My only apology for introducing them here is their rare poetic merit which entitles them to a more permanent place than in the many journals in which they were reprinted.

I ought to add that "Croton" is the name of the river and the reservoir that supply New York with its wholesome water: _OUR CAPTAIN_.
Fill--fill up your glasses--with Croton! Fill full to the brim I say, For the dearest old boy among us, Who is ten times eight to-day.
It is three times three and a tiger-- It is hand to your caps, O men! For our Captain of captains rejoices, In his counting of eight times ten.
Foot square on the bridge and gripping As steady as fate the wheel, He has taken the storms to his forehead, And cheered in the tempest's reel.
He has seen the green sea monsters Go writhing down the gale, But never a hand to slacken, And never a heart to fail.
So It's--Ho'-- to our Captain dauntless, Trumpet-tongued and eagle-eyed, With the spray of the voyage behind him, And the Pilot by his side.
Together they sail into sunset-- Slow down for the harbor bell, For the flash of the port, and the message "Well done"-- -It is well--It is well.
So it's three times three and a tiger! Breathe deep for the man we love, His heart is the heart of a lion, His soul is the soul of a dove.
It is--Ho!--to the Captain we honor, Salute we the man and the day, On his brow are the snows of December, In his heart are the bird songs of May.
The Scripture passage from which I discoursed on the next Sabbath morning, January 12th, in our Lafayette Avenue Church pulpit--"At evening time it shall be light"-- seems especially appropriate to an autobiography penned at a time when the life-day is already far spent.
There are some people who have a pitiful dread of old age.

For myself, instead of it being a matter of sorrow or of pain, it is rather an occasion of profound joy that God has enabled me to write in my family record "Four score years." The October of life may be one of the most fruitful months in all its calendar; and the "Indian summer" its brightest period when God's sunshine kindles every leaf on the tree with crimson and golden glories.

Faith grows in its tenacity of fibre by the long continued exercise of testing God, and trusting His promises.
The veteran Christian can turn over the leaves of his well-worn Bible and say: "This Book has been my daily companion; I know all about this promise and that one and that other one; for I have tried them for myself, I have a great pile of cheques which my Heavenly Father has cashed with gracious blessings." Bunyan brings his Pilgrim, not into a second infant school where they may sit down in imbecility, or loiter in idleness; he brings them into Beulah Land, where the birds fill the air with music; and where they catch glimpses of the Celestial City.

They are drawing nearer to the end of their long journey and beyond that river, that has no bridge, looms up the New Jerusalem in all its flashing splendors.
In a previous chapter I have told the story of our bereavement when God took three of our precious children to Himself; but to-day we can chant the twenty-third Psalm, for the overflowing cup of mercies that sweeten our home, and for the two loving children that are spared to us.