id="id00207">He was a singular compound, in his nature, of courage and timidity, of weakness and strength; uniting a penchant for mirth with a proneness to melancholy, and blending the lion-like qualities of a leader among men, with the bashfulness and lamb-like simplicity of a child.

He was not a coward; a braver man probably never lived than Heber C. Kimball. His courage, however was not of that questionable kind which "knows no fear." Rather was it of that superior order, that Christ-like bravery, which feels danger and yet dares to face it. He had all the sensitiveness of the poet—for he was both a poet and a prophet from his mother's womb—and inherited by birthright the power to feel pleasure or suffer pain, in all its exquisiteness and intensity.

Hear his own pathetic story of his early hardships:

"At this time, I saw some days of sorrow; my heart was troubled, and I suffered much in consequence of fear, bashfulness, and timidity. I found myself cast abroad upon the world, without a friend to console my grief. In these heart-aching hours I suffered much for want of food and the comforts of life, and many times when two or three days without food to eat, being bashful and not daring to ask for it.

"After I had spent several weeks in the manner before stated, my oldest brother, Charles, hearing of my condition, offered to teach me the potter's trade. I immediately accepted the offer, and continued with him until I was twenty-one.

"While living with my brother, he moved into the town of Mendon, Monroe, County, New York, six miles north of Bloomfield, towards the city of Rochester, where he again established the potter's business."

Here Heber finished learning his trade and commenced working for wages. Six months later he purchased his brother's business and set up in the same line for himself, in which he prospered for upwards of ten years.

CHAPTER II.

A ROMANTIC EPISODE—HEBER'S MARRIAGE WITH VILATE MURRAY—A SOLDIER AND A FREE MASON—HIS STERN ARRAIGNMENT OF THE ANCIENT ORDER—DEATH OF HEBER'S FATHER AND MOTHER.

Meanwhile, the sun of love dawned on his horizon. In one of his rides he chanced to pass, one warm summer day, through the little town of Victor, in the neighboring County of Ontario. Being thirsty, he drew rein near a house where a gentleman was at work in the yard, whom he asked for a drink of water. As the one addressed went to the well for a fresh bucketful of the cooling liquid, he called to his daughter Vilate, to fetch a glass from the house, which he filled and sent by her to the young stranger.

Heber was deeply impressed with the beauty and refined modestly of the young girl, whose name he understood to be "Milaty," and who was the flower and pet of her father's family. Lingering as long as propriety would permit, or the glass of water would hold out, he murmured his thanks and rode reluctantly away.

How suggestive this incident, of Whittier's pretty tale, "Maud
Muller:"

    "Thanks" said the Judge, "a sweeter draught
    From a fairer hand was never quaffed."

It was not long before he again had "business" in Victor, and again became thirsty (?) just opposite the house where the young lady lived. Seeing the same gentleman in the yard whom he had accosted before, he hailed him and asked him for a cup of water. This time the owner of the premises offered to wait upon him in person, but Heber, with the blunt candor for which he was noted, nearly took the old gentleman's breath by saying, "if you please, sir, I'd rather My-Laty would bring it to me."

"Laty," as she was called in the house, accordingly appeared and did the honors as before, and returned blushing to meet the merriment and good-natured badinage of her sister and brothers.

She, however, was quite as favorably impressed with the handsome young stranger, as he with her. More visits followed, acquaintance ripened into love, and on the 7th of November, 1822, they were married.

Vilate Murray—for that was her name—was the youngest child of
Roswell and Susannah Murray. She was born June 1st, 1806, in Florida,
Montgomery County, New York. At the time of her marriage she was only
in her seventeenth year.

The Murrays, like the Kimballs, were of Scotch descent, and came to America during the Seven Years' War. As a race they were gentle, kind-hearted, intelligent and refined. Through many of them ran a vein of poetry. Vilate herself wrote tender and beautiful verses. She was an ideal wife for a man like Heber C. Kimball, by whom she was ever cherished as the treasure that she was.

Heber was now past twenty-one, and fast developing into as fine a specimen of manhood as one might wish to behold. Tall and powerful of frame, with piercing black eyes that seemed to read one through, and before whose searching gaze the guilty could not choose but quail, he moved with a stateliness and majesty all his own, as far removed from haughtiness and vain pride, as he from the sphere of the upstart who mistakes scorn for dignity, and an overbearing manner as an evidence of gentle blood.

Heber C. Kimball was a humble man, and in his humility, no less than his kingly stature, consisted his dignity, and no small share of his greatness. It was his intelligence, earnestness, simplicity, sublime faith and unwavering integrity to principle that made him great, not the apparel he wore, nor the mortal clay in which his spirit was clothed. Nevertheless, nature had given him a noble presence in the flesh, worthy the godlike stature of his spirit.

    "A combination and a form, indeed,
    Where every God did seem to set his seal
    To give the world assurance of a man."

The son and grandson of a soldier, he had early enrolled in an independent horse company of the New York State militia. Under Captain Sawyer, of East Bloomfield, and his successor in command, he trained fourteen years; one year more would have exempted him from further military service. He remarks, with honest pride, that he was never brought before a court martial or found delinquent in his duty.

Heber was also a Free Mason. In 1823 he received the first three degrees of masonry in the lodge at Victor. The year following, himself and five others petitioned the chapter at Canandaigua, the county seat of Ontario County, for the degrees up to the Royal Arch. The petition was favorably considered, but before it could be acted upon the Morgan anti-mason riot broke out, and the Masonic Hall, where the chapter met, was burned by the mob and all the records consumed.

Says Heber, "There are thousands of Masons who lived in those days, who are well aware of the persecution and unjust proceedings which were heaped upon them by the anti-Masons; not as many as three of us could meet together, unless in secret, without being mobbed.

"I have been as true as an angel from the heavens to the covenants I made in the lodge at Victor.

"No man was admitted into a lodge in those days except he bore a good moral character, and was a man of steady habits; and a man would be suspected for getting drunk, or any other immoral conduct. I wish that all men were masons and would live up to their profession; then the world would be in a much better state than it is now."

Commenting on the degeneracy of the Ancient Order—the old, old story of the persecuted becoming persecutors—he continues:

"I have been driven from my houses and possessions, with many of my brethren belonging to that fraternity, five times, by mobs led by some of their leading men.