, and probably this is not far from the 
 number now. 
 
 London contains, you know, a population 
 of more than three millions. It is a pleasing 
 fact that there should be nearly a quarter of a 
 million of Sunday-scholars in the number. But 
 there are a great many boys and girls, even 
 now, who know nothing about Sunday-schools 
 or about Jesus. Faithful men and women are 
 trying hard to provide for them and bring them 
 where they may learn how to be saved. But 
 it is a vast work. Think, dear children, of a 
 single city with more people in it than the 
 whole State of Illinois! O, how many poor 
 and suffering ones there are here! My heart 
 aches for them., as I meet them every time I 
 go out upon the street. If Uncle John had his 
 pockets full of money when he takes his hat 
 and cane and goes for a walk, he might come 
 
46 
 
 UNCLE yo/m UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 back without a sixpence, if he was to give to 
 all who ask, and to whom he would be glad 
 to give. But he has to remember that there is 
 both a "Number One" and a "Number Two" 
 for him to think of, and it would not answer 
 for him to have no money left for the landlady 
 who keeps the lodging-house, or to buy rail- 
 road tickets when he starts next Monday or 
 Tuesday morning for Paris. So you see he 
 must try to harden his head, if not his heart, 
 and not be too " soft." 
 
 Uncle John. 
 
LETTER FOURTH. 
 
 CROSSING MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Dear Boys and Girls: 
 
 N my first letter I told you. something 
 about the way people cross oceans; 
 perhaps you would like to know a 
 few things, also, about crossing moun- 
 tains. There is a considerable difference be- 
 tween the two undertakings, yet sometimes 
 people have to do about as queer things in 
 the one as they do in the other. 
 
 When, in America, I was thinking and pLm- 
 ning about this visit to Europe, it seemed to me 
 that it would be quite an easy matter to get from 
 London to Rome. The whole of Europe takes 
 up but a small part of the map of the eastern 
 continent, and although I knew, of course, that 
 there are some big countries and big people in it, 
 
48 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 still I somehow imagined that one could run 
 across it, from north to south at all events, very 
 much as he might take a run from Chicago 
 down to Cairo. Uncle John, in his simplicity — 
 and all old men who have scarcely been out of 
 sight of their own chimney-tops are simple — did 
 not realize that it is almost fifteen hundred miles 
 from London to Rome, and that whoever goes 
 from one to the other, be it winter, be it sum- 
 mer, must either cross the Alps, or must take 
 a ride on the Mediterranean — a sea that is 
 always, or at least very often, out of temper 
 in the winter season — or must go a round- 
 about way in the stage. 
 
 When I reached Paris, I found that either I 
 must take to the sea again, and suffer prob- 
 ably as I had ah^eady done, or the mountains 
 must be crossed. They told us of a gentleman 
 who had but a few days before been stopped 
 by the snow at the top of Mont Cenis, where 
 the railway over the Alps is, and had spent 
 four days, " living on dry bread and black cof- 
 fee." Still I must go to Rome, and I was less 
 afraid of the snow than of the sea-sickness; 
 so my friend, Mr. " Keynote," and I said to each 
 
CROSSING MOUNTAINS. 49 
 
 Other, *' One man has been snowed In and had 
 a tough time. Others are crossing every day 
 without getting snowed in. Evidently it can 
 be done, so let us try." And that is how we 
 came to cross the mountains. 
 
 In America it is no uncommon thing for 
 railroads to be built across mountains. But all 
 mountains are not like the Alps, by considera- 
 ble. Then our American railroads for the most 
 part may be said to go through mountains, rather 
 than over them; and so are they trying to go 
 through the Alps, or rather under them, in tlie 
 highest part, by means of a tunnel they are now 
 making, which is to be seven miles long. By 
 means of that tunnel they will be able to avoid 
 the worst part of the route by which we came 
 across. At present the road runs square over 
 high Mont Cenis, which is a rather queer thing 
 for a railroad to do. 
 
 You must imagine us then — "Keynote" and 
 myself, for the ladies preferred to stop in Paris — 
 setting out from that city. on a certain evei\ing 
 in a kind of lazy snow-storm, which, however, 
 kept us all the while wondering if it snowed 
 on the mountains too. We had arrived at 
 3 
 
50 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 Paris from London a few days before. Start 
 with us. now, as we get into a "carriage" — 
 that is what they call a "car" in Europe — and 
 wrapping ourselves up in blankets, much as I 
 have seen women roll babies, gradually drop- 
 ping asleep while the train rushes on. We go 
 south for a while, and then turn a little east. 
 I wonder if you can find .Macon on your n:iap 
 of France. That is one of the places where we 
 were. Then we went to a place called Cham- 
 bery, still farther south and a good deal farther 
 east. There we were among the mountains; 
 in Savoy, where the persecuted VValdenses and 
 Albigenses lived and suffered ages ago. I dare- 
 say that they may have had hiding-places among 
 some of these mountains, or may have lived in 
 some of those little valleys that run away up 
 yonder Into their depths, as if made on purpose 
 for God's persecuted saints to hide in. But what 
 mountains they were! — not heavily wooded, 
 from base to summit, as many of our Ameri- 
 can mountains are, but wild, tremendous, awful 
 piles of rocks, heaped up to the very clouds. 
 How stern they looked! And still I loved them, 
 for they have been kind to those to whom man 
 
CROSSING MOUNTAINS. 
 
 51 
 
 was fierce and cruel, and their rocky hearts are 
 soft and tender compared with the hearts of those 
 who used to chase the poor Christians among 
 them, and throw them down the precipices. 
 Have any of you ever read those Hues of Milton, 
 which begin, 
 
 "Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose 
 
 bones 
 Lie buried on the Alpine mountains cold." 
 
 Among these heights it was, somewhere, that 
 the fierce soldiery of the persecutor would hurl 
 
 " Mother with infant down the rocks." 
 
 I wonder if the people who live in the villages 
 that nestle here and there, at the base of these 
 great mountains, are like those Waldenses and 
 Albigenses. Their villages are queer-looking 
 things; clusters of very old dwellings, crowded 
 close together, with little bits of windows, and 
 in appearance as if the pigs and chickens were 
 under the same roof with father and mother and 
 Jean and Elizabetta, and quite as much at home. 
 There is a turnip patch, here a little cabbage 
 garden; there the winter wheat is springing up; 
 
52 UNCLE yOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 and here is a vineyard, the vines stripped of their 
 leaves, but the stakes that held them up still 
 standing. Now and then a group passes along 
 the road near which the railroad runs, plain- 
 looking people, hard-working, evidently, not rich 
 I am very certain — whether they are good I do 
 not know ; I hope they are. 
 
 But we have yet to cross the mountains, and 
 must not dally and chatter down here, when vs^e 
 are many a long mile from those hardest to get 
 over, and the day, meanwhile — for we have rode 
 all night and another is approaching — wanes fast. 
 Well, here at last we are, at San Michel, and 
 here we must change cars; for such a train as we 
 have come in so far could never get over, nor 
 could such a locomotive as we have had climb 
 the great mountain yonder. So we get into 
 some narrow cars where there is barely room for 
 the people to sit down. This is in order that the 
 train may be as light as possible. If we looked 
 at the track before we got in, we saw perhaps a 
 curious thing; that it had three lines of rails in- 
 stead of two, the niiddle one higher than those on 
 the outside. The locomotive, too, if we in 
 spected it, was found to have some additional 
 
CR OS SING MO UNTAINS. 53 
 
 wheels very curiously j^l'^^ced. They are not 
 fixed edgewise, like other wheels, but are placed 
 with the side down, and are held up above the 
 ground so as not to touch it at all. Their edges 
 are rough, made into teeth, as you might say; 
 and that may help us understand why that third 
 rail which we noticed is all full of notches. If 
 we ask the engineer about it, all he will tell us is, 
 that these horizontal wheels are fixed so as to 
 come on each side of that middle rail, and when 
 he wants them to help pull the train he fixes the 
 machinery so that it makes them clasp the rail, 
 and then turn round like the other wheels, while 
 the teeth play in the notches, and every one as it 
 comes in and out gives a push and so helps the 
 locomotive drag its load along. A man by the 
 name of Fell was determined to have a railroad 
 over these mountains, and that is how he went to 
 work to do it. I am sure that he must be a 
 brave man as well as a skillful one, and I almost 
 think that he ought to spell his name with a T 
 instead of an F. I wonder if you know what 
 makes me think so. 
 
 Well, we are not yet over the mountains, nor 
 even started. But at last we get under way. 
 
54 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 Up we go. The train stops every few miles, I 
 suppose to get up fresh steam. Up we go. The 
 river, on whose banks we were a Httle time since, 
 is now far down in the gorge there. The brain 
 ahnost reels as we look. What a beautiful val- 
 ley that is, too, down there, with its little village 
 clustering about the plain old church in the 
 midst. Here, near the side of the track, is the 
 entrance to the tunnel they are making, in order 
 to dodge the mountain we shall come to soon; 
 and here, now, is another village, this time cling- 
 ing to the mountain side, not afraid of the ava- 
 lanche, though I should think it would be. Up 
 we go, and now we are where for hours back we 
 have seen the thick mist and the snow. In the 
 valley below, it was like an April day, so mild 
 and gentle; here it is winter. Do you see that 
 group of boys } Some of the passengers have 
 thrown out pennies, and they scramble for them 
 just as I have seen a lot of wild chickens when 
 some one has thrown amongst them a handful of 
 corn. There is a little girl holding her apron, as 
 we stop for a while, hoping for a penny; she 
 needs it, poor thing, I dare say. And thus we 
 go on and up, till the snow becomes very deep, 
 
CROSSING MOUNTAINS. 55 
 
 and the engine labors and at times nearly stops; 
 but it is plucky, and perseveres ; and so at last we 
 reach the mountain top, where the first Emperor 
 Napoleon caused a " hospice " or house of refuge, 
 to be built, in which persons overtaken by storms 
 on the mountain might find shelter. Back a few 
 miles we saw an immensely strong fort, built to 
 guard the pass, and armed, perhaps, even now, 
 with weapons to kill. I believe Napoleon had 
 something to do with that, too. I like this other 
 building much the best; a long, low, but solid 
 one, with plenty of room, and bright lights in 
 some of the windows that glance cheerfully out 
 into the darkness and the storm. Passing this, 
 we soon begin to go down upon the opposite side 
 of the mountain, and in due time are at Susa, 
 which is in Italy, at the southern base of these 
 western Alps. Here we get a supper, and 
 then take a train with the other sort of cars 
 again, and are off for Turin, and Florence, 
 and Rome. And that is how we cirossed the 
 mountains. 
 
 Now, as I make It out, these several things are 
 necessary in crossing mountains, and I speak of 
 them because crossing mountains is a thing we 
 
56 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 all have to do some time or other, and it is well 
 to know how. 
 
 Fust. I take it, there must be a way over, 
 Mont Cenis, the mountain which we crossed, 
 is a formidable thing- to find in one's path, and 
 I can easily fancy an eagle in some of its rocky 
 heights, screeching- defiance in answer to the 
 scream of the locomotive far down below, and 
 scorning the notion that with anything besides 
 wings the great mountain can be passed. But 
 there is a way over it; one that the eagle does 
 not know of. Somewhat like that of w^hich we 
 read, which the vulture*s eye hath not seen, and 
 which the lion*s whelp hath not ti'od. It is 
 God who makes the ways over the mountains, 
 and when we have found out where these are 
 w^e are ready to begin the work of crossing. 
 He would be a fool who should think of run- 
 ning a locomotive, with its train of cars, up the 
 steep, rocky sides of that impassable, huge bar- 
 rier yonder. Mont Cenis is huge, but it is not 
 impassable, and that makes a vast difference. 
 
 Second. Another thing which I suppose to 
 be necessary, in crossing mountains, is the right 
 means for doing it. Down in the valley we 
 
CROSSING MOUNTAINS. 57 
 
 can have roomy cars, and long trains, and rush 
 away over the easy track as if raih'oading was 
 mere boy's play. It is quite another thing when 
 we have mountains to cross. Something of this 
 sort the Apostle Paul seems to have been think- 
 ing of when he said, " Let us lay aside every 
 weight, and the sins that do most easily beset 
 us, and let us run with patience the race that 
 is set before us." Any sort of train will do for 
 traveling from one city of worldliness to another, 
 w^here all the roads are broad and easy, and we 
 can go as swiftly and as smoothly as we like; 
 but if we mean to cross those mountains of 
 difficulty which tower up between us and heaven, 
 we must go about it in quite another way. 
 
 Thh'd. Another thing necessary in crossing 
 a mountain is that we cj'oss it. This may seem 
 a queer thing to say, but I say it with reason. 
 If you are going over a mountain you must 
 face it, with all its difficulties, take the road uf., 
 not the road down., put on steam and go ahead. 
 The extraordinary way in which some people 
 cross mountains makes me astonished. They 
 wall pretend to be going over, when they are 
 just sitting by the roadside whittling sticks. 
 
 3* 
 
58 UNCLE yOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 They will pretend to be crossing, when with 
 their faces toward the base, not the summit, and 
 will call those people silly who imagine that 
 there can be any difficulty in getting over a 
 mountain. Why, they can do it, and not go up 
 hill a single step ! Such as these are those 
 people who think, or try to, that they and every- 
 body else will be saved without working out 
 their salvation, by any effort at all. They can 
 not imagine what Paul could be thinking of 
 when he spoke about doing these things " with 
 fear and trembling," it is so easy to be saved. 
 Easy it is to be lost, and so, I fear, multitudes 
 of these deluded ones may some day find. 
 
 JPourth. The last thing which I mention is 
 having faith in the conductor. Our conductor 
 was a noisy fellow, but he knew what he w\as 
 about; so did the engineer, a headstrong Eng- 
 lishman. We had a good deal of faith in them ; 
 and when the high walls of snow on either side 
 of the track would almost press against the 
 windows of the car, reaching higher than the 
 car itself, and the engine would puff and filter, 
 and seem just ready to stop, we said, " They'll 
 take us through." And so they did. I am 
 
CROSSING MOUNTAINS. 59 
 
 glad that the conductor of our train knew more 
 about crossing mountains than I did, or ever 
 shall. And I am glad that as I try to get over 
 these big mountains between me and heaven, I 
 can confide in one who knows the way I take. 
 Faith in him does, in a certain sense, " remove 
 mountains;" that is, it causes them to be insur- 
 mountable obstacles no longer. Mont Cenis 
 stands where it has stood for thousands of years. 
 It frowns as sternly; it thunders and storms as 
 ever before. But men have mastered it, and have 
 compelled it to be a highway and a thorough- 
 fare. Jesus does not annihilate the difficulty 
 that is in the way of man's salvation. He 
 takes us over it; and forever and forever, fro-sni 
 the eternal city — much more truly an "Eternal 
 City" than this where I am writing my letter 
 to-night — we shall look back, as I now look 
 back on Mont Cenis, and adore, more and more, 
 the grace that saved us, as we realize what 
 "amazing grace" it was. 
 
 Uncle John. 
 
/if^^^^^l 
 
 >wc^ 
 
 LETTER FIFTH. 
 
 THE TWO CEMETERIES. 
 
 Dear Boys and Girls: 
 
 SUPPOSE that the youngest of you 
 know what cemeteries are. Although 
 they are places where the dead are 
 buried, they are yet quite often places 
 which it is very j^leasant to visit. It was ii 
 happy thought when people began to realize 
 how much may be done to take awa}^ the gloom 
 of even death by surrounding the homes of the 
 dead with pleasant scenes, and to consider how 
 much easier they may find it to feel reconciled 
 to the loss of beloved ones, if, visiting them 
 where they lie, they can see the green leaves 
 shining over them, the smooth turf roofing 
 their narrow house, and sweet flowers near. 
 
THE TWO CEMETERIES. 6 1 
 
 Such cemeteries, too, are interesting places to 
 visit for other reasons. I want to tell you of 
 two, very widely apart, very unlike in many 
 things, but full of interest, which I have seen; 
 one in London, the other at Rome. 
 
 There are two names that you and I have 
 learned to love, one of them especially; two 
 men of whom we hear, perhaps, as often as 
 of any other, save the Bible men. Both had 
 the name of John — John Bunyan and John 
 Wesley. I can remember, ako, meeting in my 
 reading with the names of two localities, once 
 in the suburbs of London, now almost in one of 
 its most crowded districts — Moorfields and Bun- 
 hill Fields. In the time when John Wesley, 
 his brother Charles, and that wonderful preacher, 
 George Whitefield, were living, Moorfields was 
 quite like a country place. The people dwelling 
 there and thereabouts were poor, ignorant and 
 rude. Whitefield and the Wesleys used to gather 
 them together by hundreds in the open air for 
 preaching, and although they were thought a 
 dangerous people to go amongst, and especially 
 to preach to about their sins, still these good 
 men were not afraid of them, but declared 
 
62 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS, 
 
 faithfully the truth as it is in Jesus, so that 
 numbers of them were converted. 
 
 In process of time a chapel was built there, 
 in which Charles Wesley, the brother of John, 
 and the author of a great many beautiful hymns, 
 preached for a long time, and where John Wes- 
 ley himself used to preach frequently. The 
 last Sunday which I spent in London I went 
 in the morning to this chapel. I saw the same 
 pulpit which the Wesleys used, and heard a 
 man preach a s^mon in it. I saw in the 
 vestry the arm-chair in which John Wesley 
 used to sit, and on the walls of the chapel were 
 tablets, or stones with inscriptions, cominemo- 
 rating the excellences and the services of the 
 two men I have named, with Richard Watson, 
 Jacob Bunting, Robert Newton, and others. 
 At the back of the chapel and on one side is 
 v^hat the English people call a church-yard; 
 that is, it is the enclosure in which the church 
 or the chapel stands, and where they bury the 
 dead. In the portion of the yard that is back 
 of the chapel is a large granite monument, very 
 plain, but very becoming to its purpose, on 
 
THE TWO CEMETERIES. 63 
 
 which is a long inscription. I copied a part 
 of it which reads thus: 
 
 To the ATemory of 
 
 The venerable John Wesley, A.M. 
 
 Late Fello-w of Lincoln College, Oxford; 
 
 This great light arose 
 
 {By the singular Providence of God') 
 
 To enlighten these realms, 
 
 And to revive, enforce and defend 
 
 The ftire apostolic doctrine and preaching of 
 
 The primitive church; 
 
 Which he continued to do both by his writings and 
 
 his lips 
 
 For more than half a century. 
 
 And to his inexpressible joy. 
 
 Not 07ily beheld their influence extended^ 
 
 But their ejfficacy ivitnessed 
 
 In the hearts and lives of many thousands. 
 
 The inscription in the chapel states that 
 Wesley was born June 17, 17035 '^^^ died 
 March 3, 1791. He was thus at his death 
 eighty-eight years old. Sixty-five of these he 
 had spent in the ministry of the Gospel, and 
 fifty-two of them as an itinerant preacher. I 
 am not a Methodist, and yet I love John Wes- 
 ley's name and memory. He was a great man, 
 and what is much better, a good man, and the 
 crown he wears in heaven must be all sparkling 
 
64 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 with starry gems, for he turned very many 
 indeed to righteousness. 
 
