PREFACE
This book makes no pretence of expounding
the doctrines of the theologian or analyzing the methods of the artist.
It is simply a remembrancer of a quaint and winning man for his intimate
friends and parishioners; for the boys who have delighted in his
stories; for the sailors whose lives he saved from shipwreck; for the
college students who learned from him a wisdom not to be found in books;
for all, in fact, to whom the memory of his unique personality is dear.
With the story of his life, with anecdote and reminiscence, with
selections from his speeches, sermons, letters, and journal, it aims to
recall Elijah Kellogg as he really was: the boy, tingling with life and
full of fun to his finger tips; the college student, genial, prankish,
and zealous; the farmer-preacher, devout and resourceful, making pen and
book, scythe and hoe, seine and boat, all his ready servants to do God’s
work; the author, finding his way straight to the heart of the growing
boy; the aged man, fond as ever of the soil and the sea, and after all
the rubs and chances of a long life, still young in spirit, strong in
faith, and free from bitterness and guile.
Acknowledgment is here due to Mr. Kellogg’s son and daughter, Mr. Frank
G. Kellogg and Mrs. Mary 0. Batchelder, and to many of his intimate
acquaintances in Harpswell and Brunswick for information relating to his
early Harpswell life. Special acknowledgment is also due to President
William DeWitt Hyde for valuable advice concerning the preparation of
this book.
W. B. M.
Brunswick, Maine,
November 23, 1903.
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Good Old Times
Or, Grandfather's Struggles for a Homestead by Rev. Elijah Kellogg
(1877)
The characters described
in this story are real, the names given are the names they bore, and
their very language is often quoted. With one exception, the houses in
which they spent their later days are still standing, and their numerous
posterity are scattered through the States.
With little aid from external circumstances, they fought their way from
poverty to affluence, manifesting a heroism in which there was no trace
of ferocity, and a piety unsullied by bigotry.
Neither the severity of the climate, the stubbornness of the soil, nor
the barbarity of the savage, could force them to abandon the land upon
which their feet were planted.
Representing, as they do, to a greater or less extent, the character of
a large portion of the settlers of these New England States, the history
of their struggle commends itself to all. May those who aspire to make
the most of themselves revere the virtues and emulate the resolution of
those who broke the path for their descendants, and rendered the culture
of the present age possible.
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Old Times here in pdf format |