nexation, if we pursue the right course. It is not the government which makes property and profits in business, but private enterprise, under the protection of government. If such governmental protection is assured, and if the opportunity for trade with the islands is offered, whereby the private owners there may exchange products with private producers here, as liberally as if all were under one flag, then we gain as much commercially and avoid the dangers of political complications.

But all such considerations are secondary. First of all is the obligation to hold this nation, founded upon Plymouth Rock, to the lofty significance of the movement to Plymouth Rock, to set a standard of self-government such as the world never saw before, of such self-restraint for the benefit of humanity as no nation ever put upon the page of history, of such magnanimity that the world will say in admiration that nothing higher could be possible, of such enthusiasm to make this war count for the permanent advancement of mankind that all the nations shall catch the inspiration of the

ideal Stars and Stripes, and join us in our sublime progress toward the disbandment of armies and toward the coming sovereignty of the republic of

nations.

This standard is not too high. Its attainment is easily possible. The disposition to do this is already strong in many hearts, which realize that the most sublime moment in our history for many a year is just upon us, and that the thrilling question now is, whether we shall rise equal to our duty and our responsibility or shall forever suffer the evil consequences of selfish short-sightedness by yielding to the brute in our nature instead of asserting our manhood. We did not make the opportunity; it was forced upon us without our understanding how momentous was the issue to be raised. We did not make our responsibility; that is forced upon us by our very natures as men, with power to rise above the level of the brute. But the opportunity is here, and the responsibility is here. It is simply for us to say whether the manhood in us is equal to the emergency, whether we shall be brutes or men.

I

HAVE not always mourned the fact that I am unable, up to date, to trace my descent from the Mayflower. My maternal grandfather, who came from Scotland when my mother was a lassie and made his way to the prairies of Illinois on board that transformed Mayflower, a prairie schooner, told me when a lad that through his maternal grandmother I am descended from Alexander Selkirk. For a good many years, covering my boyhood, being a descendant of Robinson Crusoe seemed to me a thing beside which the Mayflower appeared very tame.

at

But the time came at last when I wept for more worlds to conquer. I knew that my father was the son of a soldier of 1812, whom I can just remember, and that he was the son of a Revolutionary officer whose name I bear, and that he was the son of a British soldier who died with Braddock Fort Du Quesne. Clearly there was no Mayflower at the end of my paternal line. But my great-grandmother, I thought, might have been a Mayflower descendant. So I gave such data as I had to a society which exists for the purpose of helping people to find their ancestors, result:

seph Carver and Elizabeth Snow. Elizabeth Snow was the daughter of Benjamin Snow and Elizabeth Alden. Elizabeth Alden was the daughter of Joseph, the son of John Alden and his good wife Priscilla.

A

I will not deny the joy that I felt when my feet were thus taken out of the common clay and set on Plymouth Rock. But I was elated and sought further. That was my mistake. man should let well enough alone. I was also studying the higher criticism. I came to see that there was some evidence of the duality of Isaiah. At last, as I found how many brave things William Barton did, I came to suspect the duality of my great-grandfather. Alas, my suspicions proved correct! There were two William Bartons,and among the good things which my

Lieutenant-Colonel William Barton married Rhoda Carver, daughter of Joseph Carver, who was the son of Jo

thought that if my great-grandfather had known how anxious I was to have come over in the Mayflower, he would have married Rhoda Carver and let the other William Barton marry Margaret Henderson.

I have few family relics. The sword of this same great-grandfather hangs on my study wall, and it is my most priceless bit of property, loaned me by an uncle. If I knew that he would never see this article, I would confide to the gentle reader the hope that he will never call for it. And I have my grandfather's family Bible. The two seem somehow to belong together,and I photographed them a while ago. My good wife has more relics. With what pride does she pour tea from her grandmother's teapot! I have seen her stand and dream before her greatgreat-grandfather's clock. He was a brother of Abraham Davenport, the hero of Whittier's poem; and this old clock kept time on the dark day in Connecticut. My wife's ancestors really came over in the Mayflower. But she is better than I, as every one knows. I have wondered for some time whether I could not find something more about this refractory ancestor of mine; and I determined to spend a part of my summer vacation in tracking him. So I left my good wife and the children beside a pretty lake,

MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER'S SPINNING

WHEEL.

where the children play in the water, and the trees sometimes are reflected so clearly that the picture may be reversed and show almost as well. Then I set out for New Jersey.