 Just across the street from this chapel is 
 what is called Bunhill Fields. It does not seem 
 much like going into the fields to go there, 
 any more than it does at Moorfields. The 
 name, too, seems a singular one, and the way 
 it originated is no less so. It seems that when 
 the present St. Paul's church, in London, was 
 built, being considerably larger than old St. 
 Paul's, which had been burned, (this was in 
 the time of Charles II., and more than two 
 hundred years ago), it had to be extended over 
 what had been the old church-yard. Here a 
 large number of persons had been buried long 
 before, and as no stones had been placed over 
 them nobody knew who they were. In digging 
 for the foundations of new St. Paul's it became 
 necessary to disturb these remains. So they 
 were taken up and carried to the place I tell 
 you of and there buried again. From this cir- 
 cumstance the place was called " Bonehill 
 Fields," which in time became Bunhill Fields. 
 
 This, as I told you, is directly across the 
 street from Wesley Chapel. And here, with 
 
THE TWO CEMETERIES. 65 
 
 some others whom I shall name soon, the 
 mother of John and Charles Wesley is buried. 
 The stone now at her grave is a very plain 
 one. It has an inscription, which states that she 
 " was the daughter of Rev. Samuel Annesley, 
 D.D., ejected by the act of uniformity from the 
 Rectory of St. Giles, Cripplegate, August 34, 
 1663. She was the mother of seventeen chil- 
 dren, of whom the most eminent were John 
 and Charles Wesley; the former of whom was, 
 under God, the founder of the people called 
 Methodists. 
 
 " ' In sure and steadfast hope to rise, 
 And claim her mansion in the skies, 
 A Christian here her flesh laid down, 
 The cross exchanging for a crown.' " 
 
 I said that the stone placed over her is small 
 and plain. They are raising money to build 
 a better one, and I had the pleasure of con- 
 tributing a small sum to this object. 
 
 But there is another thing at Bunhill Fields 
 that interested me more than anything else 
 there, or even than what I saw at the other 
 place over the way ; this was the tomb of John 
 Bunyan. It is of common gray stone; in form 
 
66 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 like a large stone chest, with the lid projecting 
 at the edges. Upon the flat top is a figure, 
 or effigy, of Bunyan, lying upon his back, with 
 an open Bible in his left hand. On each side 
 of the monument is a figure of Christian, as 
 represented in the Pilgrim's Progress. In one 
 of them he is just setting out from the City 
 of Destruction, carrying the heavy burden of 
 his sins; in the other he has arrived at the 
 Cross, and as he looks up at it the burden 
 drops from his back and rolls away into an 
 open sepulchre, never to be seen again. At 
 one end of the monument is this simple inscrip- 
 tion: 
 
 John Bunyan, 
 
 Author of "Pilgrim's Progress," 
 
 Died i6S8, aged 60. 
 
 That is all, and it is quite enough. At the 
 otlier end one reads that this monument was 
 " restored by public subscription under the presi- 
 dency of the Right Honorable the Earl of 
 Shaftesbury, May, 1863." This means that the 
 stone had become defaced, and the inscription 
 scarcely legible, on account of its age, and that 
 
THE TWO CEMETERIES. 67 
 
 the figures and words were cut over again, so 
 tliat they could be plainly seen. 
 
 There was also another name at Bunhill 
 Fields which the boys and girls do not know 
 so well as they do that of Bunyan, although 
 a book written by the man who once bore it 
 is almost as popular with them — with some 
 of them I am afraid more popular — than even 
 " Pilgrim's Progress." We had to look for the 
 stone on which this name is chiseled for a 
 good while, it is so small and low, but at last 
 we found it. This is what we read: 
 
 Daniel Defoe, 
 
 (^Author of 
 
 Robinson Crusoe), 
 
 Who died April 24, 1781, 
 
 In his ^oih year. 
 
 I do not think that Daniel Defoe was as 
 great a man as John Bunyan, or as good a 
 man, but I was glad to see where his ashes 
 lie, although sorry that a better stone does not 
 mark the spot. 
 
 Bunhill Fields, I am compelled to say, is not 
 a pleasant spot. I spoke at the beginning of 
 cemeteries as now being made very delightful. 
 
68 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS, 
 
 This of which I am speaking is not one of 
 those. I doubt if there is a tree anywhere 
 within the enclosure. I saw no green grass, 
 nor a flower, nor anything to remind of life. 
 Everything spoke only of death, and in its most 
 naked and most forbidding form. All 'the 
 stones were of the rough gray kind, much 
 blackened by the smoke and the rains, while 
 numbers of the inscriptions were so worn that 
 it was impossible to read them. Qiiite differ- 
 ent, in these respects, is the cemetery which I 
 have visited to-day, and which is the other one 
 of the two I proposed to write you about. It 
 is li€re at Rome, fifteen hundred miles away 
 from. London; here, in Catholic Rome, but a 
 Protestant cemetery. 
 
 Shall I tell you when I determined that if I 
 came to Rome I would visit this cemetery.'' 
 It was some months ago, after reading in a 
 certain book that, according to the most reliable 
 accounts, it was here that the apostte Paul was 
 beheaded. Perhaps you know that some dis- 
 tance away from Rome, and at the mouth of 
 the Tiber, is Ostia, which used to be quite an 
 important place, though now veiy far from 
 
THE TWO CEMETERIES. 69 
 
 being so. It was the fort of Rome, where all 
 the vessels came, where the grahi was brought 
 from foreign countries to supply the great city, 
 and where the ships of war, with their soldiers 
 and sailors on board, would sail in and out. 
 There was a road, one of the noble Roman 
 roads, made from the city to Ostia, a distance 
 of fifteen miles. The road passes through one 
 of the city gates, in the wall now so old and 
 moss-covered, and runs near the river on to 
 where the old port used to be. Once it was 
 thronged as it now never is with marching 
 soldiers, with sailors on leave from their ships, 
 with teams bringing grain, with groups of 
 horsemen, perhaps a Roman knight and his 
 escort; with a busy multitude, and at all hours 
 of the day. 
 
 The road I have described runs along the river 
 for quite a distance before it passes througli the 
 gate and so begins to leave the city. For much 
 of the way, too, it is through open tracts, or 
 where the houses are very sparse and the trees 
 are growing. Near the gate in the wall tliere 
 is a tall pyramid, built of square stone. The 
 wall runs up to it on each side, and is built 
 
7© UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 against it, so that the pyramid seems to make 
 part of the wall, although much higher. It was 
 erected about the commencement of the Chris- 
 tian era, and so is almost nineteen hundred 
 years old. It was built as the monument of 
 Caius Cestius, a Roman, and one of the mag- 
 istrates of the city. Now the book I was 
 reading, " Conybeare and Howson's Life of St. 
 Paul," says that the most probable account of 
 the death of the great apostle is, that he was 
 led out towards the outer wall of the city along 
 the Ostian road, and near the base of that pyra- 
 mid was beheaded. At the same time that I 
 went to the place I am describing, I passed 
 still farther on till almost a mile beyond the city 
 wall, and there I saw and entered a magnificent 
 church, under the altar of which they say that 
 both Paul and Timothy are buried. I am sure 
 I do not know whether they are so or not. But 
 it was thrilling to be there and think even that 
 they ?night be. 
 
 Now it is close by that pyramid of Cestius, on 
 the side of the wall towards the city, and close 
 up to it, that the Protestant cemetery is. It is not 
 lai"ge, neither is it laid out so handsomely as 
 
THE TWO CEMETERIES. 
 
 71 
 
 a great many in our American cities; but it is 
 a quiet, pleasant spot, and men are employed 
 to keep the walks neat, the hedges nicely 
 trimmed, and to see that no one defaces or in- 
 jures any thing there. The persons buried there 
 are mostly those who came to Rome, as I have, 
 to visit it, or perhaps to live for a few years, and 
 were taken sick and died. They v^ere, I noticed, 
 from America, from England, Ireland, Scotland, 
 Holland, Germany, and other countries. Among 
 them is the wife of Hon. Lewis Cass, who used 
 to live in Michigan, in his life an eminent states- 
 man. She was a daughter of Hon. John A. 
 King, another eminent American. On one mon- 
 ument I read, " He giveth his beloved sleep; " on 
 another, " Weeping may endure for a night, but 
 joy Cometh in the morning;" on another, that 
 of a young girl of fourteen, " Because I live ye 
 shall live also." Very unlike these is that upon 
 the stone that marks the grave of John Ke-ats, 
 who wrote, while he lived, such beautiful poetry, 
 but died so unhappily : 
 
 "This grave contains all that was mortal of a 
 young English poet, who, on his death-bed, in the 
 bitterness of his heart at the malicious power of 
 
72 UNCLE yOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 his enemies, desired these words to be written upon 
 his tombstone : 'Here lies one whose name was writ 
 in water.' Feb. 24, 1S21." 
 
 How much better it is to be a Christian, and 
 "sleep" as one of the Lord's "beloved," than to 
 be the best poet that ever lived, without this! 
 Shelley, another English poet, is also buried 
 here. 
 
 It would be nice to know whether this is really 
 the place where Paul was beheaded. I almost 
 feel sure that it was. Returning to the city I 
 passed over ground where perhaps his own feet 
 trod. He may have looked back upon the tow- 
 ers and dwellings of the city, and seen them 
 much as I saw them, perhaps with a sorrow 
 like that of Jesus as he wept over Jerusalem. 
 I know that he went bravely, not afraid to die; 
 for had he not written, perhaps only a day or 
 two before, " I am now ready to be offered, and 
 the time of my departure is at hand. I have 
 fought a good fight, I have finished my course, 
 I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid 
 up for me a crown of righteousness, which the 
 Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me; and 
 not to me only, but to all them who love his 
 
TITE TWO CEMETERIES. 
 
 73 
 
 appearing." Paul, Bunyan, the Wesleys, and 
 many a one besides, are wearing that crown. 
 Is there one preparing for each of us, dear young 
 friends.? God grant that it may be so, is the 
 prayer of 
 
 Uncle John. 
 
LETTER SIXTH. 
 
 CHRISTMAS IN PARIS. 
 
 Dear Boys and Girls: 
 
 ERHAPS I had better not tell you 
 the name of the person who wrote 
 the jingle which I shall ask the editor 
 at home to print in this letter. But as 
 he uses several French words, I must tell you 
 what they mean. Gargon (pronounce the g like 
 an s) is "waiter;" jille is "maid-servant;" Ma- 
 dame is the title usually given to the lady in 
 charge of a French lodging-house; recherche is 
 "stylish;" hon jour is "Good-day," or "Good- 
 morning;" Eh blen is "well;" Monsieur^ oi 
 course, is " Sir," and is often used in addressing a 
 gentleman, instead of his name; a Chicago is "at 
 Chicago;" a Pans (pronounced Paree^) at Paris. 
 
CimiSTMAS IN- PARIS. 
 
 IS 
 
 You know, I suppose, that cai'te dc visite is a 
 gentleman's or lady's " card," such as they use in 
 making calls. You may now read what this 
 "poet" — a very poor one I think — tells about 
 his Christmas in Paris, and then I will tell you 
 about mine. 
 
 On the morning of Christmas, as musing I sat 
 
 In mj lodgings at Paris, upon the third flat, 
 
 And wondering if Christmas would be as of jore, 
 
 As bright and as glad — came a knock at the door. 
 
 Assured 'twas \h.& gar<;on., ihejille, or Madame, 
 
 I opened, and there stood a spruce little man. 
 
 From his toe to his top he was perfect in style; 
 
 Not a stain on his boot, not a scratch on his tilej 
 
 Not a wrinkle to mar the superlative set 
 
 Of waistcoat or coat, or recherche cravat. 
 
 One hand wore its glove, the other was bare, 
 
 That the public might notice the diamond rings there. 
 
 This flourished a cane, thai was held ready 
 
 To do the polite to a gent or a lady. 
 
 One fault in his physique I could not but see; 
 
 A fop should be slender, but not so was he. 
 
 In fact, though the word would perhaps have appalled 
 
 him, 
 His rigging apart, I should surely have called hhn 
 Some rubicund Dutchman abroad for his beer, 
 Or Old Christmas, himself, thus earlj^ astir. 
 
 Qiiite crushed by such elegance, while I stood mule, 
 '■^ Bon jour " said my friend with a killing salute; 
 
76 
 
 UNCLE yOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 '''■Monsieur, I crave pardon, so early a guest, 
 
 But allow me to wish ' Merry Christmas,' at least.** 
 
 Recalled to mj senses, I hastened to say, 
 
 " Walk in, sir, walk in, and be seated I pray; 
 
 On the sofa, I beg, and kindly, dear sir, 
 
 Receive my best thanks for the grace you confer.** 
 
 Qj-iite briskly and gaily he entered, and took 
 
 The seat I had offered, then airily spoke. 
 
 While under the smirk on his shining, fat face, 
 
 A something familiar I now seemed to trace: 
 
 '* Monsieur does not know me, I plainly can see; 
 
 My carte de visite, if I make not too free." 
 
 On the finest card-paper, and daintily set 
 
 In gilt edges and flourishes bright and complete. 
 
 Bewildered and wondering, half out of my head — 
 
 You will scarcelj^ believe it, 'twas this that I read : 
 
 " Sauta Claus, chez lut, h la Rue Rivoli 
 
 Nuinero cinquatite-neuf ; venez a dinde rotie.^^* 
 
 "You see, Monsieur, we're not strangers at all, 
 
 Nor is this the first time I have made you a call. 
 
 It should not make us strangers, that this side the sea 
 
 We meet, not a Chicago, but instead a Paris.^ 
 
 " Dear friend, pray excuse me," I stammering began, 
 
 "But in truth, I — I — ." "Yes," said the gay little 
 
 man, 
 " I know what you mean; you think strange 
 Of this which to you seems a marvelous change. 
 You ask, 'Where are the reindeers, the sleigh, and 
 
 the driver?' 
 And it seems like the arts of some conjuring contriver, 
 Santa Claus turned a Frenchman in broadcloth and 
 
 rings, 
 
 * " Santa Claus, at home, at the street Rivoli, 
 Number fifty-nine; come to roast turkey." 
 
CHRISTMAS IN PARIS. *J>f 
 
 And fine in himself, not dispensing fine things." 
 
 "It is true — I confess — ." I was stammering once 
 
 more, 
 When " Pardon, Monsieur," he burst in as before, 
 " No apology needed, and indeed on my side 
 Explanation is due, and must not be denied. 
 For all that you've known of your friend, Santa Claus, 
 One thing you'll now learn, and in this find the cause 
 Of what lias surprised you ; my journeys so wide, 
 Round the world, make it needful that I should pro- 
 vide 
 Against much misconstruction, by becoming, you see, 
 All things to all men, so far as may be. 
 So in France I'm a Frenchman, in Germany Dutch, 
 In England John Bullish, though not overmuch. 
 In Spain I'm a Spaniard, in Mexico too; 
 And in short, when in Rome do as all Romans do.'* 
 " I see, yes, I see," I replied much relieved; 
 " And still, in America, much as you've lived. 
 You will pardon my saying it seems rather strange 
 That when you are with us, we see no such change." 
 "And perhaps you will tell me," he said in reply, 
 " Since the whole world is there even more than am I, 
 What nation you are, and what one must become. 
 To make himself like you, and be quite at home. 
 Is it Irish, Norwegian, or Chinese, or what.'' 
 For indeed it's a puzzle to tell what you're not. 
 So I think it must answer, since all will do so, 
 To be just myself, as I come and I go." 
 " And what could be better, dear friend.?" I replied; 
 " Be Santa Claus still, our delight and our pride. 
 For myself, scarcely aught gives me homesickness 
 
 more, 
 Than to think I'll not hear, as of old, at my door, 
 
78 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS, 
 
 Or above on the roof the light hoofs of the team, 
 Or along the white drifts see it glide like a dream." 
 '''^ Mh bien, Monsieur^* here he broke in again, 
 "We'll dismiss, please, this quite un-Parisian strain, 
 And I must be off, but before I shall go. 
 As of old I've been wont in mj visits to do, 
 Let me leave you my gift, it is exquisite stuff, 
 Please take. Monsieur, a pinch of my snuf.^' 
 
 With a twirl of his moustache, a whisk of his cane, 
 He walked to the door, and whistling a strain 
 Of the latest grand opera, went on his way; 
 And left me to muse and discuss all the day, 
 " Will the host, or his cookery, puzzle me most? 
 Shall I go to his dinner, and taste of his roast?" 
 
 The question seems to have remained unan- 
 swered, since here the "poem" ends; and so, 
 much to my regret, I can tell you nothing as to 
 how they cook and eat roast turkey at Santa 
 Claus' French lodging-house. Your Christmas, 
 dear young friends, will have heen past some 
 days when you read this, and still you will not 
 have forgotten how your roast turkey tasted. 
 For myself, I had none; neither did anybody 
 here in the house where I am living just now 
 wish any other body a " Merry Christmas." It 
 is not the custom in Paris, although they do 
 have the " Happy New Year." They give 
 
CHRISTMAS IN PARIS. 79 
 
 Christmas presents, too, sometimes, but gen- 
 erally I think reserve those for New Year's; 
 at which time, possibly, Santa Claus may be 
 more like himself, and give his friends, w4ien he 
 comes to see them, something better than a 
 pinch of snuff! 
 
 Some things about Christmas, here in Paris, 
 I must tell you. It was a good deal more, in 
 one respect, like Sunday, than Sunday itself 
 ever is ; that is to say, the stores and other 
 places of business were closed, as very few of 
 them are upon the Sabbath. The French peo- 
 ple — and indeed the people generally upon the 
 continent of Europe, that is in other portions 
 besides Great Britain — know very little about 
 the Sabbath, except as a day to go to church in, 
 if they like, and to rest from labor and enjoy 
 pleasure excursions, if they choose so to do. 
 An American, English, or Scottish Sabbath one 
 never finds south of the English channel. But 
 certain other days in the year are honored as the 
 Sabbath is not. Of these there are four, Christ- 
 mas, All-Saints' Day, Easter and Whitsuntide. 
 At some of the churches in Paris, mass, the 
 most important and solemn of all the Catholic 
 
bo UNCLE yOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 services, was being celebrated all Christmas day, 
 from early in the morning till late at evening. 
 It was so at the Madeleine, and as we were 
 there at the eleven o'clock mass, I must tell you 
 a few things about what I saw and heard. 
 
 The Madeleine is a very large and very beau- 
 tiful church, dedicated to Mary Magdalene, 
 called by the Catholics Saint Mary Magdalene; 
 Madeleine being the French word for Magda- 
 lene. The church contains various pictures and 
 statues which I have not time now to describe. 
 I must tell you, however, about the beautiful 
 marble group, which one sees just behind where 
 the priests officiate — what is called " the altar." 
 It represents Mary Magdalene borne to heaven 
 by angels, while at the corners in front other 
 angels are kneeling, as if in adoration. The 
 figures are very beautiful, but I am sure that the 
 Mai-y Magdalene spoken of in the New Testa- 
 ment would have felt very sorry if she had 
 known that some time or other she would be 
 represented in such a way, and made to bear a 
 part in what seems so much like idolatry. 
 
