“I went home, and found my wife and mother-in-law abed and ‘sleep, and I lit up the candle and wakes ’em up, and says,
“I gits down the New Testament, for I had no Bible, and never owned one till this time, and says, “I’ll read a chapter and then make a prayer, (for you see my wife had larnt me to read arter a fashion,) and they say ‘That’s right Peter, I’m glad you feel as though you could pray,’ I opened the Testament to the 14th chapter of John, ‘Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me,’ &c. Then I made a prayer and set up my family altar, and I have prayed in my family every day, and mean to keep it up, for I believe all christians ought to pray mornin’ and evenin’ in their families.
“Well, I went to bed and talked to my wife ’bout religion, till I fairly talked her asleep, and then I lay awake and thought, and prayed, and wept for joy, and it will be a good while afore I forgit that night.
“For who can express The sweet comfort and peace Of a soul in its arliest Love.”
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● Transcriber’s Notes: ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book. ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
End of Project Gutenberg's Chains and Freedom, by Charles Edwards Lester