to become the mother of ten children. In short, with such bright worldly prospects at the beginning, she didn’t dream that her life was to be one of almost unbroken drudgery, a round of duties for which in temperament she was no more fitted, than a prima-donna on the concert stage is fitted for a treadmill existence. Yet she worked in that treadmill, and worked in it in such a way that her work brought forth golden grain, and developed a character so noble, which in the end made her husband and her children rise up and call her blessed. In short, during the forty years on the farm, it was hers to touch common life with the wand of a consecration so complete that life itself became a transforming influence for all who for a shorter or a longer period became a part of it. Her favorite text might well become the key which explains this whole story: “The path of the just is a shining light that shineth more and more to the perfect day.” That path on the farm shone because she and her husband made it shine. The greatest tribute that we can pay to her husband, James MacMillan, is that in the end he too, was one of her greatest helpers. V. MOTHERS IN ISRAEL We know something of John MacMillan of Balmaghie, Scotland, of Hugh McMillan of County Antrim, Ireland and of David McMillan of South Carolina, and of James MacMillan of Greenp County, Ohio, but what do we know about the wives of these men whose names are so prominent in the family record? We regret that we do not have the name of the wife of John MacMillan, but we know she was the wife of one whose name is listed in Scottish history with the names of the martyrs and the worthies. She shared her husband’s dangers and privations in those terrible times. We know, too, that she reared a son John MacMillan, the second, who for forty years was pastor of the Covenanter church in Glasgow. We must conclude that the wife of John MacMillan was a true and noble mother in Israel. Fortunately we know more about the wife of Hugh McMillan, Jane Harvey, whose name and the picture of the modest cottage in which she lived in Ireland, has always had for some of the family, an air of romance. We know that Jane Harvey was a 43
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