I had learned other things about my ancestor, which I may as well tell here. He was born in England in 1755, and while yet a lad drifted into the British army. He came to America, under Gage, about 1773, and was in Boston during the disturbances that led up to the Revolution. Growing up with a love for the land where his father lay buried, and coming to it with joy, he felt increasing dissatisfaction as the war approached at the prospect of an event which might place him in arms against the men with whom his father had fought. There seemed no way out of it, and he did his duty as a British soldier. On that side he fought, but with little heart, at Lexington and Bunker Hill. When Boston was evacuated, he went with the army to Halifax, and registered a vow that, at whatever hazard, he would fight no more against the side in which now he had come to believe. On Howe's return, in July, he sought some opportunity to escape from the service which had grown irksome and false to him, but found no chance for several weeks. There followed that long series of disasters to the Colonial arms, the battles of Long Island, Harlem Heights, White Plains, and the surrender of Forts Washington and Lee. It was the darkest hour, except Valley Forge, in all the history of the Revolution. Fort Washington had fallen, and Washington was about to give up Fort Lee and begin his long retreat through the Jerseys. The Hudson River divided the armies. Then seemed his first desperate opportunity. Taking a bucket, he made his way through the lines to the river. On the way he met a mounted officer, who ordered him to return. Too eager now to be thwarted, he refused, and the officer drew his sword and struck at him. He beat the horse back with his bucket, and for a time kept the officer at bay, backing

"I HAVE SEEN HER STAND

BEFORE THE CLOCK."

meantime toward the river. At length the officer struck him across the face, leaving a deep scar for life; but he got the return blow with the bucket, and dismounted the officer, captured his sword, swam with it to the other side, wounded as he was, entered the Continental army, and served with honor to the close of the war. He became a lieutenant; and the sword which he wore, and which I have, is said to be the one which he captured, and bore in his teeth across the Hudson. I like to go to the Fort Lee ferry in New York and look at the river, and think of that brave fellow, wounded but desperately courageous, making his way across. Our family tradition affirms that Washington had known his father, and that he greeted the son cordially, and said some pleasant things to him about his father and himself; but

I will have a warm heart for a fellowseeker and an interest in his fortunes and perhaps get lessons from his quest.

Back in the hills of New Jersey, then, this brave man settled at the close of the Revolution, and there he died. I went first to Morristown, the county seat, and found his will and the inventory of his estate. His wagons, horses, grain, tools

and household furniture made a long list; and I was glad to read the items, for I felt confident that some of the articles listed must be in existence. And so I found it to be. A goodly number of distant relatives, who are also his descendants, but whom I had never seen, still live near his old home, and with the aid of the inventory identified various articles therein described.

"One razor," I read. "I've got that," said one third cousin. (I have it now!) "One large iron kittle." "I've got the kettle," said another. "One large spinningwheel." "Martha's got the spinningwheel." And so with a good many articles, which had belonged to the old Revolutionary veteran. I photographed my great-grandmother's spinning-wheel. I

these are more interesting to me than they would be to the reader. Indeed I am quite conscious that this is a very personal story altogether; but I remember that the world is made up of persons, and that persons like personal stories if they illustrate something, and that many persons besides myself, nowadays, are in quest of ancestors, and I am not without hope that some

brought away with me my greatgrandfather's old axe, and my greatgrandmother's tongs, - bless her!

and a root of her favorite peony, and one of her smoothing irons, and some minor relics. I hung her old pancake griddle to a tree above the large kettle. Only the edge of its disk and the long handle show in the picture, but it was a most interesting