 The service was very lengthy, and with the 
 exception of the fine music, to us very tedious; 
 
CHRISTMAS IN PARIS. 8 1 
 
 for it was mostly without meaning. Whenever 
 any of the officiating priests prayed, they turned 
 their backs to the people, and spoke only in 
 whispers, or at least so as not to be heard. 
 When they read from the Scripture they chanted^ 
 or sang it, in the Latin language, so that very 
 few persons, if any, understood. But the pray- 
 ers and the reading, such as they were, made 
 but a small part of the ceremony, which con- 
 sisted mostly in marching about in procession, 
 sometimes carrying candles, sometimes the pra}'- 
 er-books, in kneeling down and rising up, in 
 swinging the censers with the incense smoking, 
 and such like things, which to us had not the 
 least particle of ucorshi^ in them. Twenty-five 
 different persons officiated, perhaps ten or twelve 
 of them priests, in robes covered with rich gold 
 embroidery. The rest were boys, some of 
 whom were dressed in red capes and hoods 
 over white robes; while four had on only the 
 white robes, with blue sashes round the waist, 
 hanging down at the side. These were the 
 incense-bearers. Sometimes they would all be 
 before the altar, arranging themselves, now v\ 
 a square, now in a different kind of figure, and 
 
82 UNCLE JOHN UPON IIIS TEA VELS. 
 
 then marchinof off to the ris^ht and left. At 
 other times only portions of them would be 
 present. 
 
 A Catholic mass is what I never tried to 
 understand, and this one was, therefore, wholly 
 senseless to me, whatever it may have been to 
 others. The singing, only, and the instrumental 
 music we enjoyed. The choir, a very large one, 
 and made up wholly of men and boys, was 
 behind the altar — which towered up very high 
 — and so was mostly out of sight. These 
 singers were accompanied by a full orchestra, 
 or band, of stringed instruments, including a 
 harp. At the other end of the church was an 
 organ, and in some parts of the service it would 
 respond, very finely, to the choir and instru- 
 ments by the altar. At one part they sang 
 " the Portuguese Hymn," which in our country 
 has the words, " The Lord is our Shepherd.''* 
 It was the only thing, from fii*st to last, which 
 we could undei-stand, or which we in the least 
 enjoyed. We came down the broad, noble steps 
 of the Madeleine, even more thoroughly Protest- 
 ant than when we went up. 
 
 Another service held in Paris on this Christ- 
 
CHRISTMAS IN PARIS. 83 
 
 mas day was quite a contrast with the one I 
 have described. The place was very different; 
 — not a magnificent church facing down a- wide 
 street, with noble columns in front and on 
 either side, and adorned within with frescoes, 
 gilding, painting and statuary, but a small 
 chapel, in the third story of a building on one 
 side of a secluded court, entered from a narrow 
 street. The street has a name quite appropri- 
 ate, I think, considering who they are that 
 meet in this chapel. It is the Rue des Bons 
 Enfants — Street of the Good Children; and 
 those who meet at the place I now tell you of 
 are, I hope, many of them, true children of 
 God. They are the French Baptist church, 
 congregation and Sunday-school. The church 
 numbers about eighty, but a good many besides 
 the members attend, so that often their chapel 
 is crowded. Last Sabbath, when I was there, 
 all the seats were filled. To be sure, the place 
 is not large, holding not over a hundred and 
 fifty; yet to me it was far more "the house of 
 God," and far nearer to " the gate of heaven," 
 than was the magnificent Madeleine, or than 
 the still more magnificent St. Petex*'s, iu Rome, 
 
84 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 seemed when I was in it so often a few days 
 ago. 
 
 On the afternoon of Christmas three were 
 baptized at the French chapel. Tliey had a 
 sermon, then the baptism, after that the com- 
 munion. It was a good way to celebrate 
 Christmas, was it not.^* They have no bap- 
 tisteries in this chapel, and so were obliged to 
 use a large bath-tub. Some one asked why 
 they did not go to the river, the Seine, which 
 runs through Paris, and would be readily reached 
 from the chapel. The answer was that they 
 would not be allowed to do so. A generous 
 gentleman, Mr. Carpenter, of Boston, who has 
 been spending some time in Paris, suggested 
 to them, on the occasion of a former baptism, 
 that they should go to the river, and offered to 
 meet the expense of carriages for that purpose. 
 He was told that while the Government permit 
 tlie Baptist, and other Protestant congregations, 
 to hold meetings, if they do it quietly, they 
 will not suffer them to do any thing that would 
 attract public attention like a baptism in the 
 river. This reminds me to tell you that the 
 Baptists in Paris and in other parts of France 
 
CHRISTMAS IN PARIS. 55 
 
 have formerly suffered much annoyance and 
 hindrance from the jealousy of the Government, 
 which is Catholic so far as it is anything. At 
 present, how^ever, they are " tolerated " if they 
 will not be too active and prominent. Even 
 this is something ; although I think that the 
 very idea of "tolerating" men in worshiping 
 God according to their consciences, is an insult 
 to human rights. It is very much like " toler- 
 ating" men in eating their dinners. Truly, it 
 is a great thing to permit us (which is what 
 toleration means) to do what we have a perfect 
 right to do, anyhow! 
 
 On Wednesday evening following Christmas 
 they had a Christmas tree for the Sunday-school 
 children at the French chapel. The school is 
 not large, but those connected with branch 
 schools in the city were present, and these, with 
 the grown people, filled the chapel quite full. 
 The tree was very brilliant, covered with little 
 tapers and with gay presents, dolls and other 
 toys, while the more valuable ones, books and 
 such like, were kept out of sight elsewhere 
 till the time came to distribute them. When 
 I went in, Rev. Mr, Lepoids, one of the pas- 
 
86 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 tors of the church, was making an address. 
 He was followed by Rev. Mr. Van Meter, 
 from New York, and he by Mr. Dez, the 
 other pastor. These addresses were interspersed 
 with singing. They sang, too, while the pres- 
 ents were being handed round. One of the 
 tunes was our " Happy Land," and it was like 
 home to hear them singing it. They very 
 kindly remembered Uncle John and Aunt 
 Esther, giv^ing each a ''^Souvenir de Noel^' — - 
 that is. Souvenir of Christmas, " Noel " being 
 the word which the French use for the holiday 
 that is so much a favorite everywhere. 
 
 Uncle John. 
 
LETTER SEVENTH, 
 
 the story of a king. 
 
 Dear Boys and Girls: 
 
 FREQUENTLY pass, as I go to and 
 fro, in this city of Paris, a tall, slender 
 shaft of stone, like a monument, run- 
 ning nearly to a point at the top, and, 
 long as it is, made of a single block, with the ex- 
 ception of the pedestal upon which it stands. It 
 is covered, from base to top, with very singular 
 looking characters, called " hieroglyphics." This 
 is what they term an "obelisk." It was found 
 some years ago among the ruins of an ancient 
 Egyptian city, called Thebes, and was brought 
 from there about thirty years since, and placed 
 where it now is, by Louis Philippe, then the 
 king of France. As one stands by this obelisk, 
 looking toward the river Seine, not far away, 
 
88 UNCLE yOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 upon his right hand a noble avenue stretches 
 off, with rows of trees, and other wide avenues, 
 parallel with it, on either side, up to a large 
 structure, in the form of an immense arch, which 
 they call the " Arc de Triomphe," erected by 
 Napoleon I. Upon the left, down another 
 avenue, one sees the palace of the Tuileries. 
 This other avenue runs through the Garden of 
 the Tuileries, which is very large and spacious, 
 and covered with trees, statuary and fountains. 
 
 Upon the spot where the obelisk I. have de- 
 scribed stands, a very sad and wncked thing 
 was done on the morning of Jan. 21, 1793. A 
 vast crowd was gathered here on that morning, 
 surrounding this spot and stretching far away, 
 covering especially all the elevated places from 
 which a view of v\'hat was going forward could 
 be had. Nearest to the central point I have 
 mentioned, only the soldiers were seen. Their 
 orders were to keep back the crowd, and pre- 
 vent them from pressing upon the vacant space 
 witiiin. Vacant, but not wholly so; for in the 
 centre of it was a scaffold, or platform, covered 
 with black cloth, upon one part of which was 
 a strange looking thing, whose name was des- 
 
THE STORY OF A KING. 89 
 
 tined ere long to become ominous and fearful 
 to a whole nation — the (juillotine. Two up- 
 right pieces were joined above and below, 
 making a perpendicular frame, while in grooves 
 prepared in those upright parts a sharp, heavy 
 knife was made to run, so that when raised to 
 the top and then suddenly released, it would fall 
 like lightning, with its edge upon a block placed 
 below. Thousands upon thousands of the popu- 
 lation of Paris had assembled, on this morning, 
 to witness what some trembled even to think 
 of, what others expected with a fierce joy. 
 
 And thousands more were in the streets by 
 which this spot — then called the Place de la 
 Revolution, now the Place de la Concorde — • 
 was approached from the side opposite to the 
 river. In this direction a carriage was slowly 
 drawing near. It had set out some two hours 
 before from a gloomy, castle-like building, called 
 the Temple, a long way off, and so crowded 
 were the streets through which it passed, that 
 it had been compelled to move as a hearse 
 moves to a burial. These crowds were ali 
 armed men. The Government had ordered 
 that every person found anywhere along that 
 
90 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 route unarmed should be at once arrested. All 
 who could have felt any sympathy for the person 
 whom the carriage I have mentioned contained, 
 or any commiseration for his fate, were thus shut 
 up in their homes, while only his ferocious and 
 implacable enemies were to be seen, as now on 
 this side, now on that, he would raise his eyes 
 to look out at the window. 
 
 Three persons were in the carriage besides 
 himself. Two of these were guards; the other 
 was a priest. The priest, the Abb^ Edgeworth 
 de Firmont, had handed him a prayer-book, 
 from which he read portions of Scripture, espe- 
 cially the Psalms, and some of the prayers. 
 The drums were beating, the crowd hooting 
 and roaring, the cavalry keeping guard before 
 and behind tramping noisily — altogether it was 
 like the tumult of a tempest, and as it was 
 impossible to converse, the time of the long, 
 slow, dreadful ride was passed in reading those 
 inspired words, and in lifting up to heaven 
 requests for comfort and for salvation which 
 we cannot but hope were not without some 
 true faith in Jesus, nor unheard. The person 
 of whom I thus speak was a man thirty-nine 
 
THE STORT OF A KING. 9 1 
 
 y^ears of age, with a mild, kind face, and a 
 dignity in his manner that proved he was no 
 common man, and might easily make one 
 doubt if he could possibly be a criminal, or 
 deserving of such a death as they had prepan-ed 
 for him. At last the carriage stopped. 
 
 "We are there, unless I deceive myself," said 
 this person to the priest, who accompanied him. 
 The priest could not answer, so overcome was 
 he by his emotion. Three men came forward 
 and opened the door of the carriage, and the 
 two guards, rising, were about to step out, 
 when the person whom they had thus brought 
 stopped them, and laying his hand upon the 
 knee of the priest who sat by his side, said, 
 in the tone of one accustomed to command: 
 
 " I recommend to you this gentleman. Take 
 care that after my death no injury or insult 
 be offered to him. I charge you to have a care 
 for this." 
 
 One of the three men who had come to open 
 the door smiled in a grim way and said : " Be 
 easy, we shall take care of him, never fear." 
 
 The occupants of the carriage then descended. 
 The person of whom I have spoken, repulsing 
 
92 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 the offer of the three men to aid him, removed 
 his coat, and took off his collar, so as to leave his 
 neck bare. The men w^ere then about to bind 
 him, when he drew back proudly, and exclaimed, 
 
 "What are you about to do?" 
 
 "To bind you," said one of them. 
 
 " To bind me ? " he replied. " I will never 
 consent to that. Do with me what you have 
 been commanded to do; but you shall never 
 bind me." 
 
 The three men prepared to lay hands on him 
 and bind him by main force, and he was prepar- 
 ing to resist them, when looking toward the priest, 
 that good man said to him, as well as he could, 
 in the midst of his weeping: 
 
 '• Sire, in this new outrage I see only a last 
 trait of resemblance between your majesty and 
 the God of Calvary, who is soon to be your 
 recompense." 
 
 " Ah," said he, " nothing less than this ex- 
 ample could induce me to submit to such an 
 affront. Do what you will; I will drink the 
 cup to its dregs." 
 
 They bound his hands, and he then ascended 
 the steps of the scaffold, leaning upon the arm 
 
THE STORT OF A KING. 93 
 
 of the priest. Having reached the top, he 
 walked by himself to the centre of the 
 platform, and casting one look along the 
 beautiful avenue to the palace v^here he had 
 lived so long, he signed with his hand for the 
 drums, which were beating, to stop, and then, 
 advancing to the front of the platform, said: 
 
 "Frenchmen, you see your king here, upon 
 the scaffold. I pardon the authors of my death, 
 and I desire that the blood you are about to 
 shed may profit you, and may never fall back 
 upon France!" 
 
 Here the man, named Sartine, who was 
 directing this hideous business, exclaimed to 
 the executioner: 
 
 "Do your work, and you, drummers, to your 
 drums!" The voice of the king was drowned. 
 He attempted no more words, but walking to 
 the instrument of death placed his head upon 
 the block, while, as the axe descended, the 
 priest exclaimed, " Son of St. Louis, ascend 
 to heaven ! " 
 
 I have almost doubted, since I began this 
 recital, if I ought to tell you a story that is so 
 very sad and harrowing; but it is a part of 
 
94 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS, 
 
 this world's sorrowful history, and sooner or 
 later you must learn not only of this, but 
 of a great many other things equally dreadful. 
 The king I have been telling you of was Louis 
 Sixteenth, the king of France. He had been 
 a king nineteen years. There are many who 
 say that if he had had more firmness and 
 resolution he might have saved his own crown 
 and life, and protected his kingdom from the 
 horrors that followed, in the Reign of Terror. 
 I doubt it; but, if he had not all the strength 
 needful for such a charge in such a time, he 
 was at least a good man, and that was more 
 than could have been said of any king of 
 France for many a long century. Indeed, I 
 think, that, as so often happens, and as must 
 happen unless God prevents it by miracles, he 
 suffered for the crimes and follies of those who 
 had reigned before him. The patience of the 
 nation had been worn out with the wrongs 
 done them by former kings, and they did not 
 realize that they were the guilty ones, not he. 
 rJesides, it was a time when very bad men had 
 gained the power in France. They were am- 
 bitious to have things all their own vv^ay. The 
 
THE STORT OF A KING. 
 
 95 
 
 king was an obstacle, and it was thus they 
 removed him! 
 
 For my part, I love to think of Louis Six- 
 teenth, and of his wife, Marie Antoinette, who 
 suffered a like death only a few months later, 
 and nearly upon the same spot, as they were in 
 their youth, and in the first days of their mar- 
 riage. His father, Louis Fifteenth, and her 
 mother, Marie Theresa, Empress of Austria, 
 were then both living. At the time of their 
 marriage he was sixteen years of age, and she 
 fifteen — a young couple, but a happy one. 
 They lived in the beautiful palace of Versailles, 
 about fifteen miles out of Paris, and, while 
 experiencing what many esteem the highest and 
 happiest human condition, showed by various 
 acts, one of which I will relate to you, that they 
 could think of other things besides their own 
 pleasure. 
 
 On the 30th of June, 1770, the city of Paris 
 gave a grand entertainment in honor of young 
 Louis, the Dauphin (as the eldest son of the 
 king was always called), and his wife, whose 
 marriage had then recently taken place. By a 
 sad casualty, which occurred in the midst of the 
 
96 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 rejoicings, several persons were killed. Learn- 
 ing of this next day, Louis wrote this letter to 
 the Prefect of Police : 
 
 " Monsieur Sartine, I am filled with sorrow at the 
 calamities of which I learn. They tell me that 
 through jour failure to make sure that public security 
 with which you were charged, several pei-sons have 
 fallen victims to a casualty near the close of the fete 
 which the good city of Paris has believed itself bound 
 to give on the occasion of my marriage. Ah ! my 
 grief is moi-e profound than I can express to you at 
 this moment. I am about to receive my annuitj-, and 
 I send it to you at once, for the assistance of those 
 who suffer, and of the unhappy relatives of those who 
 have been killed. L. Dauphin." 
 
 There were other similar acts which showed 
 his kind heart, and when, in 1774, upon the 
 death of his father, he ascended the throne, the 
 French people felt sure that they had a good 
 king. How he and his young queen felt, you 
 may infer from the fact that on learning of his 
 father's death, he and Marie Antoinette fell upon 
 their knees, while he cried out, " My God, pro- 
 tect us. We are too young to reign. I am a 
 king while yet only twenty years of age. Wliat 
 a burden! What a calamity!" I am sure that 
 
THE STORY OF A KING. 
 
 97 
 
 it was at least his wish and his endeavor, from 
 that time till he died, as I told you, on the scaf- 
 fold in the Place de la Revolution, to be a good 
 king. 
 
LETTER EIGHTH. 
 
 THE STORY OF A KING. CONCLUDED. 
 
 Dear Boys and Girls: 
 
 MUST now tell you of some things 
 that took place after that January 
 morning, in 1793. All the friends of 
 the king, not only, but the ministers of 
 religion as well, felt themselves in clanger after 
 such an event; the latter, because the anger of 
 the people had been excited as much against the 
 priesthood as against the monarchy. I am sorry 
 to say that the priests were not such men as the 
 mifnisters of religion ought to be, and that much 
 of what they taught for religion was false, and 
 calculated to mislead men, to the ruin of theii 
 soids. Some of them, however, were, I think, at 
 least sincere. Most of the priests, with as many 
 of the king's friends as possibly could, escaped 
 
THE STORT OF A KING. 99 
 
 from the country. Others hid themselves in out- 
 of-the-way places in the city, and lived as they 
 might. 
 
 A priest, such as I have described, had taken 
 refuge in a very poor, dilapidated dwelling in 
 what is called the Faubourg Saint Martin, one of 
 the oldest parts of Paris. In this mean and com- 
 fortless place lived two old women in great pov- 
 erty, and with them the priest had found shelter. 
 One of these women, on the evening of the same 
 day that King Louis suffered, returning to the 
 house said to her companion, as she hastily 
 entered, 
 
 " Hide yourself ! hide yourself ! Though we 
 go out so seldom, we have still been watched." 
 
 " What has happened.'^" inquired the other. 
 
