CHAPTER IV. —John Edwards.
Whatever be the page—
Whether on metaphysical riddles faint,
Or the rapt visions of some far off seer,
The burning thoughts of saint,
Or maxims of the sage—
Thou comest, oh youth, with thought as sure,
With mind severe and pure;
Thou takest afresh, with each returning year,
The fair thin dreams, the philosophic lore
Of the great names of yore—
Plato the wise, Confucius, Socrates
The blest Gautama—all are thine—
Upon thee year by year the words divine
Of our great Master, falling like the dew,
Fill thee, to hate the wrong, to love the true;
For thee the fair poetic page is spread
Of the great living and the greater dead;
For thee the glorious gains of Science lie
Stretched open to thine eye;
And to thy fresh and undimmed brain,
The mysteries of Nature and of Space
Seem easy to explain.
A member of the family kindly furnishes the following facts about Mr. John Edwards:—
"John Edwards was born at Mofoniog, on Tuesday, the seventeenth day of June, and baptized at Llan Nefydd Church the 25th day of the same month, in the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty eight."
Thus reads the record, in the family Bible, of the birth of the oldest son of Hugh and Mary Edwards. The father had planned to cross over to America in 1850 in search of a suitable place for a home for his family in the United States, but the family physician feared the effect of the voyage on his health, so his son John was sent instead.
His father sent him direct to Mr. David Wynn then living in Ohio, to whom he brought letters of intro- duction from friends in Wales. Even to the end of his life his affectionate remembrance of Mrs. Wynn's
