This book is one which Father himself was planning to publish in response to the urgent request of many of his friends. It was to supplement his book "Meditations." But owing to the conditions of the war (World War One) the idea of publication was abandoned for the time. Now, after his death, we publish it in the hope that it will be a comfort to many who knew him and loved him. It consists of his autobiography followed by selections from articles published in the "Signs of the Times" since 1897.

In the autobiography as Father left it, there is no mention of his visits to Winnipeg, Canada. The first time he was there was in 1898 in response to an urgent invitation from his friend, Mr. Ebenezer McColl. Finding that he entirely escaped the annual attack of hay fever from which he suffered, he repeated his visit in 1900. Mr. McColl and his wife were the only Old School Baptists in the city at that time and Father's visits were a source of great enjoyment and comfort to them and their family.

After Mother's death in 1912, he visited Winnipeg again, and thereafter each year as long as his strength permitted. In 1917 and 1918 he deemed the journey too arduous, even for the relief he derived from his malady while there. During each of these later visits regular meetings were held at the home of his son-in-law, Gilbert B. McColl, there being by this time quite a number of members and friends of the Baptists in the city. Before his last visit a church there was organized.

During the year after he wrote the last of the autobiography, his heart was very weak. His doctor watched him carefully. Often when Father was starting to keep an appointment the doctor would say, "Mr. Durand, you ought not to go," but he would just smile and go on. He continued keeping his appointments here and elsewhere, though some one always accompanied him on his trips. He often walked a mile or two to see some one who was ill. During all this year (1919) his character shone more and more beautifully, as the path of the just "which shineth more and more unto the perfect day."

In 1918 he missed the June meeting in Ekfrid, Canada, for the first time in fifty years. In Salisbury, Maryland, on June 80, 1918, he performed his last ordinance of baptism. It was a solemn time. To all who stood by the water it seemed a miracle how the strength was given him.

His last public speaking was at the funeral of a dear young friend on November 1st. He spoke from the words "For if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens." On the following Thursday a few friends were gathered together in the little covenant meeting that was always held by this church the first Thursday in each

month. This meeting will always be a precious memory to those who were there. His last prayer was as if he were almost face to face with the Lord whom he addressed.

That night he had the fall, from the shock of which, in his weak condition, he did not recover. During those days his talk was all upon the theme which was the nearest to him all his life. He was repeating scriptures and expounding them. He talked with his brethren of Jesus as the only way of salvation. He kept dwelling on that. "You must see," he would say, "the necessity for the blood of Jesus. There is no other way." He seemed to feel himself surrounded by the church of the First Born and an innumerable company of angels. Many a time he had said that Death, though it was the king of terrors, when it came, would be but as the drawing aside of a curtain which hides from us the entrance into Life. And so it seemed to be with him as he passed quietly from us on the morning of Tuesday, November l2th. There are no words to express what it means to have such lives to look back upon as those of our Father and Mother--lives spent in the service of the Lord. It is a priceless heritage.

EDITH DURAND MCCOLL,

MILDRED DURAND GORDY.