 The woman who had just come in told her 
 that she had been followed by a man who had 
 the appearance of a spy, and that he now stood 
 without watching their dwelling. The old priest, 
 who sat near and heard the conversation, tried to 
 encourage them, but finally consented that they 
 should conceal him as well as they could, as he, 
 not they, was most in danger. They had hardly 
 so done, when they heard the steps of the un- 
 
lOO UNCLE yOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 known man upon the stairs. He stopped at the 
 door, and rapped. They were too frightened to 
 make any reply, and after waiting a Httle time 
 he opened the door and entered. He was a 
 middle-sized man, with an air of melancholy, 
 but nothing in his manner that seemed threaten- 
 ing. He stood for a few moments looking 
 around the room, and at last fixed his eyes upon 
 the two old women who sat trembling with 
 fear. At length he said, in a mild, and even 
 timid tone: 
 
 " I do not come here as an enemy. If I dis- 
 turb or alarm you, speak freely, and I will retire. 
 But know that I am friendly to you, and if there 
 is any service I can render, let me know of it 
 without the least fear." 
 
 One of the women, named Agatha, motioned 
 him to take a seat. He did so, and then said : 
 
 " I am aware that you have given asylum to 
 a venerable priest, who has miraculously escaped 
 the recent massacres." 
 
 The other woman, named Martha, replied 
 hastily, "But, sir, we have no priest here — " 
 
 "You should then take better care of what 
 you leave around," said the stranger smiling, as 
 
THE STORT OF A KING, lOI 
 
 he advanced to the table and took up a priest's 
 breviary.* " I do not think you understand 
 Latin. But fear nothing; for five days I have 
 known of your necessities, and of your devotion 
 to the venerable man to w^hom you have given 
 a refuge. I only wish to serve both you and 
 him." 
 
 At these words the priest himself came from 
 his place of concealment. 
 
 " I can not believe, sir," he said, " that you 
 are one of our persecutors. What do you wish 
 of me?" 
 
 " I come to ask," replied the stranger, " that 
 you will perform a private mass for the repose 
 of the soul of one — of — a person whose body 
 will not, there is reason to fear, rest in conse- 
 crated ground." 
 
 It was one of the superstitions of flie time 
 that if a person was not buried in ground con- 
 secrated by the priests their souls would suffer; 
 also that masses, or prayers, offered for them 
 might do them good. This was what this man 
 
 * The ''breviary" is the Catholic prayer-book. 
 This was one for the use of priests, and was in the 
 Latin language. 
 
I02 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 M^anted. He did not say who it was for whom 
 he desired the priest to pray, but his allusions left 
 no doubt that it was the king, slaughtered, as 
 I have said, of whom he spoke. After some 
 conversation the priest consented to do as re- 
 quested, and the stranger left, promising to 
 return again in two hours. At the end of that 
 time he entered the room again in the same man- 
 ner as before. In the meantime the two aged 
 women had made the necessary preparations; 
 the priest had put on the habiliments custom- 
 ary in such a service, and the four persons united 
 in the ceremony, solemn and impressive at such 
 a moment, however mistaken. While prayer 
 was being offered for the soul of the departed 
 one, the stranger showed great emotion, and 
 when the service was concluded the priest ap- 
 proached him and said : 
 
 " My son, if you have dipped your hands in 
 the blood of the martyr-king, place confidence 
 in my words. It is not a fault incapable of 
 pardon where repentance is so sincere as this 
 which you seem to manifest." 
 
 " My father," said the man, much affected, 
 
THE STORY OF A KING. 103 
 
 " no one is more innocent than I of the blood 
 shed in the day past." 
 
 " I believe you," replied the priest. Further 
 effort to ascertain the reasons of this singular 
 conduct of the man was unavailing. After a 
 little time more he left, first arranging that, in 
 a year from that evening, he would come again, 
 and desiring that a like service might be then 
 performed. At the end of the year he reap- 
 peared in the same mysterious manner as be- 
 fore, and at the same hour of midnight. They 
 had everything in readiness, and the mass for 
 the repose of the martyr-king's soul was again 
 celebrated. During the interval, in ways which 
 they were not permitted to understand, the wants 
 of the two old women and their aged guest had 
 been bountifully met. Food, clothing, and other 
 necessary things were found every day placed at 
 their door, and although for a part of the year 
 famine reigned in the city, they themselves never 
 lacked. 
 
 The same religious service continued to be 
 celebrated year after year, at the same place, 
 until Napoleon took possession of the govern- 
 ment, and necessity for such concealment no 
 
I04 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 longer existed. At each occasion the stranger 
 reappeared, and in the meantime the wants of 
 the priest and the women were suppHed. When 
 pubUc worship was re-estabhshed, and social or- 
 der restored, so that the priest could seek out 
 his friends and find other means of support, 
 the mysterious visitor was seen no more. 
 
 But the same mass, upon the same day of 
 the year, continued to be observed, although 
 transferred to a church in the vicinity. The 
 bodies of Louis and Marie Antoinette had been 
 removed from the precincts of the Temple, 
 where they were first buried, and placed in a 
 small cemetery near what is now the church 
 of the Madeleine. This was done by command 
 of the. wicked men who had caused them to be 
 put to death; and in order that nothing might 
 be left of their remains, they directed that they 
 should be buried in quick-lime, which, it was 
 expected, would consume them. This was 
 done; but the purpose was in a measure dis- 
 appointed. In 1815, a brother of Louis Six- 
 teentii became king, as Louis Eighteenth. By 
 his command, search was made where the bodies 
 of the king and queen had been placed, and 
 
THE STORT OF A KING. 105 
 
 enough was found to identify them. A chapel 
 was erected upon the spot, and while so much 
 of the bodies as had been found were taken to 
 St. Denis, where the kings of France are 
 buried, other things discovered in the same 
 place were put in a stone coffin, or large chest, 
 which now stands in an open crypt, or cham- 
 ber, beneath the altar of the chapel. 
 
 We have visited this chapel, " La Chapelle 
 Expiatoire," as it is called. In the court, or 
 yard, through which we first passed, as we 
 entered, were the graves of the Swiss Guards 
 of Louis Sixteenth, who were killed in his de- 
 fense at the time when his palace was invaded 
 by the mob. The chapel itself is a small, 
 singular building, but a most interesting place 
 to visit. On one side of the room where ser- 
 vice is held is a marble group, representing 
 King Louis upon his knees, sustained by an 
 angel, who points upward to heaven. Upon 
 the other side is another group, representing 
 the Qiieen, also kneeling, with her eyes fixed 
 upon a cross, which Religion, under the form 
 of Madame Elizabeth, the King's sister, holds 
 out to her. Every thing about the chapel is 
 
 5* 
 
I06 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 simple and touching. I felt more impressed 
 than in any other place which I have seen in 
 Europe. I said to the guide, as we stood look- 
 ing at the stone coffin, of which I spoke, '-'-Louis 
 Seize etait tut hon Jiomme*'' (Louis Sixteenth 
 was a good man.) 
 
 " Oui^ J\Io7isiem'^^ (Yes, sir,) he replied. 
 " Et aussi un boji Roi^'' (And a good King, 
 too.) 
 
 " Om,, Monsieur ^^ (Yes, sir), he said again, 
 while his eyes filled with tears. 
 
 But who was the mysterious stranger.? Long 
 years after it w^as ascertained that he was one 
 of those who had been compelled by an office 
 which he held to assist at the execution of Louis 
 Sixteenth. He had done so against his will, 
 and only because a refusal would have cost him 
 his life. He had been touched with a pity and 
 sorrow, which he manifested in the way I have 
 described. I need not tell you that this idea 
 of praying for the souls of the dead is a mere 
 superstition; nor that the hope of this man to 
 expiate by such means the act, however com- 
 pulsory, which he remembered with such pain, 
 was altogether a mistaken one. You all know 
 
THE STORY OF A KING. 107 
 
 well that what is done for the soul's happiness 
 hereafter must be done here^ and by the soul 
 itself; also that the pardon of sin comes only 
 through prayer in the name of Jesus. I have, 
 however, told you this story of a King that you 
 may iiave something to remind you what reasons 
 to be thankful American boys and girls have that 
 they live in a country where such things as I 
 have described are not done; and also to be 
 thankful that in the lessons of Christian homes 
 and of the Sabbath-school, they are taught a 
 ti'ue religion, and not the fables and supersti- 
 tions that only deceive. 
 
 Uncle John. 
 
LETTER NINTH. 
 
 THE BIRDS IN THE PALACE GARDEN. 
 
 Dear Boys and Girls 
 
 N 
 
 1 
 
 
 through 
 
 the 
 
 visiting or passing 
 gardens of the Tuileries, the palace 
 where the Emperor Napoleon lives 
 — w^hich I do almost every day w^hen 
 I am well — I have often witnessed a very 
 beautiful thing. I must tell you that this gar- 
 den is in two parts. One is for the use of 
 those who live in the palace, exclusively; no 
 one else ever ventures there. This is much 
 smaller than the other part, although still very 
 large. It is beautifully laid out in walks, with 
 fountains in different parts, and has a great 
 deal of shrubbery. It is separated from the 
 larger portion by a handsome iron fence, ex- 
 
THE BIRDS IN THE PALACE GARDEN. I09 
 
 cept at the centre, where there is a large iron 
 gate and a wide carriage-drive, by which the 
 Emperor and Empress, often, as they return from 
 their ride in the streets of Paris, in their car- 
 riage with four horses and out-riders, enter. At 
 this gate there are always at least two soldiers 
 on guard. 
 
 The other part of the garden is much larger. 
 It is almost like a park, containing acres of 
 ground, planted with trees, with little grass-plats 
 and flower-beds in different parts, while at each 
 end is a magnificent fountain whose water, as 
 it falls, makes a large pond, on which the boys 
 skate and slide in winter, and sail their little 
 boats in summer. For into this part of the 
 gardens any one who pleases may come and 
 stay as long as he likes; may stroll about and 
 look at the statues, of which there are a great 
 number, or sit under the trees, or play at ball 
 or other games — in short, it is a real pleas- 
 ure-ground. On a pleasant day you would be 
 always sure to find a great number of persons 
 there, in bright dresses, many of tl-^em, some 
 walking, some sitting, some engaged in gomes 
 of different sorts; nurses, with little babies in 
 
no UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS, 
 
 their arms, little boys and girls, in regular troops, 
 soldiers, citizens, and now and then a sick man, 
 like Uncle John, walking slowly along with the 
 help of his cane. The women, except the well- 
 dressed ladies, almost all wear a funny little 
 white cap, always as clean as it can be, and 
 very pretty, especially when there is a smiling 
 happy face under it. 
 
 Now, on the Emperor's side of the iron fence, 
 I spoke of, and near the wall, there is, as I said, 
 a great deal of shrubbery, kept in the nicest 
 order by the men in charge of the garden, 
 and in those trees a great number of birds 
 have their home. They are wonderfully tame, 
 and do not seem in the least afraid of the peo- 
 ple who are always thronging about. The 
 pretty sight I spoke of, is to see these little 
 birds fly up, as they will, and take their food 
 from the hands of persons who seem often to 
 come there almost on purpose to feed them. I 
 have seen a man stand, and making a little chirp- 
 ing noise, call the birds to him, and while he 
 held out to them a crumb of bread between his 
 thumb and finger, the little creatures would fly 
 to him, catch it and rush away, as if astonished 
 
THE BIRDS IN THE PALACE GARDEN. Ill 
 
 at their own audacity. Sometimes, as they flut- 
 tered and circled about him, he would throw 
 the crumbs up into the air, and the swift little 
 birds would dart upon and snatch them before 
 they fell to the ground. Often, too, I have seen 
 the children feeding them as they might a gi'oup 
 of chickens. I have stopped, many and many 
 a time, to see what I have described, for it was 
 pretty to look at, and made me think of some 
 things that I love to remember. 
 
 I did not find out the name of these little 
 birds in the palace gardens for some time; but 
 one day I asked the landlady of the hotel where 
 we live, what they are called. " Aloineaux^^ 
 said she, for she speaks no English — " Spar- 
 rows." 
 
 I was glad when I heard they were sparrows ; 
 for it was about the sparrows that I had been 
 thinking. I remembered first, indeed, that pas- 
 sage, which says, " Behold the fowls of the air,'* 
 that is, the birds, " they sow not, neither do 
 they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your Hea- 
 venly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much 
 better than they?" Will not God feed you, 
 and take care of you, who are of so much more 
 
112 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS 
 
 consequence in his sight ? But I had thought, 
 also, of those other verses: "Are not five spar- 
 rows sold for two farthings ? And one of them 
 shall not fall on the ground without your Fa- 
 ther " — without your Father taking notice of 
 it. " But even the very hairs of your head are 
 numbered." I had thought, too, of that place 
 in the Psalms, where David says, one time 
 when he is feeling very badly, " I am like a 
 sparrow alone upon the house-top." The spar- 
 rows are wonderfully social little birds. They 
 seem to love each other's society very much, 
 keep in groups, or if they fly off somewhere, 
 rarely fly alone. I imagined one of them, for 
 some reason, living alone upon the top of the 
 high palace yonder, perhaps driven away by 
 his mates ; perhaps seeking solitude, because 
 unhappy ; or perhaps too proud to associate 
 with common birds. How unlike the merry 
 little sparrows that would be; what a picture 
 of loneliness and sadness, as he sat perched 
 upon the ridge of the splendid palace — with 
 a magnificent home, indeed, but miserable for 
 all that. I have sometimes asked myself if the 
 Emperor Napoleon, in his superb palace, and 
 
THE BIRDS IN THE PALACE GARDEN. II3 
 
 his solitary greatness, ever feels " like a sparrow 
 alone upon the house-top." David, it seems, 
 did so. 
 
 So you see the little birds set me thinking 
 about w^ords in the dear Bible, and about God's 
 precious promises, and about w^iether, after all, 
 it may not be better to be little than to be great. 
 But the peculiarly pleasant thought always was, 
 " God feedeth them." The man or the child 
 who gave them the crumbs they loved so well 
 did not think of it, I dare say, but God, all the 
 same, was using them to feed his little birds. 
 God loves the tiny creatures, and takes care of 
 them; not on account of their beauty, for the 
 sparrow is not beautiful, but of a very plain, 
 gray color; not because of their pretty song, for 
 the sparrow cannot sing, but has only a kind of 
 cheerful chirp; not because men set any great 
 value upon them, for " are not five sparrpws 
 sold for two farthings.?" It is because they are 
 creatures he has made, and so made that they 
 are capable of being happy, and it pleases him 
 when he can see all such happy, and grieves 
 him when, either by their own fault or the fault 
 of others, they become miserable. 
 
tI4 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS, 
 
 So these little birds live in their pretty home 
 in perfect safety. No rude boy ever dares to 
 throw a stone at them; no sportsman with his 
 gun ever comes near them ; they are surrounded 
 by danger, yet always safe; for God keeps them 
 and God feeds them. 
 
 Now" I wish to show you, in one or two little 
 stories, very simple, but very true, how faithful 
 our Heavenly Father is in fulfilling those prom- 
 ises of which I have been speaking, and what 
 wonderful ways he chooses in doing so. About 
 twelve years ago, an English lady came one day 
 into this same garden of the Tuileries, and sat 
 down upon one of the many chairs placed there. 
 I do not know whether the birds were there 
 then, or not; but I think it doubtful. While 
 she sat resting, she noticed that a gentleman 
 with a little boy was occupying a seat very near 
 her. The gentleman had been reading a little 
 book which the boy now held in his hand. 
 After a little he dropped it, and as he picked 
 it up, she noticed that it was a French Testa- 
 ment. Immediately she said to the gentleman: 
 
 " I conclude that you love to read this little 
 book." 
 
THE BIRDS IN THE PALACE GARDEN. II5 
 
 " Yes," was his reply, " more than all others." 
 This led to a conversation, in which she 
 learned that he had been, until very recently, a 
 colporteur connected with the French Baptist 
 mission in the city, and that he was a member 
 of the mission church ; that through deficiency of 
 funds, the society in America, the Missionary 
 Union, by which the mission was sustained, was 
 unable longer to pay his salary, so that he had 
 now no support for his family, and he feared that 
 he must abandon his work. He told her what 
 that work was; visiting every part of Paris, seek- 
 ing out opportunities to do good, to enlighten his 
 Catholic countrymen, and convince them how 
 much better it is to trust in Jesus than in priests 
 and masses. 
 
 The lady became so much interested that she 
 determined to help him in this work. She was 
 not a Baptist, but a very warm-hearted Christian, 
 and one who had great faith in God. She was 
 just on the point of returning to England, and 
 she said to him, as they parted, that he must go 
 right on as he had been doing, and that when 
 she reached England she felt sure God would 
 enable her to raise money to sustain him at least 
 
1 16 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS, 
 
 for a time. She had been a teacher. So she 
 interested her former pupils and their parents in 
 this good brother, and soon had secured money 
 enough to pay his expenses for a month. This 
 she sent him, with directions to keep on in his 
 work and she would soon send him more. 
 Twelve years have since passed. He has contin- 
 ued in his beloved service for Jesus and has 
 never lacked. By means of this lady, and of 
 friends raised up by her influence and that of 
 others, sufficient money has always been pro- 
 vided. They do not take pains to solicit money; 
 but they pray, as does he himself also, with faith 
 in God, that the " daily bread " of the beloved 
 colporteur may be given : and it comes, often in 
 ways quite unexpected. 
 
 This excellent brother left my room only two 
 or three hours since, after a very delightful visit. 
 His name is Mr. Vignal. Don't you think that 
 his three little children are God's sparrows; and 
 does not God feed them? 
 
 Uncle John. 
 
LETTER TENTH 
 
 THE BIRDS IN THE PALACE GARDEN. 
 CLUDED. 
 
 con- 
 
 Dear Boys and Girls: 
 
 NOTHER story I will tell you. Near 
 ^^AS ^^^^^ great city of Paris lives a rich 
 *" Russian nobleman. His name is 
 
 Prince Demidoff". He is immensely 
 wealthy; has great estates and gold mines in 
 Russia, and palaces, I don't know how many, 
 in France and Italy. But he is a worldly, 
 selfish man, and seems to care for nothing but 
 his dogs and monkeys. He has a nephew, 
 Count Demidoff, who is his heir. The Count 
 is also very rich, and a few years ago was as 
 worldly as his uncle, and a wild and wicked 
 young man. But see by what wonderful means 
 
Il8 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 God led him to think of and prefer the " more 
 excellent way." 
 
 The nobility of Russia, like everybody else 
 there, must always do just as the Emperor says. 
 Over the higher nobles, especially, he seems to 
 keep a very strict watch, even to choosing wives 
 for them when they marry, and they must al- 
 ways marry the one he selects. A few years ago 
 the young Count Demidoff was called home to 
 St. Petersburg, from Paris, to marry a lady whom 
 the Emperor had chosen for him. He had never 
 seen her, and of course made her his wife simply 
 because the Emperor commanded him to do so. 
 But she was both beautiful and good, and very 
 soon he loved her so much that when, at the 
 end of a year, she died, his grief made him 
 almost insane. 
 
 While in this sad state of mind he came again 
 to Paris, and made the acquaintance here of an 
 English nobleman named Lord Radstock, a 
 warm-hearted Christian who, though a noble- 
 man, and wealthy, devotes his life to doing 
 good, and to leading men to the Saviour. We 
 heard him preach, a few Sabbaths since, a plain, 
 good, sweet gospel sermon. By Lord Radstock's 
 
THE BIRDS IN THE PALACE GARDEN. II9 
 
 means Count Dcmidoff was made to know Jesus. 
 He found comfort at the foot of the cross, and 
 now he lives to do good. 
 
