Introd. YOUTHFUL EXCURSIONS. 5 



In the glow of love which Christianity inspires, I soon resolved 

 to devote my life to the alleviation of human misery. Turning 

 tin's idea over in my mind, I felt that to be a pioneer of Chris- 

 tianity in China might lead to the material benefit of some 

 portions of that immense empire ; and therefore set myself to 

 obtain a medical education, in order to be qualified for that 

 enterprise. 



In recognising the plants pointed out in my first medical book, 

 that extraordinary old work on astrological medicine, Culpeper's 

 ' Herbal,' I had the guidance of a book on the plants of Lanark- 

 shire, by Patrick. Limited as my time was, I found opportunities 

 to scour the whole country-side, " collecting simples." Deep and 

 anxious were my studies on the still deeper and more perplexing 

 profundities of astrology, and I believe I got as far into that 

 abyss of fantasies as my author said he dared to lead me. It 

 seemed perilous ground to tread on farther, for the dark hint 

 seemed to my youthful mind to loom towards " selling soul and 

 body to the devil," as the price of the unfathomable know- 

 ledge of the stars. These excursions, often in company with 

 brothers, one now in Canada, and the other a clergyman in the 

 United States, gratified my intense love of nature ; and though 

 we generally returned so unmercifully hungry and fatigued that 

 the embryo parson shed tears, yet we discovered so many to us 

 new and interesting things, that he was always as eager to join 

 us next time as he was the last. 



On one of these exploring tours we entered a limestone quarry 

 — long before geology was so popular as it is now. It is 

 impossible to describe the delight and wonder with which I began 

 to collect the shells found in the carboniferous limestone which 

 crops out in High Blantyre and Cambuslang. A quarryman, 

 seeing a little boy so engaged, looked with that pitying eye 

 which the benevolent assume when viewing the insane. Ad- 

 dressing him with, " How ever did these shells come into these 

 rocks ? " " When God made the rocks, he made the shells in 

 them," was the damping reply. "What a deal of trouble geolo- 

 gists might have saved themselves by adopting the Turk-like 

 philosophy of tins Scotchman ! 



My reading while at work was carried on by placing the book 

 on a portion of the spinning jenny, so that I could catch sentence 



