EARLY LABORS AND INSTRUCTIONS. 11 



Hebrides afforded, were gladly received as clerks by tbe 

 proprietors, Monteith and Co. He himself, highly esteemed 

 for his unflinching honesty, was employed in the con- 

 veyance of large sums of money from Glasgow to the 

 works, and in old age was, according to the custom of 

 that company, pensioned off, so as to spend his declining 

 years in ease and comfort. 



Our uncles all entered his majesty's service during the 

 last French war, either as soldiers or sailors; but my father 

 remained at home, and, though too conscientious ever to 

 become rich as a small tea-dealer, by his kindliness of 

 manner and winning ways he made the heart-strings of his 

 children twine around him as firmly as if he had possessed, 

 and could have bestowed upon them, every worldly advan- 

 tage. He reared his children in connection with the Kirk 

 of Scotland, — a religious establishment which has been an 

 incalculable blessing to that country; but he afterward 

 left it, and during the last twenty years of his life held the 

 office of deacon of an independent church in Hamilton, and 

 deserved my lasting gratitude and homage for presenting 

 me, from my infancy, with a continuously consistent pious 

 example, such as that the ideal of which is so beautifully 

 and truthfully portrayed in Burns's "Cottar's Saturday 

 Night." He died in February, 1856, in peaceful hope of 

 that mercy which we all expect through the death of our 

 Lord and Saviour. I was at the time on my way below 

 Zumbo, expecting no greater pleasure in this country than 

 Bitting by our cottage-fire and telling him my travels. 1 

 revere his memory. 



The earliest recollection of my mother recalls a picture 

 bo often seen among the Scottish poor, — that of the anxious 

 housewife striving to make both ends meet. At the age 

 of ten I was put into the factory as a " piercer," to aid by 

 my earnings in lessening her anxiety. With a part of my 

 first week's wages I purchased Euddiman's "Kudimeuta 

 of Latin," and pursued the study of that language for 

 many years afterward, with unabated ardor, at an evening 