 One of the Count's benevolent works I must 
 tell you of. He has built, in one part of the 
 city of Paris, a very large building, in which 
 work is provided for poor, unemployed women, 
 to the number of five hundred, with or without 
 families. They come there every day; if they 
 have children, they bring these with them; if 
 any of the children are very small, they are put 
 in charge of persons who take care of them while 
 the mothers are at work. The larger ones go 
 into a school in the same building, where they 
 remain through the day. At evening, as the 
 mother with her little flock passes out of the 
 door to go home, she receives two francs, about 
 forty cents, in money, and something, I believe, 
 also, for each of the children. 
 
 Are not these children, and their mothers too, 
 God's sparrows; and is it not very wonderful 
 how he has provided for theiii } His providences 
 towards Count Demidoft^ were not simply that he 
 might become a Christian, but that he might 
 
I20 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 be made an instrument to feed and comfort 
 God's suffering poor. 
 
 And this leads me to ask myself whether God 
 does not expect like things, more or less, of all 
 to whom he has given any means of usefulness 
 whatever. Are you and I, dear children, I 
 wonder, feeding God's sparrows, in any w^ay.^* 
 I doubt if there is any one of us who can not 
 do it at some time, and in some way, though 
 ever so simple and humble. Let me tell you 
 something I was reading of the other day. 
 
 At a certain place, here in France, there is a 
 group of benevolent institutions called asylums. 
 They have received very appropriate names. 
 One is called "The Gospel Family;" another, 
 " Bethesda ; " another, " Ebenezer ; " and the 
 fourth, " Siloam-Bethel." The first is for young 
 girls who have no one to take care of them, and 
 who would run in the streets and be ruined, 
 if neglected. They have a home here, are edu- 
 cated, learn to work, and when old enough are 
 furnished with good places. The second is for 
 young girls who are sick and friendless, for such 
 as are blind, and for idiots. The third is for 
 girls and boys subject to epileptic fits, and who, 
 
THE BIRDS IN THE PALACE GARDEN. J 21 
 
 like the others, have none to take care of them. 
 The fourth is for boys affected in any of the 
 ways just described. 
 
 In the Bethesda asylum, not long ago, there 
 was a poor idiot girl, named Celina. She could 
 not speak, and could be taught almost nothing. 
 But she had a sweety pleasant temper, so that 
 everybody loved her, and she was made to com- 
 prehend so much of religious truth as that there 
 is a beautiful heaven, where all are happy. Her 
 favorite employment was to sit by the bedside 
 of the sick and drive away the flies, or make 
 lint and roll up bands of linen for the infirmary. 
 
 After a time Celina was herself sick and died 
 ■ — died, as they said, with a smile upon her lips. 
 What struck me most, in the narrative, were 
 these words, by the person who relates it. He 
 says : 
 
 "If the Lord asks of her, 'Celina, what have 
 you done for me.^' Celina can answer, 'I have 
 driven away the flies from the poor sick, and I 
 have made lint and rolled up bandages.' " 
 
 I thought, how many there are, with abundant 
 gifts of mind of which poor Celina had almost 
 none, and ample other means of usefulness, who 
 6 
 
132 UNCLE yOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS, 
 
 have never done even so much as she in feeding 
 God's sparrows. 
 
 But I must not make my letter too long; and 
 yet I cannot well close without telling you a little 
 how some of these things that I have been saying 
 have applied to Aunt Esther and myself. About 
 two months since, very shortly before the severe 
 and long sickness from which she has not quite 
 recovered, and which has left me feeble, almost, 
 as a child, we were sitting late one evening by 
 our cosy fire, and talking about the goodness of 
 our Heavenly Father, of which the chapter, I 
 think, which we had just been reading, reminded 
 us; how he had taken care of us in our journey, 
 and made everything so pleasant and easy for us. 
 Then we said to one another, that perhaps 
 trouble would come, sickness, or some other 
 trial; but if it did, we added, we would reme7n-- 
 ber the birds in the palace ga^'den^ for we had 
 noticed the little creatures often, and thought and 
 spoken of the fact that God cares for them, and 
 much more for us. 
 
 Very soon after the sickness came ; first Aunt 
 Esther, with an infectious and most trying dis- 
 order, then a week later myself, with what at 
 
THE BIRDS IN THE PALACE GARDEN. 1 23 
 
 first was thought to be the same, but proved to 
 be something else. Even the servants in the 
 hotel were now afraid to come near us, and for 
 a time we were almost without attendance, none 
 of our friends venturing to visit us. But God 
 remembered us, his poor wounded sparrows. 
 He sent us soon the skillful physician and the 
 kind nurses, and blessed what they did for us, 
 so that though one of us has been so near the 
 gate of death as to see its stern shape and the 
 light beyond, we are both living, and hope soon 
 to be both well. 
 
 During these tedious, lonely weeks, we have 
 occasionally said to one another, " Remember 
 the birds in the palace garden ;" and they them- 
 selves have seemed to say the same. For, as 
 our hotel is near the garden, they used to come 
 occasionally and perch upon the little stone bal- 
 conies outside our windows, where we could 
 see them as we lay in bed, and would look in 
 upon us, as if to say, " God takes care of us, 
 and he will take care of you." 
 
 Ah, it is so good, dear children, to trust in 
 God; to be able to come to him, in the name 
 of Jesus, feeling sure that for that dear name's 
 
124 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 sake he has forgiven our sins and made us his 
 sons and daughters. If you thus make him 
 your own God and Father, as you may, in 
 your happy youtli, he will be your God and 
 your keeper all the years of your life — will 
 comfort you when sorrow comes, and when it 
 is death, will save you in his own happy heaven. 
 Remember, dear children, and you, older friends, 
 who may read what I write, remember the birds 
 in the palace garden. 
 
 Uncle John. 
 
^^^ 
 
 LETTER ELEVENTH. 
 
 the old soldiers and their general.* 
 
 Dear Boys and Girls: 
 
 E went one day to visit the tomb of 
 Napoleon the First, in Paris. It is 
 one of the most interesting structures 
 of that renowned city. Built in con- 
 nection with the Hotel des Invalides, it occupies 
 a space equal to a block of buildings in one of 
 our cities. The tomb is on one side of a square, 
 and the Hotel des Invalides on the three others, 
 thus making a court-yard, in the centre of which 
 is a spacious church for the invalid soldiers to 
 worship in. For " Invalides " mearhs invalid, 
 
 * I think it only fair to let the children know that 
 this letter was written by Aunt Esther. — Unclb 
 John. 
 
126 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 that is, crippled, sick soldiers, or those infirm 
 through age; and by "Hotel" is meant, not 
 what you mean in America by that word, but 
 an asylum or hospital. 
 
 The church I mentioned has a stone pavement 
 made of little blocks of colored marble. We 
 attended a service there one Sabbath. There 
 were no seats except by the altar, the place 
 where the priests officiate — for this, of course, 
 is a Catholic church — and the vast area was 
 filled with a motley group of soldiers, maimed 
 and sick; some reclining upon movable couches, 
 some sitting on sedan chairs; some stood, lean- 
 ing upon crutches; some were armless, some 
 eyeless. The visitors also had to stand. The 
 arched ceiling is painted with battle scenes, and 
 more than a hundred torn and battered flags, 
 captured from enemies, hung there. Each of 
 tliese flags had been carried in some terrible 
 battle; some of them, perhaps, had been cap- 
 tured by some of these old soldiers, and dearly 
 did they love to look at them, as signs of vic- 
 tory. If I could have seen somewhere a banner 
 of the cross, which had won a victory over their 
 hearts, and caused them to shout, "All hail. 
 
OLD SOLDIERS AND THEIR GENERAL. 1 27 
 
 victorious Jesus!" I could have worshiped there 
 with them. As you are American boys and 
 girls, you may like to know that there were 
 no stars and stripes among those captured flags. 
 
 The organ, during the service, responded oc- 
 casionally to a chorus of drums played by little 
 boys. When we left the church these drummer- 
 boys went first, then the invalid soldiers, then 
 the visitors. Everything was done in perfect 
 order, and the reverential attitude of the wor- 
 shipers, and their silent devotion, made it seem 
 a solemn place. 
 
 The Hotel des Invalides, as I told you, is 
 the home of these soldiers. It was built for 
 this purpose by a great king, Louis the Four- 
 teenth, just two hundred years ago, in 1670. 
 The buildings and courts, all together, cover 
 sixteen acres of ground, and there is accom- 
 modation for jive thousand of these battered 
 veterans. I went through the long corridors 
 inside, and 'looked at the dormitories, or sleep- 
 ing-places, which they occupy. Outside there 
 is a balcony for them to walk in, and a garden 
 of beautiful flowers for them to look at, or to 
 cultivate. The kitchen and dinmg-rooms in- 
 
128 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 terested us very much. Food is prepared here 
 for the sick, while those who have lost a leg, 
 or an arm, only, and are. not infirm, are supplied 
 with a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine each 
 day, with a little money, which they can spend 
 as they please. I think the French know how 
 to make good soldiers, by caring for them when 
 they have thus become unable to march and 
 fight, or even, perhaps, to work for a livelihood. 
 The tomb of Napoleon the First is a grand 
 structure. I will tiy to give you some idea of 
 it. An iron fence twenty feet high, with a 
 soldier at each of the gates, guards the entrance. 
 Passing through one of these gates, after a walk 
 of a few rods, we went up a flight of marble 
 steps, and were received by the attendant at the 
 arched door into a magnificent circle, over which 
 rose the lofty and splendid dome. This dome is 
 filled with gorgeously painted windows, through 
 which the light, changed to all the hues of 
 the rainbow, falls down upon the place where 
 the great Emperor sleeps. This immense dome 
 is also gilded outside, so is the spire that rises 
 from it to the height of more than three hun- 
 dred feet from the ground, and when the sun 
 
OLD SOLDIERS AND THEIR GENERAL, 1 29 
 
 is shining brightly it is splendid, and unlike 
 anything else seen even in Paris. 
 
 We proceeded to the marble railing around 
 the wide and deep basin containing the cata- 
 falque, or tomb proper. This catafalque is a full 
 story below where we stood. It is made of 
 granite from the island of Corsica, where Na- 
 poleon was born, and has upon the top of it 
 a sarcophagus, or coffin — though not in the 
 shape of a coffin, but of a large chest, with 
 scroll-work at the ends. This is of Russia stone, 
 which resembles mahogany. In this the Em- 
 peror lies, the place of his head being known 
 only by the bouquets and wreaths of flowers 
 placed there by those who love his memory. 
 Near by is an altar, at which service is per- 
 formed at five o'clock every morning. Around 
 the catafalque are twenty-four statues in niches. 
 The floor is mosaic, that is, made of blocks of 
 colored marble. These are so shaped and ar- 
 ranged as to make twenty-four triangles, the 
 points of which meet under the tomb, while at 
 the broad end or base of each stands one of the 
 statues. As I stood there and looked upon the 
 artistic wonders of the place, I thought how 
 6* 
 
130 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 much this Emperor is still beloved; and here, 
 now. 
 
 " He sleeps his last sleep, he has fought his last 
 
 battle; 
 No sound can awake him to glory again." 
 
 There are at the sides of this great room, the 
 centre of which is occupied by the basin, or 
 crypt, I have described, several chapels, in one 
 of which are deposited the remains of Joseph, 
 in another of Jerome, in another of Lucien Bo- 
 naparte. These were all brothers of the Empe- 
 ror. Louis Napoleon, I suppose, expects some 
 day to occupy one of them. We went down a 
 flight of white marble stairs to the entrance of 
 the crypt, or basin, where the Emperor lies. 
 This entrance, with great, bronze doors, is per- 
 manently closed — sealed forever. No mortal 
 mail must lie beside the Emperor. Two of the 
 generals he loved best. General Bertrand and 
 General Duroc, are placed near the entrance; 
 but within, he lies alone in his glorv. Over the 
 entrance the following sentence, taken from his 
 will, is cut in the solid stone : 
 
OLD SOLDIERS AND THEIR GENERAL. \n^t 
 
 '•I wish that my ashes may repose upon the banks 
 of the Seine, in the midst of the people I have loved 
 so much." 
 
 The wish has been granted. From the island 
 of St. Helena, where he died, twenty years after 
 his burial there, he was brought here, and this 
 magnificent tomb assigned him by the French 
 people, to show how much they adore the mem- 
 ory of Napoleon the First. 
 
 There will be something more about this in 
 the next letter. 
 
 Uncle John. 
 
LETTER TWELFTH. 
 
 HOW THE GENERAL CAME HOME. 
 
 Dear Boys and Girls: 
 
 HE Emperor Napoleon, after he had 
 been defeated at Waterloo, in that 
 terrible battle where the English Duke 
 of Wellington commanded on one 
 side and he upon the other, surrendered himself 
 to the British, and by them was carried as a 
 prisoner to the island of St. Helena, in the 
 Atlantic ocean. Here he arrived on the 15 th 
 of October, 18 15. Five years after he died, 
 having remained a prisoner during all that time; 
 not shut up in a gloomy building, it is true, as 
 prisoners generally are, but still not allowed to 
 leave the island. He was discontented and un- 
 happy; not so great a man in suffering as he 
 
HOW THE GENERAL CAME HOME. 1 33 
 
 was in acting. Indeed, it is in suffering that 
 it is always hardest of all for men to be very 
 great. Jesus was so, was he not? 
 
 After Napoleon had remained buried in St. 
 Helena twenty years, the French nation remem- 
 bered what he had written in his will — that he 
 wished to lie upon the banks of the Seine, in 
 the midst of the people whom he loved. So 
 they began to ask, "Is it not time for us to 
 bring the great Emperor and General home?" 
 Louis Philippe was the King of France at that 
 time, and though he was not in any way related 
 to the family of the Bonapartes, still he was 
 interested, like the rest, in carrying out what 
 Napoleon had wished so much. The island of 
 St. Helena, however, belonged to England, and 
 the French could not go upon the island and 
 take up the body and bring it away without 
 permission of the English Government. So 
 King Louis inquired of the English if they were 
 willing. They said they were; they thought it 
 was a thing very proper to do, and they would 
 be glad to see it done. 
 
 Accordingly, upon the 15th day of October, 
 1840, the same day of the year on which Napo- 
 
134 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS, 
 
 leon had arrived at St. Helena, and twenty 
 years after his burial there, two splendid French 
 ships of war sailed from Havre, the sea-port at 
 the mouth of the Seine, one hundred miles 
 from Paris, to bring the General and the Em- 
 peror home. The ships were commanded by 
 Prince de Joinville, a son of the King, Louis 
 Philippe. In three weeks he arrived at St. 
 Helena, and, accompanied by the Governor of 
 the island and other official persons, he went 
 to the spot, in a lovely little valley, where the 
 temporary tomb of Napoleon had been made. 
 They opened it and found the coffin just as it 
 had been placed there, twenty years before. 
 There was first a coffin of mahogany; in this 
 was one of lead, and in this another of tin. In 
 the tin coffin the body lay. It had been kept 
 so closely shut from the air that w4ien they 
 opened the coffin, they found the face of the 
 Emperor very little changed, so that those who 
 had seen him in life recognized it in a moment. 
 It was a solemn, affecting time. 
 
 Tl\e coffins were then closed as before, and 
 carried to the ships, a long procession accom- 
 panying, in which nearly all the people on the 
 
HOW THE GENERAL CAME HOME. 1 35 
 
 island joined. The ships then sailed for France, 
 and when they arrived at Havre again the coffins 
 w^ere taken on board a smaller ship, one that 
 could sail up the Seine to Paris. There w^as a 
 very splendid catafalque prepared on deck on 
 w^hich to put them, and at night there w^ere 
 lights so placed as to shine directly uj^on it and 
 make it gleam and glitter as if covered with 
 brilliant stars. All along the Seine, between 
 Havre and Paris, there are cities and villages. 
 At these the people would come out to meet the 
 funeral ship, as it drew near, with processions 
 and solemn music. They built arches of flow- 
 ers over the river, under which the ship would 
 pass, while its decks were covered with the bou- 
 quets and garlands they placed there. 
 
 At last the ship reached Paris. There it was 
 met by some great persons whom the King had 
 sent for the purpose; the catafiilque was taken 
 from it and carried through the streets to the 
 Place de la Concorde. Here the King met it, 
 and the Prince de JoinviUe said, 
 
 "• Sire, I present to you the body of the Em- 
 peror Napoleon." 
 
136 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 The King replied, " I receive it in the name 
 of France." 
 
 He then gave to Marshal Soult, w^ho had 
 been one of the greatest of Napoleon's generals, 
 the sword which Napoleon had carried in lead- 
 ing the great armies he commanded, and said 
 to him, " General, I charge you to place this 
 sword of the Emperor upon his coffin." 
 
 This was done, and the procession moved on. 
 When it arrived at the Hotel des Invalides, the 
 coffins were taken from the catafalque and the 
 funeral car, and by thirty-two of Napoleon's Old 
 Guard, soldiers who had marched and fought 
 with him in many a hard campaign up to Wa- 
 terloo, carried into the church. In the esplan- 
 ade, before the Hotel des Invalides, there were 
 not less than thirty thousand people; and in the 
 porticoes within, surrounding the court through 
 which the procession would pass to the tomb, 
 six thousand more. After service in the church, 
 the body was carried to the tomb, . and placed 
 as described in the last letter. And this is how 
 the General came home. 
 
 Now, Napoleon was, doubtless, a very great 
 man. I shall not say that the honors paid to 
 
HOW THE GENERAL CAME HOME. 1 37 
 
 his memory are more than he deserved, for I 
 think that nations ought to honor their rulers, 
 and while Napoleon did very wrong in bringing 
 on so many wars, and was influenced in what 
 he did far too much by his love of power and 
 of praise, still he was th-e means of great good 
 to France. I am glad, too, that he lies now 
 where he wished to lie — at home, not in that 
 lonely island; among the people he loved, not 
 in the soil of the stranger and the enemy. 
 
 But I cannot help thinking how differently 
 Jesus — who Napoleon himself said was far 
 greater than he, or than Caesar, or than Alex- 
 ander, or any of the great men of this world 
 — desires to have us show our love, from that 
 way in which the French show their love for 
 their Emperor. He does not require us to build 
 monuments to him. It is true he needs no tomb, 
 for his body rose from the tomb where it was 
 laid and ascended, glorified, into heaven. But 
 neither does he require any thing of the kind. 
 You remember, do you not, how he said we 
 must show our love to him? — by loving each 
 other, and being kind to the poor and the per- 
 ishing — by seeking, as he did, to save the lost. 
 
