I think one of the hardest things I ever had to do was (or is) to get the consent of my own mind to write and publish this book. There is a constant desire to stay back out of sight. That I cannot now do, for I have written of my daily life and experience concerning spiritual things and published it among the brethren for more than forty years. Yet how little of my outward history and of my inner life I have told. How little can be told. Considering that, and also considering my natural backwardness from early childhood, the most diffident child I ever saw, I just now felt like giving up the task of writing any more, when the thought of the wonderful goodness and mercy of the Lord to me filled my soul with a desire to tell it to all that fear the Lord. I cannot recite it all; I cannot tell it. To give even a glimpse of it I must tell of all my vileness, my wickedness, my transgression in heart and lip and life, and that I cannot do. I can tell of times when the revelation of his grace and goodness to me, in an experience of his delivering power, has caused my soul to cry out and shout because of the greatness of the Holy One of Israel in the midst of Zion, and to say, "0 Lord, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortest me." But I cannot tell of the awful depths of sin and the terrible waters of affliction out of which he has saved me. I can only say that my praise is continually due to the Lord for this great mercy that has kept me a place in the fellowship of his church and people.

I was born January 5, 1855, the eleventh of fourteen children. My father, Daniel Durand, was born November 7, 1795, in Middletown, Orange County, New York, when there were only two houses there. The ancestor of the Durand family in America was Dr. John Durand, who came from Rochelle, France, during the time of the Huguenot persecution in 1685, and settled in Milford, Conn. My father saw the house where he lived.

My mother was born in Bellvale, Orange County, New York. She was a granddaughter of Elder James Benedict, who was said to be the first Baptist preacher who was ever west of the Hudson River. He .organized the church at Warwick, and built the meeting house which is still standing in the center of the beautiful village of Warwick, and in which the church meets every Sunday.

My father and mother were married in April, 1815, in Bellvale, and lived there perhaps two years. They moved to Minnisink, where he worked at his trade, making wagons, for a few years. They both were baptized by Elder Ball in the fellowship of the church at Brookfield, of which there was a branch at Minnisink. At one time there was a membership of over 500.

In 1824 my father and mother, with four children, moved to Bradford County, Pennsylvania, 160 miles. One child had died. Whatever worldly goods they possessed were carried in a two-horse wagon. They lived two years at Camptown, where he attended a "grist mill." He went to the different churches within reach, but could find none to suit him. After some time he heard of a meeting nine miles distant by direct line through the woods, where a peculiar man preached in a school house. He went on a Sunday morning by "marked trees'' through the woods to that place, which was called South Hill, and found the people whom he was seeking. Elder Hezekiah West was preaching for them. His name occurs often in the early volumes of the "Signs," and reference to his articles published there will show what a profitable and reliable gift he was to the church. At the next meeting day father and mother drove to the meeting, having to go a distance of twenty miles. They put in their letters there, where they remained until that church became extinct, about 1845, when they united with the Asylum Church at Vaughan Hill.

In December, 1828, they moved four miles into the woods, in the direction of South Hill, and went into a very substantial loghouse which father had built. It was yet without doors or windows, but not long before they were supplied. A heavy forest of hemlock, beech and maple was all around them, but the winter was mild, the cow and pigs could get their living in the woods, and a comfortable winter was passed. There seven children were born, making fourteen, ten of whom grew to manhood and womanhood. There the usual trials of frontier life were experienced, and there many comforts, both spiritual and natural, were enjoyed. There hard and faithful work was done, and such hardships endured as can only be known by those who have begun in the woods with nothing but good health, strong arms and invincible determination. There an irreproachable character was maintained by parents and children. Father worked at his trade, and cleared up the farm, and his reputation for absolute honesty was so noted as to be peculiar. As far as he was known that absolute honesty was known, and the only word of disparagement ever uttered concerning him was on account of his peculiar religion. Even. this, however, we noticed with wonder, rather added to the respect and confidence which even those who opposed his religious views had for him, for they, in time of great personal straits and danger, would call upon him for advice and prayer. One of the members of a distant branch of our family, who has traced the genealogy back to Dr. John Durand, the Huguenot emigrant, says, "As far as I can learn, the name has never fallen into disrepute; always like the forefather (the Huguenot), reputable people and worthy of Preserving the name and lineage for coming generations."

And it is right to prize that inheritance of a good character and reputation, and to be thankful for a father and mother whose lives were an example and an inspiration. And yet, when one is brought to the bar of divine justice, how little all the best reputations among men avail. Then the best of men sinks into the depths and shrinks to nothing in the light of God, and is forced to cry out unto him, "Behold, I am vile; I abhor myself." Surely every man in his best state is altogether vanity.

The first religious meeting in the township of Herrick was held in that loghouse, our home, and I have heard that all the people in the township were present except an old man and a child, twenty-nine in number. Elder Hezekiah West was the preacher. He is the first preacher I remember. He was quite often at our house, living only five miles away, and always, when he came, preached a fireside sermon, on which occasions all the children were present and seated orderly, and sometimes neighbors would be present. Once, when I was probably six years old, he said, "Now I will preach a sermon for the children, and will preach just an hour." He repeated the text, "And the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass." The old loud-sounding clock had struck just before he began. And as he dosed it began to strike again. I do not remember anything he said, but I well remember the text, and that I liked to hear him talk. How glad I would be to have the privilege of hearing that dear old elder preach from that text now, and tell of Jesus as the one street in all that great city, the one glorious way of salvation for all that great company which no man can number, and of that faith which is more precious than the finest gold, by which alone Jesus is seen.

I worked on the farm in the summer and attended school in the winter. My father hired the first teachers, and built a Schoolhouse. At the age of 16 I attended an academy seven miles from home one fall term, and the following fall taught a school two and a half months. When 18, I went to the Whitestown Seminary one term and taught a school four months near there. The next fall I went to the Wyoming Seminary one term in the fall and taught during the winter: and attended the spring term. In October, 1858, I went to New Orleans, where my brother James then was, and where he and others of my brothers had been for many years. I taught as principal of an academy there for seven months. Returning home the following July, I taught school in Wayne County, Pennsylvania, for about a year, and m the fall of 1856 went again to New Orleans, where my brothers James and Warren then were, and where I engaged in bookkeeping. I returned again in the summer of 1857 to our home, and taught school about ten miles from home. In the spring of 1858 I visited New York City for the first time, trying to find a situation that would suit me. While there I heard Elder Goble preach several times, little thinking then that I would ever be a member of that church, much less a preacher. After a few weeks, I went to Middletown, N. Y., and stopped with a cousin, Judson Horton, who was merchant, postmaster and railroad agent at Howells, where I helped him for a few weeks, and frequently heard Elder Gilbert Beebe preach. I returned home, and in October went to Wilkes-Barre, Pa., and entered the office of Hon. Hendrick B. Wright, as a student of law, and taught a school in that town during that winter. In 1860 I was admitted to the practice of the law.

During the last part of the time I was studying law I taught an academy four months with my youngest sister Rosina. That ended my teaching, and I felt that now I had found the occupation which suited me and which I would follow all my life. I entered upon the work with a determination to reach the highest place in my profession. I worked four years with fair success, seeking during those first years to prepare myself for the best work rather than to engage in what would me money the soonest.