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��THE GRANITE MONTHLY
��wood they were not i:i any circum- stances of birth or education. He entered upon the struggle of life as one of the great commonwealth. He had no influential friends to push him upward to positions of trust, or fur- nish him with funds with which to pur- chase the public favor and its emolu- ments. In all respects he is a self- made man. Not only as it regards education, but in restject to business, and every position he attained, no friendly hand was stretched forth to assist him. It is evident that Mr. At- wood must be a man possessed of superior natural abilities. No man could accomplish what he has without. But as a boy, he was not especially precocious : nor as a young man was he more brilliant than many others who fail in life's struggle. What he gained was the result of patient, per- sistent labor. In him was fulfilled the words of Scripture, " Seest thou a man diligent in business? He shall stand before kings ; he shall not stand before mean men." What he did was always done to the best of his ability ; whether it was learning his lesson in the district school, driving his father's cows to pasture, serving as an appren- tice, acting as a reporter, or seated in the councils of the nation. The thought never entered his mind that a dollar was to be put into his hand un- til it was first earned by his own honest labor. I'his idea, received in his boy- hood, and abiding with him in his after years, doubtless had much to do with his success. He was never found waiting for something to turn up, but was ever in earnest, bending circumstances to his control. Those who wait for the shoes of dead m^n often wait in vain, and if the coveted prize is secured, sometimes the fit is not a good one. In every office he has filled he has expected nothing through the gift of others ; nothing till he had fitted himself for the posi- tion, and won the confidence of those who sought a man to fill the post of honor and trust. It is a trite saying that " The bov is father of the man."
��Pre-eminently was this true of Mr. Atwood. I remember him well when eight, ten, twelve years of age — the cjuiet, persevering, studious boy — for I sat with him in that old wood-colored school-house.
The subject of this notice, through all his life, has been an honest man. I do not mean merely that he has been honest in his commercial transactions, hut in all his intercourse with men. He ha-, been a man much in political life, and a man having the courage of his coavictions ; a man identified with a ])olitical party, — a party which shaped the legislation of our country during a most stormy period of its history. Yet he has never been charged with chicanery, nor with under-handed management that would not bear the light of day. The remark of a distin- guished reformer that a politician was a man who would serve the Lord just so far as he could without giving offence to the devil, would not apply to him.
Mr. Atwood has been a temperate man. Though so much of his life has been spent in public, where, I re- gret to say, there is far too much of indulgence of the appetite, he has reached, unscathed, nearly to the scrip- tural limit of human life. So far as I know, he has never identified himself with any branch of the visible church, but he has n.>t departed from the faith of his venerated parents. From youth to old age they were members of the Presbyterian church of their native town.
On the whole I think the life and character of my friend are well worthy of the thoughtful considera- tion of every young man, as he steps out to take part in the struggle which stands between him and success, especially that large class of young men whose only inheritance is a pair of naked hands, and whose royal birth-right is a virtuous ancestry.
August 23, 1S49, Mr. .\tvvood was married at Potosi, Wiscon- sin, to Mary Sweeney. They have ha<l four children, — two sons and two
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