ment; and they were a constant training in the noblest and most complex of social arts-the self-government of the community. Religion and politics were the two main subjects of thought in the community in which young Sam Bowles grew to manhood. It was these themes that gave zest and largeness to lives otherwise somewhat dry and narrow; on these topics wits were sharpened; from these came a touch of ideal greatness; from these sprang passions nobler even in their excesses than the struggle for material gain,—a consciousness of membership in a mighty body politic, and a sense of place in a divine order transcending the seen and finite.

The primitive period of New England may be taken with sufficient exactness at two hundred years,― lapping over by a quarter of a century into the nineteenth. It was not until then that its second great function began in pouring its sons forth to people the West, while from Europe there set in a tide of immigration which is changing the constituent elements of the population. Since then, too, there have come immeasurable changes in the conditions of intellectual and social life. It was just as the old was broadening into the new that the boy of our story grew up to manhood. The surroundings of his childhood retained in large measure the characteristics of the early time. He belonged to a family and a community of which the inheritance and possession were sobriety, industry, and self-control, unmodified by literature, art, and the social graces and amenities.

The Unitarian controversy had arisen in Massachusetts a few years before the elder Bowles came to Springfield, and he united with the Unitarian church, which had been established there by a secession from the old First Church that was coeval with the town. In the separation the families of higher social pretensions went generally with the new movement, and the ecclesiastical

schism divided the society of the town, not with virulence, yet to the weakening of the social forces. Early Unitarianism was but a ripening of a long-growing alienation among the intellectual class from the severities of Calvinism. It was from the beginning intellectual, decorous, reverent, rather than popular and enthusiastic. Its ministers kept with little alteration the ecclesiastical tone of their Orthodox brethren, and a solemnity verging sometimes on lugubriousness. Of such ministers was the Reverend William B. O. Peabody, pastor of the Unitarian church in Springfield from 1820 to 1847. He was a man of piety, refinement, and intellectual cultivation, whose name is still held in honored memory in the denomination, and by the community at large. Dr. Horatio Stebbins's testimony shows how one youthful mind was affected by his ministry: "Here Peabody prophesied and prayed, and his words fell upon my heart like rain upon the tender grass; and my mature experience makes no abatement from my boyhood's impression of the singular elevation of his mind, and the penetrating purity of his spirit." Yet to most of his youthful auditors, Dr. Peabody was aweinspiring rather than winning. In his sermons he laid constant emphasis on the perils, the woes, and transitoriness of the present life. The sentiments of a creed outlive for a time its intellectual form; and the view of earthly life as tolerable only because it may lead to something better a view inherited from the burdened Middle Ages -colored much of the preaching of the early Unitarians.

Dr. Peabody used to wear in the pulpit a black gown and black silk gloves. His manner and tones, both in and out of the pulpit, were to a child decidedly solemnizing. Of his church the elder Bowles was a steadfast member; he became a deacon and superintendent of the Sunday-school. His children went to church twice every

Sunday. In their home were practiced the usual religious observances, family prayers every morning, and the "blessing" before each meal.

The stream of the community's life flowed slow and tranquil as the Connecticut that glides through the level meadows. The first railroad reached Springfield when the boy was thirteen years old; and just as he was coming of age the first message was flashed over the telegraph wires. Steam and electricity are fit symbols, as well as agents, of the revolution that has gone through American society since then.

In those days Springfield was a country town, its inhabitants principally farmers, centering in a village of residences and a few shops. It was settled, in 1636, by a colony from Roxbury, Mass., shared the experiences of colonial times, and was burned by the Indians in King Philip's war. It drew its prosperity mainly from the fertile meadows bordering the Connecticut, and remained the principal town in Western Massachusetts, but with no special importance or marked growth until it became a railroad center, at the intersection of the great lines joining Boston with Albany and New York with Northern New England and Canada. The town had the characteristic features of New England life, with probably more general prosperity along the rich river basin than was found on the granite-ribbed, bowlder-strewn soil which characterizes much of the state; while of mental activity there was less than in Eastern Massachusetts. The families which were recognized as the social aristocracy of the town derived their consequence from wealth acquired in local trade by themselves or their immediate ancestors. The United States Armory gave employment to a class of sturdy and intelligent mechanics.

The natural scenery of the region is full of various and tranquil beauty. The Connecticut, here about a

fourth of a mile in width, loiters between its verdant banks, like a great meadow-brook; beside it, like a nest by the brook-side, lies the town of Springfield, ascending by gently sloping hills, and running off eastward over dry and breezy plains. From many a knoll and terrace one may look upon endless variations of the broad, fair landscape, the placid river flowing in the midst; away to the west, the blue hill-country of Berkshire; eastward, the wooded and pastured slopes of the Wilbraham hills, answering the aspects of the sky in ever-changing play of light and shade; twenty miles to the north, the sharp outlines of the Holyoke range, and Mount Tom lying like a couchant lion. Over the meadows are scattered noble elms; elms and maples line the streets of the town, so that, seen from the neighboring heights, it seems to lie in a forest. The landscape is clothed through the summer in richest green, heralded in the spring by marvelously delicate and various tints, and ripening into autumnal glory. Across the brown soil of March the flash of a bluebird's wing and a thrilling song tell that winter is past. Over the waving grass-fields of June, the bobolink, tipsy with joy, pours his bubbling laughter. From the arbutus to the aster, a long procession of flowers mark the year's almanac,-shy northern blossoms, hardy darlings of the frost, and hues warm as the tropics. Up and down the river lie ancient villages, flavorous of the olden time; the one broad street overarched with patriarchal trees, the fine old houses dreaming over their past. The tall chimneys of the outlying mill villages, growth of the last half-century, even now scarcely break the aspect of rural peace, which steals in soothing delight over the beholder's heart. To-day, as fifty years ago, one looks on the homes of a thriving, free, and virtuous people;—now, as then, he looks on Nature in her aspect of peaceful charm.

CHAPTER III.

BOYHOOD.

HE Bowles family formed a hard-working, frugal

affection; pushing on with slow steps and sure grip to moderate prosperity; sincerely and decently pious; with little of recreation or social enjoyment. Their home was in a modest two-story frame house, on the north corner of Union and School streets. The oldest son was born in an earlier residence, known afterward as the "Osgood house," near the corner of Main and Howard streets. The family consisted of father, mother, four children, and several apprentices. Sam shared his bed with the youngest apprentice, Chauncey White, who afterward became his foreman, and two other apprentices had their bed in the same room. The day began with breakfast at six o'clock, the year round, and at seven the master and apprentices were at work; doing a general printing business in addition to the newspaper. The mistress of the household had a potent voice in all her husband's affairs. She was a woman of plain exterior, of quiet and prim manners, under which lay energy and spirit; even-tempered; with quicker, more incisive mind than that of her husband, and greater force of character and will; practical rather than intellectual in