It was the end of earthly things to him. So a great, stunning blow fell suddenly upon that Christian household. The husband and father, in the vigor of manhood, was stricken down, and the wife and mother, with four children, the oldest ten years and the youngest eighteen months, was left t, fight alone the tremendous battle of life.

IV.

SELF-RELIANCE.

LL the odds were against Eliza Ballou Garfield

Aon that heart-sinking day, when she stood be

side the open grave and saw her husband laid down to his last sleep, and returned to that home from which the light of his life had gone forever. But one with God is more than all else beside.

There were her four children. God had given them to her, and she would train them for him. But what a struggle! The wheatfield was partially fenced; the cattle roaming the woods would be destroying the grain. It must be fenced; but how? She had no money to pay for hired help. She could not call upon the neighbors; they had enough work to do to keep their heads above water. She had braved many hardships; gone through many trials; she was not the woman to falter now.

Leaving the oldest child to care for the other three, she went into the woods, found some trees already felled, and split them into rails. Her arms were weary; blisters appeared upon her palms; but what of that? Duty nerved her; affection for her children, the providing of bread for them, sustained her. Day by day

the pile of rails increased, and the work went on till the field was securely fenced. Henceforth we need not turn to Athens or Rome for models of devotion, but to that log cabin of Ohio.

"How we got along I don't know," said Mrs. Garfield; "but we did it somehow."

They not only got on, but Mrs. Garfield, besides carrying on her spinning, splitting rails, chopping wood, doing out-door work, found time to teach her children.

We are not to think of the family as being exceptionally poor, for in many respects Mrs. Garfield, even in her widowhood, was quite as well off as many of her neighbors. The country was new; the settlers were poor; the forest was dense; and there must be many sturdy blows of the ax before even a small clearing could be made. A few acres of cleared land would suffice to raise bread for the settlers; but there must be a great putting forth of energy to make any headway in the world. Those who could raise more than enough for their own subsistence had no markets for their surplus produce. All were poor together - not from any lack of thrift or enterprise, but from stress of circumstances, which time alone would remove.

The farm was not fully paid for, and there was the interest on the mortgage to look after, and the extinction of the debt. Resolutely this woman, whose birthplace was amid the Granite Hills, with true New England grit, faced all the obstacles and conquered them. There are sublimer victories in life than those won amid the roar of cannon, and the uproar and turmoil