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body to read it to him again and again. This incident produced a conversation between my parents, on the expenses and utility of education; the consequences of which was, that the week following, Duncan and I were sent to the parish school, and began at the same instant to the study of that most important and fundemental branch of literature, the A, B, C; but n(illegible text) sister Mary, who was older than I, was already an accurate and elegant reader.
This reminds me of another anecdote of Duncan with regard to family worship, which I have often heard related, and which I myself may well remember. My father happening to be absent over night at a f(illegible text) when the usual time of worship arrived, my mother desired a lad, one of the servants, to act as chaplain for that night; the lad declined it, and slunk away to his bed. My mother testified her regret that we should all be obliged to go prayerless to our beds for that night, observing. that she did not remember the time when it had so happened before. Duncan said,{illegible}} thought we might contrive to manage it amongst us and instantly proposed to sing the psalm and pray, Mary would read the chapter. To this my mother with some hesitation agreed, remarking that if he prayed as he could, with a pure heart, his prayer had good a chance of being accepted as some other that were better worded. Duncan could not then read, but having learned several psalms from Mary by rote, caused her seek out the place, and sung the 2(illegible text) Psalm from end to end, with great sweetness and decency. Mary read a chapter in the New Testament, and then (my mother having a child on her knee) we three kneeled in a row, while Duncan prayed thus:—" Lord, be thou our God, our guide, and our guard unto death. & through death." that was a sentence my father often used his in prayer; Duncan had laid hold of it, and my mother began to think that he had often prayed previous to that time.—, O Lord, thou'—continued, Duncan
