1862-1899. The line between the dates represents a bridge as it were of
thirty-seven planks, and each plank a year. It takes but a single stroke
of the pen to make the little bridge of ink representing the years; but
can I measure the smiles and tears, the joys and sorrows, that are
crowded into each year? Can I retrace my steps, passing on the way the
graves that have opened and closed on some of earth’s best and dearest
treasures, and gather from the past a few memories that the corroding
cares of life and the ever onward-rushing “flood of years” have not
wholly obliterated from my mind? I can but try, and in so doing I feel
constrained to cry out,
“Backward, turn backward, O, time in your flight,
Make me a child again just for tonight.”