"There is a place called Pillow-land,
Where gales can never sweep
Across the pebbles on the strand
That girds the Sea of Sleep.
'Tis here where grief lets loose the rein,
And age forgets to weep,
For all are children once again,
Who cross the Sea of Sleep.
The gates are ope'd at daylight close,
When weary ones may creep,
Lulled in the arms of sweet repose,
Across the Sea of Sleep.
Oh weary heart, and toil-worn hand,
At eve comes rest to thee,
When ply the boats to Pillow-land,
Across the Sleepy sea.
Thank God for this sweet Pillow-land,
Where weary ones may creep,
And breathe the perfume on the strand
That girds the Sea of Sleep."
It is pleasant in this sunset of life, to recall the testimony of my brothers that through all those troublous scenes, father and mother were soothed and consoled by an unfaltering faith in the ultimate triumph of the good and true, that their faces were often illumined as they repeated to each other those priceless words of the sweet singer,
"Drifting over a sunless sea, cold dreary mists encircling me,
Toiling over a dusty road with foes within and foes abroad,
Weary, I cast my soul on Thee, mighty to save even me,
Jesus Thou Son of God."
At last the "perils by land and perils by sea, and perils from false brethren," this long, long journey ended and we reached the promised land. We halted in old Byfield, in the state of Massachusetts, with worldly goods consisting of a bushel of barberries, threadbare toilets, and the ancient equipage dilapidated as aforesaid.
After much tribulation, father took a farm "on shares," which was found to result in endless toil to us, and the lion's share of the crops going to the owners, who toiled not, neither did they spin, but reaped with gusto where we had sown.
After a few years of this profitless drudgery, my father bought an old run-down farm with dilapidated buildings in the neighboring town of R——, mortgaging all, and our souls and bodies besides, for its payment. We hoped we had rounded the cape of storms which sooner or later looms up before every ship which sails the sea of life, for we had fully realized the truth of the poem—