Advice to the Young with an Advice to the Old/Memoirs of William Miller
Memoirs of William Miller.
AT DEANSTON WORKS.
TO a refined and liberal mind, it muſt, and it has always given great pleaſure to obſerve, the progreſs and advancement of knowledge, and good ſenſe in the lower orders, whoſe leiſure is little, and whoſe acceſs to Books is circumſcribed how much greater ſatisfaction muſt it give, to obſerve that progreſs manifeſted in an age, generally reckoned unfit for mental exertion.
William Miller, the ſubject of the present memoir, and author and compiler of the following tracts and extracts, was born at Pendrich Mill, ſituated at the baſe of the mountain called Dalmiet, near Stirling, on the 9th February, 1800, of creditable and honeſt parents, whoſe ſtraitened circumſtances in the world did not enable them so give their ſon ſuch an education as they could have wiſhed. He never had the benefit of a public ſchool, except one quarter of a year.
For the laſt four years he has been employed at Deanſton Works, near Doune, Perthſhire. During the ſummer of 1812, he wrote the following tracts and extracts in the evenings (in which manner, by perſeverance, and conſtant application, chiefly acquired that degree of learning which enabled him to do ſo) after the labours of the day were finiſhed: A convincing proof that youth trained up early to habits of induſtry, even at public works ſeldom fail to rival and excel in virtue, thoſe who, poſſeſſed of wealth and independence, too often ſquander their time in the haunts of idleneſs and diſſipation.
The vein of genuine Chriſtian piety which runs through the whole is certainly highly creditable to a boy only eleven years of age:
Deanſton, 28th Nov. 1812.