Gottingen student, born in Hanover, Germany, who landed in this country in 1742, and founded a Lutheran Congregation at Trappe and New Hanover, Montgomery County, marrying the daughter of Conrad Weiser, the celebrated Indian inter'preter. And here were born to him the three noted children, Peter, Frederick Augustus and Henry Ernest, all distinguished clergymen. One of his daughters was the mother of Governor John Andrew Schultz. His sons born at Trappe were educated in Germany. They were a wild set, these early Muhlenbergs, brave, original, imperious, all of them Democrats, fighting and preaching for patriotic ideas when they were young and defending them when they were old. Peter, preacher as he was, had a congregation at Woodstock, Shenandoah County, Va. In January, 1776, he pronounced a sermon on the "duties men owe to their country." He preached, adding "There is a time for all things, a time to preach and a time to fight, and now is the time to fight." Then he descended from the pulpit and took off his gown, which covered a colonel's uniform, read his commission, ordered the drummers to beat for recruits, and within a few days recruited three hundred men from his own churches, enlisted for the revolutionary war. It was not long until he had a full regiment mustered into the service. He fought in Georgia and South Carolina, at the battles of Brandywine and Germantown, at Valley Forge, in

the battle of Monmouth and at the capture of Stony Point. He was at the taking of Yorktown in 1781. Then he came back, not to the church but to the Trappe in Montgomery County. He was chosen as a member of Congress, member of the State Legislature, serving several years in each, and was finally United States Senator. In 1803 he was Collector of the Port of Philadelphia, made so by Thomas Jefferson, which he held until 1807, when he died at the age of sixty-two. The Aurora, the Democratic organ of Philadelphia, said "In private life just, in domestic life affectionate and sincere, his body lies beside his father's at the Trappe Church." It is this great man's statue that Pennsylvania, by Act of Congress, has selected to place in the Hall of the Old Representatives at Washington, side by side with that of Robert Fulton, the great engineer and inventor, born in Lancaster County, very near Montgomery-the sculptor of Muhlenberg being Blanche Nevin of Philadelphia, and that of Fulton being Edward Roberts of the same city.

The second son, Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, was not less brilliant and distinguished than Peter. Educated at the University of Halle, Germany, he returned, and established a church in New York, but soon entered politics, also returning to Trappe, Montgomery county. He was in the State Assembly in 1779, one of the Judges of the county, then Register and Recorder, then

Representative in Congress, and afterwards the great Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States.

The other brother, the Rev. Henry Ernest Muhlenberg, was born in Trappe, Montgomery county, November, 1753. He was ordained, and acted as assistant pastor of a Lutheran church of Philadelphia, and a patriot, a man of science, a linguist. He removed to Lancaster, where he remained at the head of a Lutheran church for thirty-five years. The third generation of Muhlenbergs I knew and honored: Henry A. Muhlenberg of Reading, Dr. Frederick Augustus of Lancaster, and the eminent scholar of the same name, one of the professors in the University of Pennsylvania,-the first two gone, the last surviving,-filled high positions in public, and have always been eminent for their virtues.

MADE A CADET AT THE MILITARY ACADEMY.

It was among such scenes and men, many of the latter known to himself, and those not known to him, frequently spoken of by his father, that young Hancock approached manhood. A proud father and fond mother saw their three boys growing in grace and strength. In 1840, Winfield was just sixteen years old. It is not flattery to say that he was a handsome boy, if you may judge by the picturesque soldier now before the country, as the candidate of the great party,

for the highest gift of over forty-eight millions of people. The member of Congress from the district, in that year, was Joseph Fornance, a Democrat like Hancock's father, who had, at that time, considerable influence in Washington. A mild, yet conscientious lawyer, he wielded a large influence in society and at the bar. It fell to his lot, under the law of the government, to select a cadet to West Point. For some years Winfield had become quite a soldier boy among his school-fellows. He was a lad of spirit and natural elegance of manner, vigilant at Sundayschool, (his father was a Sunday-school teacher,) and a leader among his mates. His parents were sincere Christians; morning and evening they had

their family prayers. Winfield acquired a sort of chivalry, and more than once assumed the championship of weaker and younger boys. The lads of the village organized a volunteer "soldier company," and Winfield was unanimously elected captain, when he was only twelve years old, and to this date it is remembered in Norristown, how well the drills, parades, inspections, reviews, battles, and camps of these little men were conducted under the command of their graceful boyish chief. He had learned at home that obedience was not only a virtue, but a duty. He, and his brother Hillary, worshipped their mother. I wish I could say that the influence of home in these latter days is as controlling as it was fifty

years ago, and I hope there are still hamlets and country-sides where the simple, gracious, indulgent, yet courageous ministrations of a dear mother are as frequent and effective as they were in 1835 and 1840. Is it because women are less amiable or emulous to excel in piety and devotion, or because their children are more eager to rush all unprovided and unarmed and inexperienced, into the wild and terrible attractions and dangers of life? Assuredly, admiration for the sex is not dead among men, and ambition to excel no longer a passion. Yet without pausing to decide the problem, it is useful and certainly pleasant to recur to that gentle household in Norristown, of which the presiding divinity was the sweet mother of the Hancock boys. Her authority was the law. And so in the discipline of his little soldiers, whenever an offence had to be punished, the case was referred, by Winfield, to the mother of the culprit, and she, as the supreme court of the occasion, generally cured the delinquent.

It was perhaps these early American inclinings that attracted a friend of Mr. Fornance, the member of Congress from the district, to Winfield. But there is a curious incident connected with his selection to West Point, that may be related here: Appointments to the Military Academy, like those to the Naval Academy, have always been attractive to American youth. Some years ago a practice had grown up under which members of