THE LIFE OF GROVER CLEVELAND. CHAPTER I. THE CLEVELAND ANCESTRY. In the evil qutchurch of Caldwell, New Jersey, learned N the early autumn of the year 1834, the good people with sorrow that they must soon seek a new pastor. The Rev. Stephen Grover, who had ministered to the spiritual needs of the congregation for a period longer than many of its members could recall, began to feel the infirmities of age, and to say that it was time for younger shoulders to put on his armor and younger men to fight the battle he had waged so long. His determination to retire from the pulpit was communicated reluctantly, and was received with regret. His place, the congregation knew, could not be easily filled. Caldwell was small and the parishioners of the church were not many, and were not rich. All they could afford to offer was a salary of about five hundred dollars a year, a parsonage dignified in the village by the name of "The Manse"-and the respect and love of an earnest Christian congregation. Perhaps it was chance; perhaps it was the strong recommendation of some of the professors in the Princeton Theological Seminary, that finally induced them to tender the arduous position and its modest compensation to a young graduate of Yale College and of the Princeton Seminary. At all events, as was the custom, the young man was invited to preach one Sunday on trial, and after the usual solemn deliberation by the deacons and the gossipy criticism of the giddy on the doorsteps, it was voted unanimously to extend a call to the pale, thoughtful young man, whose broad conceptions of religious duty and earnest convincing eloquence had thrilled them that morning. In December, 1834, accordingly, the Rev. Richard Cleveland found himself duly installed in the pulpit of the Caldwell Presbyterian Church, and with his wife and three children, one boy and two girls, took up his abode in "The Manse." As several years intervened before the subject of these pages appeared first on the scene, on which he has since acquitted himself with so much credit, the time, perhaps, may be best improved by looking into what those whose name he was to bear had been doing in the world to make that name respected among men. Richard Cleveland came by his predilection for the ministry as naturally as Grover Cleveland came by his frank, honest manner, and conscientious rectitude and courage in political action. The inheritances of both. came with the blood in their veins. For four generations the Clevelands had been men who thought for themselves and who, when their minds were made up concerning what was right and what was wrong, were not apt to allow themselves to be swerved from their convictions. When occasion demanded they could find strong reasons for the faith that was in them and the ability to express those reasons. It does not appear why Moses Cleveland left England and settled near Woburn, Massachusetts, about the end of the seventeenth century, and probably the reason would not now be of much importance if it were known. The colonies of America at that time were attracting many of the most earnest and independent men of the mother country, and Moses Cleveland doubtless cast in his lot with others in the hope of greater freedom and greater opportunities. He and his children, however, seem to |