Record of the descendants of John Alexander

James Alexander. 157
And oft attempts to seize it, but as oft
The dimpled waters speaks his jealous fear.
At last while haply o'er the shaded sun
Passes a cloud, he desperate takes lhe death,
With sudden plunge at once he darts along
Deep struck, and runs out all the length of line ;
Then seeks the farthest ooze, the sheltering weed,
The caverned bank, his old abode;
And flies aloft and flounces round the pool,
Indignant of the guile. With yielding hand
That feels him still, yet to his furious course
Gives way, you now retreating following now
Across the stream, exhaust his idle rage.
Till floating broad upon his breathless side,
And to his fate abandoned, to the shore
You gaily drag your unresisting prize."
James Alexander improved a mind naturally strong
and active by various reading, so that he was generally
regarded as a man of more than ordinary intelligence.
He was a kind and affectionate husband and father.
His large and productive farm furnished the necessaries
and comforts of a farmer's life in abundance, and being
hospitable, social, cheerful and gifted in conversational
powers, his home and society were enjoyed by numer-
ous friends and guests. Religiously he did not walk
closely in the steps of his pious father, being neither a
professor of religion nor a constant attendant at church.
Yet the influence of his early training was seen in
restraining his children on the Sabbath and in keeping
up daily Bible reading as a part of family worship and
adding the recitation of the Catechism on the Sabbath.
He died April 17th, 1847, at the ripe age of seventy-
five years and two months. He was buried in the
graveyard of the West End Presbyterian church, where
a marble tablet, erected and inscribed by his sons, James
and Napoleon B., marks his resting-place, near that of
his father.
Mrs. Jane Adams Alexander, his wife, born in