138 UNCLE yOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 At the same time, there was something in the 
 sight of those old soldiers at the Invalides which 
 made me think of what every Christian should 
 be. If we only loved our Great Captain as they 
 loved theirs! How proud and glad they felt to 
 be known as his soldiers! What a sacred, happy 
 place to them was the spot where they knew his 
 body is laid ! Though so poor, so old, so feeble, 
 so maimed, some of them, they would not have 
 changed places with the young Prince Imperial, 
 son of the Emperor, over at the Tuileries; it 
 was better to have been a soldier of the Great 
 Napoleon, than to be young, and rich, and the 
 heir to a throne. Ah, it is much more to be a 
 Christian ! 
 
 Then, oici- General is coming home again 
 some day. Not as Napoleon came; — more 
 gloriously even than they brought him; and 
 not sleeping in a coffin unmindful of all that is 
 done in his honor. He will come as the Living 
 Redeemer; come with the angels attending, and 
 not riding in ships, or in funeral cars, but in 
 chariots of salvation. He will come, not to be 
 housed in a tomb, as Napoleon is, however gor- 
 geously, but to open the tombs with the word 
 
HOW THE GENERAL CAME HOME. 1 39 
 
 of his mouth, and to call up the sleeping saints 
 to meet their Lord in the air. 
 
 Oh, let me be a soldier of Jesus. Let me be 
 one of those who shall welcome him when he 
 comes again " to be admired in all them that 
 believe," to take unto him his kingdom in final 
 triumph, and reign forever and ever. 
 
 Uncle John. 
 
LETTER THIRTEENTH. 
 
 the story of a castle. 
 
 Dear Boys and Girls: 
 
 OME time ago I told you " the story of 
 a king." Would you like to read, 
 now, '• the story of a castle ?" Please, 
 then, to take your maps and find near 
 the southern coast of England the Isle of Wight. 
 Imagine yourselves, next, just about in the mid- 
 dle of this beautiful island, and that you have 
 climbed the high hill vvdiich you saw rising from 
 the midst of a lovely valley as you rode over from 
 Ryde yonder, opposite Portsmouth, with Aunt 
 Esther and me. You have not only climbed the 
 hill, but have now clambered also to the top 
 of a gray old wall, very high and very ancient, 
 from which you are looking out upon one of the 
 most charming landscapes, I will venture to say, 
 
THE STORT OF A CASTLE. 14I 
 
 you ever saw. It is not grand, like some of our 
 American ones, except in the wide sweep of 
 country which the eye takes in, and which, to 
 your right and left, as you stand looking north- 
 ward, reaches from sea to sea. Just at your feet 
 is a small village, with its ancient church hun- 
 dreds of years old; a little farther away is 
 another and larger village; both are embowered 
 in fine old trees, while each has its small stream 
 which winds away through the valley, a gleam 
 of silver amid the green fields. In the still 
 farther distance, on every side, you see the rich 
 lands of the " Garden Isle," as they appropriately 
 call it; the gently swelling hills crowned with 
 trees, the green slopes and valleys, the cottages 
 of the poor and the mansions of the rich; while 
 far away yonder are the towers of a queen's pal- 
 ace — Osborne House, one of the favorite homes 
 of Qiieen Victoria. Where could you find a 
 lovelier scene.'' This old castle to whose battle- 
 ments we have climbed is Carisbrooke Castle; 
 the nearer and smaller of the two villages down 
 there is the village of Carisbrooke, and the one 
 farther away is Newport, the capital of the island. 
 It is this castle, mostly in ruins now, whose 
 
142 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 '' stoiy," at least some part of it, I wish to tell 
 you. 
 
 I suppose that if we were to " begin at the be- 
 ginning" of our story we should have to go back 
 almost to the very time, so long ago, when our 
 Saviour lived upon the earth. Before that time, 
 even, more than eighteen hundred and seventy 
 years since, as nearly as can be made out, the 
 people who first inhabited this island found it 
 lying here like a gem in the sea. They came 
 over to it, either from Britain — as it then was, 
 England now — or from the coast of France, to 
 the southward yonder. They were not exactly 
 the same sort of people that live on the island 
 now, but diflfered from them very nearly the 
 same as a Welshman diflfers from an English- 
 man. One of the earliest places they occupied 
 was this little village, here at the foot of the hill. 
 Here they built their small huts with roofs 
 shaped like a sugar-loaf, and lived no doubt by 
 fishing in this stream below which seems then to 
 have been quite a large river; and because their 
 village was thus built upon the river bank, they 
 called it Carisbrooke, which in their language 
 meant " the town on the stream." It bewilders 
 
THE STORY OF A CASTLE. I43 
 
 US to think, as you and I stand here upon the old 
 wall of the castle and look down upon the village 
 roofs, how very long ago that must have been. 
 
 It was the custom of the people of whom I am 
 telling you, when they built a town, especially 
 one which they expected to make an important 
 one, to build also some kind of a fortress or fort 
 near it, for defense against their enemies. So it 
 appears that those who first settled here at Caris- 
 brooke, noticing the high and rugged hill near 
 them, rising up out of the valley, and in some 
 places quite difficult of ascent, saw that it was a 
 good place for a fort, and accordingly built one 
 upon the summit, in their own rude fashion. 
 This was the beginning of Carisbrooke Castle. 
 The people I speak of were Britons, not such as 
 Englishmen and Americans now are, for they 
 are Saxon in their origin, but such as the inhab- 
 itants of Wales, "or the Welshmen are. About 
 as long ago as when our Saviour was living on 
 the earth, it is thought that they first inhabited 
 the village of Carisbrooke, and began, in their 
 rude way, this castle on the hill. 
 
 Some five hundred years after, the Saxons 
 came. We will now go down from this part 
 
144 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 of the wall where we have been standing, and 
 crossing the castle-yard into the northeast corner 
 of it, we see rising above us a round tower, 
 covered to the very top with ivy. A long flight 
 of stone steps, eighty-one in number, will lead 
 us to the summit, and, if you please, we will 
 ascend them. You perceive that there is no 
 way of getting into the tower but by those steps; 
 and if you observe closely you will see that the 
 tower itself is built upon the summit of a high 
 mound, which seems to have been thrown up 
 for the purpose, and the sides of which are now 
 covered with small trees and shrubs. Along 
 the slope of this mound the stone steps run until 
 they bring you to the gates of the tower. Of 
 these gates you see that there were three, and 
 some of the iron hinges on which they hung 
 are still in the wall. The first of the gates was 
 what is called a portcullis, that is a strong heavy 
 gate, moving up and down in grooves, and with 
 sharp iron spikes along the lower edge. You 
 can see now the grooves in the stone pillars on 
 each side the gate-way. Beyond this there are 
 two other gates, and then 3-0U come into the 
 tower, now an open space, the roof having long 
 
THE STORY OF A CASTLE. 1 45 
 
 since decayed. You perceive that an enemy 
 wishing to take this tovver would have first to 
 come up those steep stone stairs, then force his 
 way through those three gates, with the defenders 
 shooting at him from the loop-holes and from 
 the summit. The only possible way to take it 
 would be to batter it down, which would be 
 easy enough in these days, but would have been 
 impossible in those when the tower was built, 
 for then they had no cannon for such purposes. 
 This tower was called " The Keep," because it 
 was so strong. It was built by the Saxons, 
 probably not less than thirteen hundred years 
 ago. 
 
 But now out " story " comes forward five hun- 
 dred years more, and we are at the time when 
 William the Conqueror crossed over from 
 France, and in the dreadful battle of Hastings 
 made himself master of England. He and those 
 who came over with him were called Normans, 
 because they lived in Normandy, a part of 
 France. A few days ago I stood upon that old 
 battle-ground. I saw where the Normans and 
 the Saxons fought each other, with their terrible 
 weapons, from seven in the morning until night, 
 
 7 
 
146 UNCLE yOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS, 
 
 and the spot where Harold, then the King of 
 England, fell, with an arrow in his brain. 
 Among those who came over with William was 
 a nobleman named Fitz-Osborne. To him the 
 king gave Carisbrooke Castle, with the village 
 and broad lands adjacent. He built these other 
 walls which we see around us; the massive gate- 
 way, also, through which we passed as we 
 entered the castle, the chapel of St. Nicholas, 
 whose ruined wall we saw upon our right as we 
 came in, the mansion for the residence of the 
 governor or captain of the castle which we saw 
 in front, and all these high, strong walls, which 
 enclose about an acre and a half of ground. All 
 these were built by William Fitz-Osborne, not 
 far from eight hundred years ago. 
 
 If, now, we come forward again another five 
 hundred years, we are in the time of Elizabeth, 
 the great Qiieen. By that time the castle needed 
 repairing. She repaired it, and also enlarged it. 
 You remember that as we came up the hill, we 
 left by mistake the direct road to the entrance 
 of the castle and went round to the back of it. 
 We were thus obliged to almost encircle it be- 
 fore reaching the only place where a visitor can 
 
THE STORT OF A CASTLE. 1 47 
 
 get in. We thought it a long walk; — and so it 
 was, much longer than if the castle were now as 
 Fitz-Osborne left it, for Elizabeth caused extensive 
 out- works, as they are called, to be built; — that 
 is, another strong wall, though not so high, 
 with embankments of earth within, upon which 
 cannon could be planted. These additional 
 walls makes the whole space enclosed about 
 twenty acres. No wonder we felt tired when 
 at the end of such a long walk, after climbing 
 the steep hill, besides. But we reached the en- 
 trance at last, and there we found more of Eliza- 
 beth's work. For before we came, in entering, 
 to the main wall and gate, we had to pass 
 through another one, and then along a wind- 
 ing passage, with a wall on either side of us. 
 These, too, were built by Elizabeth, about three 
 hundred years ago. Since then the castle has 
 remained as it now is, except that after some 
 time less care was shown in preserving it, and 
 little by little it has fallen in ruins, with the 
 exception of the exterior walls and the mansion 
 house within. 
 
 Connected with the mansion house, or near 
 it, is a very curious thing — the well-house. 
 
148 UNCLE yOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 This is a small stone building within which is 
 a well two hundred and forty feet deef. It is 
 one hundred and fifty feet down to the water, 
 which itself has a depth of ninety feet. Of 
 course it would be impossible to bring up water 
 from such a depth by hand, so they have a large 
 wheel, to which a horizontal beam is attached 
 running over the top of the well, with a strong 
 rope winding around it. The wheel is worked 
 by a donkey. At the command of his master 
 he gets upon the inside of the rim of the wheel, 
 at the bottom, of course. This rim is about 
 three feet wide, and as he treads it the wheel 
 turns round, the beam turns also and winds up 
 the rope, and, slowly, up comes the big bucket, 
 filled with water wonderfully sweet and cool. 
 Not long ago a donkey died here which had 
 worked in this wheel for forty years, and the 
 one before him had done duty in the same way 
 for forty-five years. The well, the wall of which 
 is amazingly strong, was built in the time of 
 King Stephen, or about seven hundred years ago; 
 the wheel and beam now in use were put there 
 in the time of Elizabeth. 
 
 But, that I may not make my letter too long, 
 
THE STORT OF A CASTLE. 
 
 149 
 
 I will stop here, now, and tell you in my next 
 about some of the people who have lived in the 
 castle. 
 
 Uncle John. 
 
LETTER FOURTEENTH. 
 
 THE STORY OF A CASTLE CONCLUDED. 
 
 Dear Boys and Girls: 
 
 T is wonderful to think what a busy, 
 bustHng scene Carisbrooke Castle once 
 presented, still and melancholy as it 
 is now. Through the great gate-way 
 by which we entered, how often have bands of 
 steel-clad soldiers marched in; how many times 
 have warrior-knights, in glittering armor, with 
 their banners and trumpets, and their scores of 
 followers, pranced through; how often more 
 peaceful processions, splendid groups of ladies 
 and gentlemen returning from the chase, gaily 
 chattering as they j^assed under the massive arch 
 and came out into the castle -yard, where, per- 
 haps, little children, boys and girls, were at play. 
 
THE STORY OF A CASTLE. 151 
 
 At other times the soldiers, mounting the walls, 
 have seen their enemy encamped below, and 
 have manfully resisted them. But, although 
 several times besieged, the old castle was never 
 taken. 
 
 One part of our story is a sad one. Have 
 you ever read of the Civil Wars in England; 
 those, I mean, between King Charles the First 
 and his Parliament? You may remember how 
 trouble arose between them which grew at last 
 into a war; how several battles were fought, and 
 how, at last, the King was defeated and made 
 prisoner. He was kept, at first, in a kind of 
 honorable captivity at Hampton Court, a palace 
 near London. From this, however, he escaped, 
 and after concealing himself for a while at a 
 place where the people were friendly to him, it 
 occurred to him that he would try to have the 
 Governor of Carisbrooke Castle, one Colonel 
 Hammond, give him a shelter here. It ended 
 in his being brought to the castle as a prisoner. 
 When a boy of nine years, and again wdien 
 a youth of eighteen, he had been here, and had 
 gone out and come in with hunting parties, such 
 as I spoke of a minute ago. Over yonder, in 
 
153 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 what was then Parkhurst Forest, but where you 
 now see those extensive barracks for soldiers, he 
 went hunting, and as he returned to the castle 
 little dreamed, I suppose, that it was one day 
 to be his prison. And yet, thirty years after the 
 second of those visits, he rode up again along 
 the path that now winds so beautifully under 
 the trees, rounding the hill, and, with the stern 
 Puritan soldiers guarding him, passed in by the 
 gateway, which then, no doubt, seemed to him 
 gloomy and threatening. 
 
 At first the prisoner-king was treated well, 
 but, little by little, things changed. One after 
 another of his old servants were sent away, 
 until at last his best friend near him was an old 
 man who came in each morning to light his 
 fire. His hair and beard turned gray and grew 
 to a great length, while his clothes were neglected 
 and soon became very unlike what kings are 
 wont to wear. Twice he tried to escape, each 
 time by a window in the castle. The first time 
 the opening between the bars was too small, 
 and after passing his head through he hung by 
 the breast and shoulders until, with much diffi- 
 culty, he succeeded in forcing himself back. He 
 
THE STORT OF A CASTLE. 1 53 
 
 was then removed to another part of the castle, 
 and after some time made another attempt. 
 One of the window-bars he cut in two with a 
 file and some aqua fortis which friends outside 
 had managed to send in to him. But just as he 
 was passing out through the wider opening so 
 made, he saw that men were on guard under 
 the window, and that escape was thus made 
 impossible. Sadly he closed his window and 
 went back to his bed. 
 
 After many months had thus passed, the Par- 
 liament proposed terms of agreement; the king 
 was taken from the castle down to Newport, 
 that he might meet the messengers sent to con- 
 fer with him. Terms were finally agreed to, 
 but meanwhile the army, which was unfriendly 
 to Charles, had got the power in its hands, and 
 by its means the king was taken away as a 
 prisoner to another castle where he remained 
 until they took him to London and put him to 
 death. In the register of the old church at 
 Carisbrooke there are two records made, which 
 tell, in a few sad words, how this sonowful 
 history ended. The first is: 
 
 7* 
 
154 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 "The sixth day of September, King Charles went 
 from the Castle to Newport to treat, and the last day 
 of November he went from Newport to Hurst Castle 
 to prison, cai'ried awaj by two troops of horse." 
 
 The second is as follows: 
 
 "In the year of our Lord 1649, January the 30th 
 day, was King Charles beheaded at Whitehall Gate." 
 
 It was in 1647 that he had been first taken 
 to Carisbrooke Castle, and so from that time 
 till his death not far from two years must have 
 elapsed. As we entered the castle through the 
 main gate, did you notice a large window in 
 the wall upon the left hand } It is in what must 
 have been the second story of the rooms which 
 then ran along upon that side, and the ruins 
 of which you now see at the base of the wall. 
 That window is the one by which King Charles 
 tried the second time to escape. You see that 
 it has iron bars running up and down it, half as 
 thick as a man's* wrist. One of these bars has 
 been taken out. I wonder if it is the one which 
 King Charles cut with his file and his aqua fortis. 
 
 There is another window, still more sadly 
 associated with the history of this same king, 
 
THE STORT OF A CASTLE. 1 55 
 
 which I could show you if you would visit 
 London with me some time. As we rode down 
 from Trafalgar Square, where the monument 
 to Lord Nelson, the great sailor, is, to West- 
 minster Abbey, we should pass through what 
 used to be the inner court of the palace of 
 Whitehall, but is now a street. A part of the 
 palace is still standing, and at one corner of the 
 second story is the window out of which the 
 king stepped upon the scaffold which had been 
 built close to it, and a few minutes after laid his 
 head upon the executionei-'s block. These two 
 windows, in Carisbrooke Castle and in the Pal- 
 ace of Whitehall, will be memorable for a long 
 time, will they not.^* 
 
 But there is still another person of whom 1 
 must speak to you in this Story of a Castle. 
 This time it is a little girl. When she comes 
 to live in the castle she is only in her fifteenth 
 year. She is a king's daughter. Perhaps you 
 sometimes think that it must be very nice to be 
 the son or daughter of a king, and that such 
 can never have many things to trouble tliem, 
 but everything possible to make them happy. 
 This little girl had trouble enough, though she 
 
156 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS, 
 
 was, in spite of that, a cheerful and happy child. 
 Her name was JElizabeth, and she was the 
 daughter of the king of whom I just spoke to 
 you. King Charles the First. About a year and 
 a half after her father's death she was brought 
 to Carisbrooke Castle, with her brother Henry, 
 two years younger. The persons who then gov- 
 erned England did not wish that there should 
 be any more kings or queens in that country, 
 and since these children of King Charles might 
 some day wish to be such, or some people might 
 try to make them such, they shut them up in 
 this castle. They were allowed to run about 
 inside the castle, and to play upon the green in 
 the castle yard, but not to go outside the walls; 
 so they, too, were prisoners. 
 
 But Elizabeth did not remain long a prisoner. 
 In less than a month she died. She had always 
 had poor health, and the confinement now, with 
 the sorrow she had felt at her father's sad fate, 
 made her much worse, so that she soon died. 
 But she died very happy. Her father, shortly 
 before his death, had given her a Bible as a 
 keepsake. This, when she was dying, she 
 asked those who waited upon her to place under 
 
THE STORT OF A CASTLE. 157 
 
 her head. It was thus seen how much she 
 loved her father, but I think, also, how much 
 she loved the dear Book of God. Many things 
 that she said, too, showed that she loved and 
 trusted in the Saviour, and when she died, I 
 have no doubt, her soul, from the castle-prison, 
 went to be free and happy in heaven. 
 
 They buried her in a church in Newport, 
 of which I spoke in my former letter as now 
 the capital of the island. This was more than 
 two hundred years ago. It was forgotten after 
 a time that she had been buried there, as there 
 was nothing placed over the spot to keep it in 
 memory. But a few years since, when some 
 workmen were digging a grave for some other 
 person, they found a lead coffin with the in- 
 scription, "Elizabeth, second daughter of King 
 Charles the First, who died at Carisbrooke 
 Castle, Sept. 8th, 1650." Of course they did 
 not disturb it, but covered it again and placed 
 another inscription where it could be seen, di- 
 rectly over the spot. In 1856, a little more than 
 two hundred years after the death of the young 
 princess, Queen Victoria caused a monument to 
 be placed in the church, the marble figure of 
 
158 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 a young girl lying with her head upon a Bible. 
 Upon the monument are these words: 
 
 " To the memory of the Princess Elizabeth^ daugh- 
 ter of King Charles /., ivho died at Carisbrooke Cas- 
 tle, Sept. 8, 1650, and is interred beneath the cJiaiicel 
 of thii church, this monument is erected as a token of 
 respect for her virtues a fid of sympathy for her mis- 
 fortunes, by Victoria R. " 
 
 This was a beautiful act in Qiieen Victoria, 
 was it not? As we stood looking at the lovely 
 marble figure, and thought of the long sickness 
 and the long sorrow of this young princess, we 
 felt glad that there is a heaven where the suffer- 
 ing and the sorrowful shall suffer and be sorrow- 
 ful no more. 
 
