PREFATORY LETTER. v 



to gain his daily bread by the labour of his hands — that after 

 the fatigues of the day, even in his boyhood, he had with 

 unconquerable energy sought after many fountains of useful 

 knowledge and drunk of their waters — that he had stolen 

 from the night the short hours of study the day did not 

 afford him — that, as he advanced in years, he had learnt to 

 carry on his studies in moments of time, snatched in the crowd 

 and toil and din of a manufactory, and amidst interruptions 

 which, to wills less resolute., would have made any continued 

 exercise of serious thought impossible. We knew that, as he 

 improved in manual skill, and gained higher wages, he set 

 apart a larger sum for study — that he made good progress in 

 the classic tongues — that he laid the foundation of sound 

 knowledge in several important branches of natural science, 

 and gradually won his way by his own energy, and " with- 

 out receiving a farthing's aid from any one" (and I may add, 

 not without some hinderances in early life, on the part of 

 those whom he most loved and honoured), — that he was at 

 length enabled to attend three important Classes in the Uni- 

 versity of Glasgow as a regular student, and in the end became 

 a Licentiate of the Faculty of Physic and Surgery. Such were 

 the early years of the man who came to address us, after his 

 labours of love and long wanderings in South Africa. 



His boyish studies may have been carried on without any 

 Jong-sighted visions of what the future had in store for him : 

 but he never quite forgot those early parental lessons which 

 contained the good seed of all the fruits of his after life. 

 There may, during his daily and nightly toils, have been a 

 short period in which he ran the risk, like many other men, 

 of forgetting that he was a Christian. But as he advanced in 

 mature knowledge and grew in stature, he became, through 

 God's blessing, more and more, in heart and life and firm 

 conviction, a good religious man. He became a man of large 

 benevolence, of firm faith, and of a grand catholicity of spirit. 

 He believed that all the families upon earth are God's children, 



