years of his life held the office of deacon of an independent church in Hamilton. He deserved my lasting gratitude for presenting me from infancy with a consistent example of piety like that which is so beautifully portrayed in Burns' 'Cottar's Saturday night.' He died in February, 1856, in peaceful hope of mercy through the death of our Lord and Saviour. I was then on my way below Zumbo, anticipating no greater pleasure than sitting by his cottage fire and telling him my travels. I revere his memory.
The earliest recollection of my mother recalls a picture often seen among the Scottish poor — that of the anxious housewife striving to make both ends meet. At the age of ten I went to the factory as a "piecer." With a part of my first week's wages I pui'chased Euddiman's 'Eudiments of Latin,' and studied that language for many years with unabated ardour, at an evening school which met between the hours of eight and ten. I continued my labours when I got home till twelve o'clock, or later, if my mother did not interfere by snatching the books out of my hands. I had to be back in the factory by six in the morning, and my work lasted, with intervals for breakfast and dinner, till eight o'clock at night. I read in this way many of the classical authors, and knew Virgil and Horace better at sixteen than I do now. Our schoolmaster was supported in part by the company ; he was attentive and kind, and so moderate in his charges that all who wished for education could obtain it. Some of my schoolfellows are now in positions far above what appeared likely then; and if the system were established in England, it would prove a never- ending blessing to the poor.
I read everything I could lay my hands on except novels. Scientific works and books of travels were my especial delight; though my father, believing, with many of his time who ought to have known better, that the former were inimical to religion, would have preferred to see me poring over the 'Cloud of Witnesses,' or Boston's 'Fourfold State.' My difi"erence of opinion reached the point of open rebellion, and his last application of the rod was on my refusal to peruse Wilberforce's 'Practical Christianity.' This dislike to religious reading continued for years ; but having lighted on those admirable works of Dr. Thomas Dick, 'The Philosophy of
