498 
Annual Be port of the 
hearts of the old glad. It adds a zest to the somber winter-life of 
a farmer’s wife, and brings him back oftener in thought and actions 
to the girl he loved and won. 
And just here let me tell a story, old but true, illustrative to my 
mind of a coldness, a careless love that too often takes possession 
of the farmer, as years are added to years of married life, as cares 
increase, and duties seem to multiply: 
Jeremiah Mason was a great lawyer of Portsmouth, New Hamp¬ 
shire, of later years of his life, of Boston. He and America’s emi¬ 
nent statesman, Daniel Webster, had many battles of brains. Ma¬ 
son was not only a great lawyer, but he was a pious, consistent 
church-member. Some years after he had moved from New Hamp¬ 
shire to Boston, there came to his office an old man, whom he 
had known in youth and early manhood, at whose wedding he had 
been a guest, who desired Mr. Mason to procure a divorce for him 
from his old wife. Mr. Mason listened carefully to his statements, 
learned that together, his old friends had grown rich, that cares and 
family had increated, that the former, bent on getting rich, had 
grown careless of his wife’s comforts, and at last from one thing to 
another, had come to the conclusion that all the love his wife ever 
had for him was transferred to their children; in short, that she 
didn’t care a dime for him, and he proposed to divide up the pro¬ 
perty and let her go. Sa} r s Mr. Mason—Friend A., some thirty 
years ago you married Julia S.; you have raised three sons and two 
daughters to man and womanhood; you say they are well settled 
in life, and that they all side with Julia? Yes. Friend A.—Go 
home and for six months court Julia as you did be she was yours, 
and, if at the end of that time you want a divorce, come back to 
me, and I will file a bill. Brother A., let us pray; and thereupon 
Mr. Mason knelt down and prayed earnestly to God to show his old 
friend the right road to happiness. At the end of six months the 
client came back, not to Mr. Mason’s office—not alone—but to his 
old friend’s house, a loving old wife with him, and a green old life 
was their's ever after. There are probably not many farmers that 
get worked up to such an unhappy state of mind as did Mr. A., and 
there are few lawyers like Jeremiah Mason. His advice, however, 
I will warrant to make every family happy. 
To all old men I would say, if in your old age you would grow 
happier as well as richer, u court your wives/’ It is the want of so- 