 But now, as we have come down from the 
 castle, I think I will take you with me to another 
 place and tell you about another young person, 
 not unlike the lovely and gentle Princess Eliza- 
 beth, although in a very different condition 
 of life. Do you have among your Sabbath- 
 school books the one entitled " Little Jane, the 
 Young Cottager?" She was a dear little Chris- 
 tian girl, so good and so intelligent, although so 
 
Little Jane Learning the Verses. 
 
't^ 
 
THE STORY OF A CASTLE. 1 59 
 
 poor and with so few opportunities of improve- 
 ment, that her pastor, Legli Richmond, wrote 
 a book about her after her death. The church 
 where he preached is at Brading, also in the 
 Isle of Wight, and a few miles from Ryde. 
 It is a very ancient church, having been built 
 in the year 704, and is now more than eleven 
 hundred and fifty years old. Just in the real 
 of it " Little Jane " is buried. We rode over to 
 Brading on the evening of the day after our 
 visit to Carisbrooke Castle, and saw the church, 
 and the spot where little Jane lies. Uj^on the 
 stone are these lines, written by the good min- 
 ister who wrote the book : 
 
 "Ye who the power of God delight to trace 
 And mark with joy each monument of grace, 
 Tread softly o'er this grave, as ye explore 
 
 'The short and simple annals of the poor.' 
 
 "A child reposes underneath this sod, 
 A child to memory dear, and dear to God, 
 Rejoice, yet shed the sympathetic tear; 
 Jane the 'Young Cottager' lies buried here." 
 
 It was the 30th of January, 1799, that little 
 Jane died, at the age of fifteen. So long ago 
 
l6o UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 as that, children did not have such Sunday- 
 school books, nor such Sunday-schools as we 
 now have; and this little girl with others, young 
 like herself, was sent into the church-yard often, 
 and made to learn the pious verses on the tomb- 
 stones, as one way of interesting them in sacred 
 things. Little Jane was very willing to do this, 
 and they show to visitors the stone from which 
 she learned the verses that she liked best. I 
 will copy them here: 
 
 " Forgive, blest shade, the tributary tear, 
 
 That mourns thj exit from a world like this; 
 
 Forgive the wish that would have kept thee here, 
 
 And stayed thj progress to the seats of bliss. 
 
 "No more confined to grovelling scenes of night, 
 No more a tenant pent in mortal clay; 
 Now should we rather hail thy glorious flight, 
 And trace thy journey to the realms of day.'* 
 
 Do you not think that little Jane and the Prin- 
 cess Elizabeth must have been somewhat alike, 
 although one was a King's daughter and the 
 other a cottager? True religion is just the 
 same in the one as in the other, and the love 
 of Jesus will show itself in just the same ,way 
 
THE STORT OF A CASTLE. l6l 
 
 in both. They both wear crowns now. They 
 are in the happy world where there are no castles 
 and no graves; for there men are never wicked 
 and never try to kill each other, and there, too, 
 " they die no more." 
 
 Uncle John. 
 
LETTER FIFTEENTH. 
 
 a walk by a river. 
 
 Dear Boys and Girls: 
 t)gr\Q^jS I have written to you in former let- 
 ters about things in England, France 
 and Italy, it may be well to write 
 one that shall tell you something of 
 what I have seen in Scotland; these four which 
 I have named being the countries I have visited, 
 chiefly, while abroad. So I am going to write 
 to you about "A Walk by a River." 
 
 The river is a very small one. In fact, it can 
 scarcely, with propriety, be called a river at all. 
 It is more like what the Scotch people call, I 
 believe, a " burn," or brook. And as it is a 
 " burn " full of little rapids and waterfalls, a 
 
A WALK BT A RIVER. 
 
 163 
 
 still more suitable name, at least in this part of 
 it, would be a " linn," which means a waterfall. 
 The name of the stream is the Eske, but the 
 particular locality I am to describe is called 
 Roslin ; I suppose because " linn " meaning a 
 waterfall, and " ross " a promontory or cliff, and 
 as this little stream, or succession of rapids and 
 cascades, runs between high cliffs, in some 
 places covered with trees, in others mere naked 
 rocks, the word " Roslin " would tell exactly 
 what it is. The walk which I took is about 
 one mile in length, descending to the little river 
 at one end from the cliffs, and then at the other 
 climbing up to their top again. 
 
 I will begin my little story where I began 
 my walk. After riding in the cars about seven 
 miles south of Edinburgh, I got out at a station 
 called Hawthornden ; that is, " the den of haw- 
 thorns" — the hawthorn being, as you know, 
 the tough and sturdy little tree, or shrub, which 
 the people in England and Scotland make 
 hedges of, instead of fences, for their farms. 
 But there are a good many nice things growing 
 around and in Hawthornden, besides the haw- 
 thorn. After walking about a quarter of a mile 
 
164 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS, 
 
 from the station, I turned in at a gate through 
 a solid stone wall, and found myself at once 
 in one of the most lovely parks I have seen 
 anywhere. It was not level, as many parks 
 are, but broken into little hills and slopes, along 
 which the path wound downward to the "den," 
 under noble elms and oaks, while the green 
 s-ward on each side was smooth, and bright, and 
 clean as possible. It was hard to " keep off the 
 grass," as the notice at the gate told me to do. 
 After winding downward along this path for 
 some time, with the views changing at almost 
 every step, and each one with some new beauty 
 in it, I came at last in sight of what seemed at 
 first like the ruins of a castle; a high old wall, 
 some day evidently part of a fine residence, 
 but now standing roofless, and covered with 
 ivy. A few steps further brought into view the 
 whole building, a portion of which has been 
 kept in repair, and is a commodious dwelling. 
 
 This was the house to which the name Haw- 
 thornden liad been given, because built, as you 
 will see, in a kind of den where once, I suppose, 
 if not now, the hawthorn was very abundant. 
 Here, between two and three hundred years ago, 
 
A WALK BY A RIVER, 1 65 
 
 a poet lived, named William Drummond, and 
 his descendants are here still. He lived at the 
 same time w^ith Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Queen 
 Elizabeth, and some other of the great folks we 
 read about. I can not stop now to tell you any 
 more of him than just to mention a visit he had 
 once from one of the persons I have mentioned, 
 Ben Jonson. " Ben," as everybod}^ called him, 
 was himself a poet, and a writer of stage-plays; 
 not so good a man as I wish he was, but quite a 
 famous one in his day. When Ben arrived, 
 Drummond, or " EILawthornden," as people often 
 called him, sat in a pleasant seat under a large 
 sycamore, which was still standing a few years 
 ago. As he sat there, looking out for his guest, 
 I presume, he saw a large, portly man coming 
 down the walk, with a step as independent, and 
 with as much an air of being at home as if the 
 house and grounds belonged to him, and he were 
 at home in reality. Drummond recognized him 
 and called out, 
 
 "Welcome, welcome, rojal Ben;" 
 
 and Ben replied, poet-like, with a rhyme, 
 
 " Thank ye, thank ye, Hawthornden.'* 
 
1 66 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 They had a good time together, and Drummond 
 afterwards made a book about it. 
 
 Visitors are not allowed to go into the house, 
 but they may go unde7' it. The house is built 
 upon a high, rocky cliff, one of those I told you 
 about just now. In ancient times, nobody knows 
 when, some caves were cut in the solid rock of 
 this cliff, and were then reached by some steps 
 which had been also cut downward along the 
 cliff, in a slanting direction, where it f;ices the 
 ravine. There were twenty-seven of these steps 
 running down from the top; at the foot of them 
 w^as a little bridge crossing a chasm, and then 
 there were eight more steps leading up to the 
 entrance of the caves, a hole just about large 
 enough to admit one person. This is as it used 
 to be. The steps and the bridge, however, are 
 now never used, but an opening into the caves 
 has been made, so that they can be entered from 
 the garden. 
 
 As you go in, you are first in a long, arched 
 passage, seventy-five feet in length and six in 
 breadth, which conducts you straight to the 
 other side where the entrance used to be, and 
 through which you look down into the glen, 
 
A WALK Br A RIVER. 1 67 
 
 and hear the rippling of the stream below. 
 Connected with this passage are three other 
 rooms; one called "the King's bed-chamber," 
 another "the " King's dining-room," and another 
 " the King's guard-room." In one of these rooms 
 the wall upon one side is cut out into little box- 
 like compartments, each about nine inches 
 square, Avhich look as if they might have been 
 meant for books, or as " pigeon-holes," for keep- 
 ing papers and other things. They call this " the 
 King's library." It is pretended that King 
 Robert Bruce, a very famous man who lived a 
 long while ago, made these caves his dwelling, 
 at a time when his enemies had become too 
 strong for him, and he was obliged to hide him- 
 self for a while. In the end of the long passage 
 where you come near the ancient entrance there 
 is what they call his broad-sword lying upon 
 a table, along with the writing-desk of John 
 Knox, the great Reformer in Queen Mary's 
 time. I do not find that there is any history 
 for what they say of Bruce having lived here, 
 and I doubt if he ever did. The caves were 
 probably made in the old stormy times, when 
 people needed such places to hide in, or in which 
 
1 68 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 to keep their valuables from robbers. But it is 
 time we had resumed our ^' walk by the river." 
 A little way from the house I have just been 
 describing, the visitor leaves the handsome, gar- 
 den-like grounds, and comes into what is still a 
 wilderness. At first the path runs along the 
 verge of the high cliff, and stepping a little to the 
 right, one may look down the steep face of it, 
 hundreds of feet into the deep ravine. Passing 
 on from this, he descends in a path that winds 
 about under the trees, which have been left to 
 grow in their own wild way, catching here and 
 there glimpses of the high, rocky walls of the 
 glen. After a time die little river is reached and 
 crossed by a wooden bridge, just wide enough 
 for one person at a time. Near the end of the 
 bridge a gate opens, and when you have passed, 
 shuts and locks itself, so that it is impossible 
 to return through it. Then along the river side 
 you go, under the steep cliff, now up a few 
 steps, now down again near the margin of the 
 stream, now with a bare, frowning rock hanging 
 over you, now with trees and shrubs clothing 
 the less precipitous sides; everything is still save 
 the singing of the stream as it swiftly courses 
 
A WALK Br A RIVER. 1 69 
 
 over its stony bed, the whisper of the wnid in 
 the tree-tops, and now and then, perhaps, the 
 carol of a bird. You seem out of the world, 
 in that secluded place, and can scarcely believe 
 tliat there are great and noisy cities, busy, bust- 
 ling crowds, to which in a few moments you 
 must go back. 
 
 I must not linger on my road, as I have some- 
 thing to tell you of at the end. Fancy yourselves, 
 then, making your way for a mile, by a narrow 
 path, through what, save for the path, is as 
 much a wilderness still as when the human foot 
 first entered it. After a while the trees begin 
 to part; you look forward and there is more 
 light; evidently you are coming out into an 
 open country again. The cliff, on the side where 
 you are walking, becomes a steep slope, instead 
 of a precipice, and is covered with green grass 
 instead of trees and underbrush. Upon the top 
 is a church, gray with age, yet beautiful, with 
 its gothic windows and pinnacles. Looking for- 
 ward, you see the still grayer ruins of a castle, 
 not quite so high up as the church, and partly 
 hidden in trees. These are Roslin Castle and 
 Roslin Chapel. Pursuing your way to the 
 8 
 
170 UNCLE yOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 castle, you find it is a ruin indeed, with the 
 exception of one building within the walls, 
 which is still a dwelling. 
 
 We are here once more among the decaying 
 works of men long since passed away. It is 
 probably eight or nine hundred years since Ros- 
 lin Castle was built, and the chapel is at least 
 half as old. Wandering among the ruins of 
 the former, as it " frowns o'er the rocky steep," 
 you can scarcely believe that it was once what 
 we are told it was. I find it said by one \'ery 
 old writer that the proud Scottish knight who 
 lived in it some four hundred years ago. Sir 
 William Sinclair, Prince of the Orkney Islands, 
 was served at his table in vessels of gold and 
 silver. He had one lord to superintend his 
 household, another to give him his cup of wine 
 at dinner, another to do his carving; while his 
 lady was served by seventy-five gentlemen, and 
 by fifty-three ladies all daughters of noblemen, 
 adorned in silk and velvet, with chains of gold 
 and all sorts of jewelry. When she rode out 
 two hundred horsemen attended her, and if at 
 niglit, eighty other men, with lighted torches. 
 What a grand person, truly! Where are they 
 
A WALK Br A RIVER. lyi 
 
 all now? There is not an echo of voice or step 
 on Roslin steep to-day to remind of the gay 
 and busy scene of the times so long gone by, 
 and the proud hall where they reveled and 
 rejoiced has crumbled wholly away. Alas, what 
 is human greatness? A dream only. 
 
 They tell a curious story of the man who 
 owned and occupied Roslin Castle in the time 
 of Robert Bruce. His name, I think, was Sir 
 Oliver Sinclair. King Robert, who then lived 
 in Edinburgh, was very fond of hunting, and 
 used often to chase the deer on Pentland Hills, 
 which are near to Roslin. He had several times 
 started a deer of a peculiar color, so swift that his 
 dogs had never succeeded in pulling her down. 
 One day, as he was out as usual, accompanied 
 by his knights and among them Sir Oliver 
 Sinclair, he spoke of die deer, and in rather 
 a bantering tone asked if any of them could 
 succeed better than he. Sir Oliver had two 
 dogs, one of them named " Help," and the other 
 *' Hold," which he asserted were better dogs than 
 the King's, and would catch the deer. He 
 offered at length to wager his head against a 
 certain tract of land near by, called Pentland 
 
172 UNCLE yOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 Moor, that his dogs would catch the deer be- 
 fore she could cross a little stream named March 
 burn. The deer was soon roused. Help and 
 Hold pressed hard after her. The knight seemed 
 likely to lose his wager and his life. They say 
 that he called out, 
 
 "Help, Haud (Hold), an' je may, 
 Or Roslin will lose his head this day." 
 
 The deer plunged into the burn, and was half 
 way across, when Hold seized her, and Help 
 coming quickly up, they together brought her 
 down. Thus Sir Oliver won a handsome ad- 
 dition to his lands. But I have no idea, for my 
 part, that if he had lost his wager, he would 
 at the same time have lost his head. Perhaps 
 the story is only a story. Anyhow, it has a 
 lesson for us. Help and Hold are the right 
 sort of dog's to do our hunting with in this 
 world. We must " hold " hard if we mean 
 to really win any prize, and be as ready to 
 " help " as to hold. Only let us be sure that we 
 hunt for right things, and in a right way. 
 
 But now, as our walk by the river is finished, 
 I must tell you what it makes me think of. I 
 
A WALK Br A RIVER. 1 73 
 
 think it is much Hke our walk through Hfe. I 
 can remember when hfe seemed to me very 
 much as the park at Hawthornden seemed as I 
 turned into it through the gate that briglit after- 
 noon; when it appeared a very pleasant thing to 
 live, and as if there was not much else to do in 
 this world but to run cheerily along a smooth 
 path, with the green slopes around, and the 
 whispering leaves overhead. That is where you 
 are now, dear boys and girls, and perhaps you 
 sometimes wonder at the wrinkles, and furrows, 
 and gray hairs which we older ones bear, and 
 are puzzled to understand why life should seem 
 so hard. But the path soon leaves the park, 
 with its walks and slopes and flower-beds. Be- 
 fore we know it we are amid the thickets of 
 the wilderness. The steep cliff of which I spoke, 
 upon whose dizzy verge I stood looking down 
 into the gulf, is like the first great temptation 
 which one encounters. As you approach, there 
 seems no such abyss there. The ravine is nar- 
 row just at that point, and as you see the green 
 branches on the other side, you imagine that 
 you can, if you choose, go down the steep and 
 then up again under those pleasant trees. But 
 
1 74 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS, 
 
 arrived at the verge, you peixeive that there is 
 no way to go down but to plunge headlong, 
 while sure that to do this will be to be dashed 
 in pieces. Happy they who recoil in season 
 from the brink of the temptation that entices 
 to ruin! 
 
 The path along the stream has something of 
 the ruggedness and the changefulness of our way 
 in life. The gate I spoke of, which opens to let 
 us pass but admits of no return, is like that stern 
 destiny which forbids us to go back, no matter 
 what we may have lost by the way we have 
 come, no matter what we may dread in the way 
 we have yet to go. The voices of the stream, of 
 the leaves, and of the birds, are like those kind 
 voices with which a good Heavenly Father 
 makes the air melodious as we go on, if only 
 we have ears to hear them, and are not so im- 
 patient with the hardness of the way as to have 
 no room in our minds for cheerful thoughts. At 
 last, upon the high hills from which we see far 
 over into the life beyond, we perceive around us 
 ruins, indeed, many things broken and crumbled, 
 many works come to naught, many hopes perish- 
 ing; but, like the chapel on Roslin steep. Re- 
 
A WALK Br A RIVER. iht 
 
 ligion is there, also, to tell of a life where there 
 are no ruins, and no foot-sore pilgrims like our- 
 selves. 
 
 As I think of my walk by the river, I can 
 understand better a good many things which I 
 have known through life. But this I see — that 
 so far as, earlier or later, I took any divine prom- 
 ise and held it in my hand as a guide along the 
 rough way, as a help or a hope, it has been a 
 promise never- failing. Let me assure you, deaf 
 young friends, that there are safe ways in life, 
 though a thousand times more rough and trying 
 than the path by Roslin Water, and that these 
 are the ways in which the Good Father leads, as 
 tie holds us by the hand. 
 
 Uncle John. 
 
LETTER SIXTEENTH. 
 
 TOM GROWLER AND HIS BROTHERS. 
 
 Dear Boys and Girls: 
 
 O any of you happen to know who 
 
 Tom Growler is? I dare say not; 
 
 and I think you would never guess. 
 
 You would be likely to first guess it 
 is a boy, perhaps, then a dog, or a horse, 
 or a lion. Tom Growler is none of these. 
 Tom Growler is a hell! There! I knew you 
 would be astonished. Yes, a bell, and a big 
 one; and all his big brothers are bells. Of 
 course Tom lives in a steeple. It is a London 
 steeple, and the most famous one there ; one 
 of the steeples, or towers, of great St. Paul's — 
 a cathedral or church large enough to hold inside 
 of it four or five of the largest churches in Illi- 
 nois. Tom Growler has had rather a curious 
 
TOM GR O WLER AND HIS BR O THER S. 1 7 7 
 
 history. His name used to be Great Tom of 
 Westminster. One of the English jooets, I for- 
 get who, put him once into a couplet, that is two 
 hnes of verse, which he wrote one night when 
 he and some of his friends were out later than 
 they ought to be : 
 
 " Hark ! Harry, 'tis time to be gone, 
 
 For Westminster Tom, by my faith, strikes one." 
 
