The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-06-18

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 chusetts home, made through the
 woods on foot. From the early years
 of his apprenticeship he had been in ] the habit, as he bent over his last, of
 keeping a book open or his bench, to
 the study of which he gave what mo
 ments he could occasionally snatch
 from his work. In this way, and in
 his hours of leisure, he had been able
 to pick up the elements of a good Eng fish education, and to make consider able attainments In mathematics and plane geometry. One object of his re- moval to Connecticut had been to put this knowledge to practical use by en-
 gazing in the business of surveyor. Those were the days when the quick division of land. from the great blocks included in colonial patents granted for the formation of a new township, into numerous small farms, called far more frequently. than now
 for the services of men who could run a line with precision and describe 1t in the proper terms of the art Within two years from his arrival at New Mil ford he had fitted himself to engage in this business, and received from the
 general assembly the appointment as a
 surveyor of lands for the County of
 New Haven, for New Milford was
 then part of this county.
 This office of county surveyor was a responsible one. Whoever held It
 took an oath, prescribed by statute, to discharge It's duties without Favour
 or Respect to Persons" and If he had
 occasion to employ cnainmen for his
 assistance, was to administer to each
 of them an oath, adjuring them 'by
 the ever living God" to keep and rem
 der true account of whatever lines
 and measures they might take
 That there is an ever living God,
 Who is the Supreme Authority on
 earth as in heaven, has always been
 the faith of Connecticut and shines
 through all her statute books. From
 1640 down to the present hour, it has
 solemn to those who stop to think of
 what 1t is and what 1t means-of ad- mission to the privileges of a freeman or elector that every man shall with upltfted hand swear that with Gods help whenever he shall be called to give his vote, he will give 1t as he shall judge will conduce to the best good of the commonwealth, without respect of persons or favor of any man. How many of us, on each cleo ton day, bethink ourselves of the high obligation to which we have thus pledged ourselves, and ask the help we have Invoked to act our part as vot- CTS without respect of persons of favor of any man?"
 I doubt if Roger sherman, as county surveyor, needed the weight of an official oath to bind him to his duty; but doubt not that his sense of duty was hottomed on a sense of God, and that honesy and Chrisianiy were to him, from boyhood on, one and ln- separable. ~@--
 He had joined the Stoughton church a few weeks before he came of age, It was in the year, 1742, in which were gathered in the fruits of religious awakening in New England. Our churches had lapsed into Journalism, and dogmatic belief had been accorded a prominence which threw Christian conduct into the background; 1742 was a marked year In the course of the re- turning tide towards better things.
 Tn 1749, sherman used his mathe- nautical attainments for new purpose. He prepared an almane for 1750, which was published in New York, and was the first of a series, which he put out during a considerable period of years.
 By this time be had saved some and in 1750 we find him putting part of his capital In partnership with his elder brother, into sfcountry store. This was a business in which he was first at New \ Milford, and then at New Haven, with a branch at Wallingford, for more than twenty years.
 The country store then, as now, in the more thinly settled communities, was in miniature the department store of our modern cities. There were few of them and their customers came from wide circuit of country. The trade was largely one of barter. The wife drove in with her cheese and butter, and might go back with stuff for a new dress, a box of needles, a new .coffee-pot, a bottle of salts a loaf of sugar, a quintal of cod fish, and perhaps volume of ser mons. The store was not daily visit i ed by drummers. The proprietor went himself every few months to Boston or Newport New York or Philadel- phia, to replenish his stock, and with every such journey found his mental horizon broadened, and felt better acc luainted with the great world of men and things that lay beyond the limits If his own neighborhood,
 Sherman, from the first, made the most of these glmpses of larger life. i If he rode down to New Haven to buy i West India molasses, he would visit he college to ask President Clap's opinion about the probable course of m expected comet. If he went to New York to correct the proofs of his al- | nanac, he would take the opportunity | 0 find a publisher for some pam ohlet he had written on the financial ,rors in the legislation of the day,
 sherman, by this time, had acquired he faculty, rater perhaps then than low, of expressing his thoughts in writing in a fashion that was simple, lear and straightforward. An arti- lcial overwrought and overladen style If composition, if not the prevailing me, was certainly not uncommon Imong Americans during the middle of he last century. He wrote. Al 6 Frank