the sweetest and noblest of women and the most devoted of wives. If you want to see something of Preston's home-life, read this charming description by Mrs. Martin : " As well as an education for our children, his conversation was a daily delight and improvement for us all. O how charming he was in conversation, especially at the breakfast and dinner hours! His talk shed fragrance and beauty, as the vase of flowers he always liked to have placed on the table; and at the silent hour of evening, how he lighted up the sombre gloaming till the place flashed with iridescent beauty and brightness! Now he would take us to his native mountains; now on his European travels, when he would personally introduce us to Scott, Wilson, Lockhart, Rogers, Camp bell, Lady Morgan, and all the literary no tabilities of that intellectual period, bringing us in such social contact, too, with his eompagnon de voyage, Washington Irving. Then he would tell us of his college days; then of his life at Washington, introducing us famili arly to all of its brilliant society — to Cal houn, Webster, Clay, Benton, etc." Mr. Preston excelled as a correspondent and letter writer. I have a number of his letters kindly lent to me by Miss Isabel D. Martin, who knew him intimately and whose childhood he influenced very much. They are written in an easy, graceful style. They are frank, open and cheerful. Indeed, they are just the kind of letters one delights to read. Mrs. Martin, the mother of Miss Isabel, speaks of his talent for letter-writing as fol lows : "Though by his oratory and conver sation will traditional fame, at least, make him best known to posterity, yet I think his friends will be inclined more to estimate his intellectual powers by his familiar letters. From a large package of these to my hus band, my daughters and myself, could be contributed such gems to literature as might grace the a;gis of Minerva." While, like President McKinley, Mr. Pres
ton was neat and careful as to his attire, and desired always to be becomingly dressed, yet he did not wish to be conspicuous or to attract attention in that regard. But no man is perfect, and Mr. Preston, too, had his faults and weaknesses. Like a great many of our public men, he sometimes used stronger language than the circum stances of the case would warrant. This was, however, largely the result of force of habit, and I am satisfied that he himself, in the latter years of his life particularly, re gretted it, and endeavored to free himself from it as much as possible. And now I have eome very naturally to an interesting phase of Mr. Preston's life — his religious experience. For many years of his life he seemed to have only an in tellectual sort of faith, — he gave his assent to the great truths of religion, but he did not feel in his heart the sanctifying powers of grace. He seemed to have difficulties along this line. Some have thought that it was the result of the seed that had been sown in his heart in his college days by the baneful teaching of Dr. Cooper. Mrs. Pres ton was a devoted Christian woman. It was her daily prayer and her fervent wish to see her husband brought fully under the sanctifying powers of religion. In one of the most beautiful and touching passages of her journal, she delicately alludes to this subject as follows: "and I am more and more convinced by my daily intercourse with the elite of the world, that piety is the only purifier and refiner; literature is next: but it and the world have both given their finishing graces to Mr. Preston; yet there is one thing more needful, to make him all that he is capable of." Her petition and those of other loving friends made their way heavenward, — her prayer was answered, and the one thing needful was received. We find Mr. Preston at last bowing humbly at the Cross, — all intellectual doubt gone, and a beautiful, spiritual light received. He had been for several vears a member of the