 Tom hung, at the time when these lines were 
 written — more than a hundred and fifty years 
 ago — in a tower near Westminster Abbey, in 
 London, which was called the Tower of West- 
 minster. It stood at the entrance of a very 
 large and stately building called Westminster 
 Hall, through which one passes in going into 
 the Houses of Parliament. The bell was used 
 in connection with a clock for striking the hours, 
 and to ring on great occasions. It was very 
 old. While it hung in this Tower of Westmin- 
 ster it had a Latin inscription upon it, which I 
 will quote, although, of course, you will not 
 know what it means till I tell you. This is the 
 inscription, some of the words being spelt a little 
 8* 
 
178 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 differently from the way we spell the same words 
 now: 
 
 "Tercius aptavit me Rex, Edwardque vocavit, 
 Sancti decore Edwardi signeretur ut hore." 
 
 The meaning is, that the Third King had 
 placed it there, and named it Edward, that it 
 might indicate the hours of Saint Edward, or 
 be rung in honor and memory of Saint Edward. 
 By " the Third King " is meant Henry III., king 
 of England. " Saint Edward " is another Eng- 
 lish king who reigned some time before Henry, 
 and is called Edward the Confessor. The in- 
 scription, then, tells us that the bell was made 
 in Henry the Third's time and named Edward, 
 after Edward the Confessor, that when it was 
 rung; it mig-ht be a memorial of him. This 
 would be just about six hundred years ago. 
 
 Well, for about four hundred and fifty years 
 Tom hung in the tower of Westminster, and 
 did his duty there, without ever stopping to 
 think that in that long interval he would have 
 to tell the time of day about four million times. 
 In 1708 they wanted him at St. Paul's, but 
 in carrying him to the cathedral they cracked 
 
TOM GR O WLER AND HIS BR O THERS. 1 79 
 
 him, and he had to be melted down and made 
 over. Out of this hot furnace, as people often 
 do, he came bigger than ever, for they put in 
 new supples of the stuff he was made of. So 
 he came out a big fellow, and when they had 
 got him fairly housed in the steeple, he began 
 roaring out the time of day in such a mighty, 
 booming voice, that they gave him a new name, 
 and called him Tom Growler. I heard him 
 once telling the world it was twelve o'clock, and 
 I must say, if everybody would growl as music- 
 ally as he goes, people might growl as much as 
 they pleased, for aught I care. 
 
 Well, this is Tom Growler's history, told in a 
 very few words, though he has tolled it in a 
 very great many more, in his sort of language. 
 Tom has four brothers, all of them younger than 
 himself, I believe, and all having the same name. 
 If they lived in the same family, this might 
 cause some confusion. But it so happens that 
 they do not live together, and so they can be 
 distinguished by the names of the places the}'- 
 live in. One of them has taken Tom Growlei-'s 
 place at Westminster, though in a new and 
 much handsomer tower. He is called Tom of 
 
I So UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 Westminster. I have heard him, too, sing out 
 the time of day, and a wonderfully sweet voice 
 he has. Another is at Oxford, and so is called 
 Tom of Oxford. He lives in the tower of Christ 
 Church College, in that city. When Aunt 
 Esther and I visited the college, Tom was good 
 enough to speak up just as we passed through 
 the arch in the tower where he lives, by which 
 they get into the college square. He said it 
 was twelve o'clock, and we had to stop and 
 hear him talk in that mighty, melodious tone. 
 Another of the brothers is at Exeter, in the 
 cathedral there, and so is called Tom of Exeter. 
 Another, Tom of Lincoln, is in the cathedral 
 of Lincoln. I must tell you what a writer, 
 named Southey, wrote about this big fellow, 
 when he went to make him a visit, some time 
 ago. He says: 
 
 "We ascended one of the towers to see Great Tom, 
 the largest bell in England. At first it disappointed 
 me, but this disappointment soon wore off, and we 
 became satisfied that it was as great a thing as it is 
 said to be. A tall man might stand in it upright; 
 the mouth measures one and twenty English feet in 
 circumference, and it would be a large tree of which 
 the girth would equal the size of the middle. The 
 hours are struck upon it with a hammer." 
 
TOM GR O WLER AND HIS BR O TIIERS. 1 8 1 
 
 On two days in the year they used to ring it 
 by swinging it. One of these was Whitsunday, 
 the other the day on which the judges come 
 to Lincohi to hold the court. It was cracked a 
 few years ago, and has never been used since. 
 Around the bell runs this inscription ; 
 
 *'The Holy Ghost, proceedinor from the Father 
 and the Son, sweetly houndeth to salvation. Anno 
 Domini, 3 December, 1610, in the 8th year of King 
 James, of England, 44th of Scotland." 
 
 Do any of you ask why they gave these bells 
 the name of "Tom.?" It is probably because 
 the boom of a great bell sounds so much like 
 the word "Tom!" Tom Growler, however, got 
 his first name of Edward in another way. As 
 long ago as when he was a young fellow, it 
 was customary in England, as it still is in some 
 other countries, to christen bells, just in the 
 same way as some folks now christen babies. 
 That is, the priest would sprinkle the bell, 
 "baptize" it as they called it, — and give it a 
 name. Tom was " baptized " that way, and 
 the name they first gave him was Edward. 
 England was a Cathohc country at that time. 
 
1 82 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 When it became Protestant, people did not bap- 
 tize bells any more; and as they did not think 
 this bell I speak of was to be called Edward just 
 because the priest named him so, and as he 
 seemed always to be telling the world that his 
 name was ^^TomV they finally decided that his 
 name should be Tom, and Tom it is. 
 
 Now, I do not know whether all this will 
 interest you much; but it will at least describe 
 to you some of the curious things one meets 
 with in old countries, and some of the curious 
 ways of people there. Then, notice the inscrip- 
 tion on the big bell at Lincoln, and that will 
 give you something good to think about: "The 
 Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the 
 Son, sweetly soundeth to salvation." Let us 
 think of that, dear boys and girls, every time 
 we hear the church bells ring. 
 
 Uncle John. 
 
LETTER SEVENTEENTH. 
 
 HUMMING-BIRD CORNER. 
 
 Dear Boys and Girls: 
 _<'^o_-^Y:i^ OU know, of course, what a museum 
 is. Now the British Museum, in 
 London, is one of the most wonderful 
 in the world. Among the millions of 
 curious things which it contains are collections 
 of stuffed animals and birds. They are from 
 almost every country under the sun; many of 
 them strange looking creatures; many of them 
 marvelously beautiful. One corner in the part 
 devoted to birds I call " humming-bird corner." 
 There is a large case there, containing hundreds 
 of these beautiful creatures; some of them as 
 large as a small sparrow, some of them no bigger 
 than a bean. I used to always stop at this corner 
 
184 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 in passing through, and have another good look 
 at the humming-birds. 
 
 One reason why I loved to look at them so, 
 w^as that they gave me some pleasant things to 
 think about. Among them was this — that evi- 
 dently God has taken just as much pains with his 
 little creatures as with his great creatures. Near 
 by the place where the humming-birds are is 
 another where they keep the eagles. You know 
 what magnificent birds these are. The eagle is 
 as much a king among birds as the lion among 
 beasts. Here I saw them, great bold-eyed, 
 strong-winged creatures, with talons, or claws, in 
 which, while living, they could have taken up a 
 child and carried him away through the air. 
 There were eagles from the Alps, from the Him- 
 alayas, from the Andes, from the Rocky Moun- 
 tains, some of them with wings, which, when 
 stretched out, must have measured five or six feet 
 across. It seemed to me, however, that in 
 making the humming-birds, God had taken more 
 pains, if I may speak that way, than in making 
 the eagle; — certainly not less. In fact, the least 
 of the little birds seemed most beautiful and most 
 perfect, if possible, of all. Some tiny creatures, 
 
HUMMING-BIRD CORNER. 1 85 
 
 scarcely bigger than the end of my Httlc finger, 
 seemed the most beautiful things I ever saw; — 
 their form was so perfect, their feathers were so 
 delicate, their colors so brilliant. 
 
 Now, when one is a stranger in a great city 
 like London, where there are three millions of 
 people, scarcely a dozen of whom know anything 
 of him, or care the least thing in the w^orld about 
 him, he is apt to feel very insignificant. Among 
 these millions, too, there are a great many of 
 vastly greater importance than himself. There is 
 the Qiieen, there are princes and princesses, there 
 are ministers, and dukes, and lords, and other 
 great men who have in charge great affairs that 
 concern not only the nation, but the world. One 
 in such circumstances is tempted to say: "God 
 will notice these great people, of course. If they 
 need his help and care, doubtless he will give it 
 to them, especially since they have such impor- 
 tant things to look after. But how do I know 
 that he cares anything for me .^" 
 
 Then, in going along the street, perhaps one 
 sees a little boy or girl looking utterly friendless 
 and homeless, ragged, dirty, pale with hunger, 
 with such a sorrowful face ! One may feel as he 
 
l86 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRA VELS. 
 
 goes by, " There is a child that has nobody to 
 care for him. Nobody cares whether he Hves 
 or dies. Nobody cares whether or not he has 
 any place to sleep in this wet, chilly night, or 
 even a crust for his supper. Nobody cares 
 whether his soul is saved or lost. What a poor, 
 little waif ! Just like some faded leaf carried 
 along by the current of a great river." 
 
 Or perhaps some little child says, " I don't 
 think God notices little children much, or cares 
 very much about them. He hears grown-up 
 people when they pray, especially if they are 
 persons who have great and difficult things to 
 do, or great troubles to bear; but I don't know 
 if he will pay any attention to me if I do pray 
 to him." 
 
 Now, the humming-birds taught me a lesson 
 about these things. There is nothing too little to 
 be important in God's eyes. He is just as par- 
 ticular in making little things as in making big 
 things; just as careful with the tiny little hum- 
 ming-bird's bill, that is to have nothing greater 
 to do than suck honey from a flower, as he is 
 with the eagle's beak, that will tear the flesh 
 of mighty beasts — paints as carefully and skill- 
 
HUMMING-BIRD CORNER. 1 87 
 
 fully Its diminutive wing, as he does the gaudy 
 plumage of the peacock. Then I remembered 
 these words : " Take heed that ye offend not 
 one of these little ones, for I say imto you that 
 in heaven their angels do always behold the face 
 of my Father which is in heaven^ This is the 
 only place in the Bible where such a wonderful 
 thing is said, and it is said of the little ones. So 
 I have learned to say, " Lord, let me be a little 
 one; no matter how little; no matter how much 
 lost in the world's mighty throng; no matter 
 how poor and insignificant. Thou wilt not 
 lose sight of me, but will love me all the more 
 that I am a little one." 
 
 I think that God teaches the little ones in a 
 very wonderful way, sometimes in the deep- 
 est and most difficult things of his kingdom. 
 When little Jane, " the Young Cottager" of whom 
 I wrote to you once before, was dying, her pas- 
 tor, Mr. Richmond, asked her if she felt happy. 
 
 She said, " Yes." 
 
 " Do you think that when you die you will be 
 in heaven.?" 
 
 " Yes, very sure," she answered. 
 
 "What makes you think so.?" 
 
1 88 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 She pointed with her weak finger towards 
 heaven, and then towards her own bosom, and 
 replied, " Christ thet-e^ and Christ here'^ 
 
 It is seldom that even old and experienced 
 Christians give a better reason for the hope that 
 is in them. 
 
 Never let your unbelief make you think that 
 God is not glad to hear you pray, or to do every- 
 thing necessary for you; above all to prepare 
 you, through his grace that is in his Son, Jesus 
 Christ, for death and for heaven. 
 
 Uncle John. 
 
LETTER EIGHTEENTH. 
 
 NEVERSINK HEIGHTS, 
 
 Dear Boys and Girls: 
 
 OW that I am "home again," I must 
 write you one more letter, and then 
 say " good-bye." You have been very 
 patient and good, if you have read all 
 these that are here printed. If you have found 
 in them something which it will be pleasant and 
 profitable to you to remember, I shall be truly 
 glad. Something, novv, about our voyage home 
 will finish my letters, and my book. 
 
 On the morning of the twelfth day after we 
 sailed from Liverpool, in the good and beautiful 
 ship " Wisconsin," as I was walking the deck in 
 the after-part of the ship — that is near the stern 
 — I heard some boys and girls cry out, "Come 
 and see the land!" and saw them run with all 
 
190 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS^ 
 
 their might the wl\ole length of the vessel to 
 its "forecastle" or prow. They did not say 
 "Come!" to me, but I thought, nevertheless, 
 that I should like to see the land too, and so I 
 w^ent. With my old eyes. I could discover noth- 
 ing at all but what I had seen for the twelve 
 days back, that is, sea and sky, but taking my 
 glass I made out, directly in front of the ship, 
 far away on the western horizon, some blue 
 heights, which seemed at first like a cloud, but 
 which I soon perceived were the welcome land. 
 The " forecastle " is where the " steerage pas- 
 sengers," or the emigrants, mostly stay, and they 
 had crowded now to the extreme forward end 
 of the ship, and were gazing across the waters 
 at the same distant blue hills. They were prin- 
 cipally Irish or Germans. This which was 
 before them was their first view of what was 
 to them a strange land. To me it was home^ 
 and it seemed wonderfully beautiful on that 
 bright morning, seen across the blue waters, 
 rippling under a balmy breeze, and shining in 
 the rays of the blessed sun. 
 
 Turnino: back aofain, after a while, I met a 
 gentleman who used to be a sea-captain, and 
 
NE VER SINK HEIGHTS, 1 9 1 
 
 had crossed the ocean, he told me, some two or 
 three hundred times. 
 
 " Will you tell me," I asked him, " what land 
 that is?" 
 
 "It is the Heights of Neversink," he said, "in 
 New Jersey. Just there our ship will turn into 
 the bay, and we shall then soon be at New York." 
 
 " Neversink Heights," I thought, " it is a good 
 name." Some people, I believe, call them 
 Navesink, and that may be their Indian name 
 for aught I know, but I shall call them Never- 
 sink. And they never do sink. They are some 
 of the " everlasting hills." Ships may sink out 
 in the sea, in sight of them, but they " never 
 sink." Generation after generation of those who 
 live on or near them may sink into the grave, 
 but they stand erect just the same. The storm 
 raging onward from the sea tries to overthrow 
 them, but it cannot. The winter strips their 
 green woods of their beauty, but the summer 
 clothes them again. The torrents that run down 
 their sides seek to carry them aw^ay into the 
 ocean; but the firm hills only smile at the feeble 
 attempt. Till all the v\^orld's mountains sink, 
 these will " never sink." 
 
192 UNCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 Now, dear children, are there any other 
 "Heights of Neversiiik?" any which you your- 
 selves may sometimes discover blue in the dis- 
 tance as you sail upon another sea, towards 
 another city? Any which, perhaps, you may 
 visit and climb? I think there are. The Heiglits 
 of Truth are Heights of Neversink. The Heights 
 of Divine Promise are Heights of Neversink. 
 The Heights of Christian Hope are Heights of 
 Neversink; and many a one, climbing to their 
 summit, has seen the Celestial City, near at hand 
 or far away, its spires glittering in that glory of 
 the Lord which is its sun by day and its moon 
 by night. 
 
 But there is another thing I must tell you. 
 When I got my first view of Neversink Heights 
 the ship was going directly towards them. If 
 we had kept right on, without stopping, the sails 
 full and the engine going, we should have been 
 dashed upon the shore, and what had been so wel- 
 come, as we saw it out at sea, would have been 
 our ruin. Suppose, now, a ship should be sailing 
 there some dark and stormy night, with not a 
 star to be seen, and nothing to show whether 
 any land was near or not. The wind carries it 
 
NEVERSIMK HEIGHTS. 19^ 
 
 forward with furious speed tlirouo^h the dark- 
 ness, while the man on the lookout tries in vain 
 to see if there is any danger ahead. There is 
 (langer there, is there not? Unless in some way 
 those who sail the ship are warned, they will 
 he driven upon the shore and wrecked and lost. 
 To prevent such disasters as this a lighthouse is 
 placed at Ncversink Heights, just at the point 
 where ships must turn to go up into the bay. 
 And now, when the sailor comes near those 
 Heights in the dark night, he sees the friendly 
 beacon, and knows that up by way of the light- 
 house is the safe passage into the harbor and on 
 to the city. 
 
 Now, I think that the youngest of you can 
 understand that we need to know not only what 
 the truth is, but where it is, and how by means 
 of it to find our way to the city of God. There 
 are some, I am sorry to say, who go to wreck 
 upon the truth itself. Does not the apostle speak 
 of the Gospel as ''the savour of death unto death" 
 to some, while '' the savour of life unto life " to 
 others.? God's Revealed Word is the Light- 
 house. This shows us what the truth is, where 
 it is, and makes us understand that he has planted 
 9 
 
194 UMCLE JOHN UPON HIS TRAVELS. 
 
 these Neversink Heights here in this world, not 
 for us to run our ships upon, but that they may 
 point us the way to the Blessed Harbor and to 
 tlie Celestial City. Does il not seem strange 
 that any should despise the friendly light, sail 
 on just as if there was no light there, and be 
 "ground to powder" against that which was 
 meant, not for their destruction, but for their 
 salvation ? 
 
 These are some of the things which Never- 
 sink Heights made me think about, and I 
 thought I would just mention them to you 
 because I want you all to love the Truth, and 
 to so use the Truth that you may be saved. You 
 are in sight of Neversink Heights every time 
 you learn aright a lesson of God's blessed Word; 
 you have the Heights and the Lighthouse both. 
 Don't let the man at the helm — that obstinate 
 fellow who^n we call Will — don't let him steer 
 the good ship so as to wreck it against the Truth, 
 but so as that the Truth may guide you and 
 light ^-ou safe home to God. In other words, 
 be willing — humbly, meekly willing — to con- 
 fess every sin, and to trust in Jesus only, only^ 
 ONLY, for the pardon of them all. 
 
NE VERSINK HEIGHTS. 1 95 
 
 And now, good-bye. It seems odd, does it 
 not, to say " good-bye " just as I am coming 
 home? But then, you see, ev^en if I continue 
 to be " Uncle John," I shall not be ■•• Uncle Jolm 
 Upon his Travels" any more. I am almost sorry 
 that I shall not. It has been nice to see so 
 many interesting things, and it has made me 
 very happy to tell you of some of them. But 
 it does not answer to be running about and 
 looking up pleasant sights all one's life, and so 
 I come home to my w^ork again. Good-bye, 
 then. God bless and save every one of you. 
 God raise you up many and many better friends 
 than Uncle John has known how to be. Above 
 all, may he himself be your friend, and nothing 
 can be better than that. 
 
 Uncle John.