6 
RELIGIOUS IMPRESSIONS. 
school, which met between tho hours of eight and ten. 
Tho dictionary part of my labors was followod up till 
twolvo o’clock, or later, if my mother did not interfere by 
jumping up and snatching tho books out of my hands. 1 
bad tc bo back in tho factory by six in tho morning, and 
coutinuo my work, with intervals for breakfast and dinner, 
till eight o’clock at night. I read in this way many of the 
classical authors, and know Virgil and Horace bettor at 
sixteen than I do now. Our schoolmaster — happily still 
alive — was supported in part by tho company ; ho was 
attontivo and kind, and so modci-ato in his charges that all 
who wished for education might have obtained it. Many 
availed themselves of the privilege ; and somo of my 
schoolfellows now rank in positions far abovo what they 
appeared ever likely to como to when in tho villago school. 
If such a system woro established in England, it would 
prove a never-ending blessing to tho poor. 
In reading, every thing that 1 could lay my hands on 
was devoured except novels. Scientific works and books 
of travels wero my especial delight; though my father, 
believing, with many of his time who ought to have known 
better, that the former wero inimical to religion, would 
have preferred to have seen mo poring over tho “ Cloud of 
Witnesses,” or Boston’s “ Fourfold State.” Our difference 
of opinion reached tho point of open rebellion on my part, 
and his last application of the rod was on my refusal to 
uernso Wilberforco’s “Practical Christianity.” This dislike 
to dry doctrinal reading, and to religious reading of ovory 
sort, continued for years afterward ; but having lighted on 
those admirable works of Dr. Thomas Dick, “Tho Philoso- 
phy of Religion” and “Tho Philosophy of a Futuro Stato,” 
it was gratifying to find my own ideas, that religion and 
scionco aro not hostile, but friendly to each other, fully 
provod and enforced. 
Great pains had been taken by my parents to instil the 
doctrines of Christianity into my minot, and I had no diffi- 
culty in understanding tho theory of our free salvation by 
