EARLY LABORS AND INSTRUCTIONS. 
5 
Hebrides afforded, were gladly received as clerks by the 
proprietors, Monteith and Co. He himself, highly esteemed 
for his unflinching honesty, was employed in the convey- 
ance 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 ol 
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. Ho reared his children in connection with tho Kirk 
of Scotland, — a religious establishment which has been an 
incalculable blessing to that country; but he afterward 
left it, and during the last tw'onty years of his life held the 
office of deacon of an independent church in Hamilton, and 
deserved my lasting gratitudo and homage for presenting 
me, from my infancy, with a continuously consistent pious 
example, such as that tho ideal of which is so beautifully 
and truthfully portrayed in Burns’s “Cottar’s Saturday 
Night.” Ho died in February, 1856, in peaceful hope of 
that mercy which we all expect through tho death of our 
Lord and Saviour. I was at the time on my way below 
Zumbo, expecting no greater pleasure in this country than 
sitting by our cottage-fire and telling him my travels. I 
revere his memory. 
The earliest recollection of my mother recalls a picture 
so 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 Ruddiman’s “ Rudiments 
of Latin,” and pursued the study of that language for 
many years afterward, with unabated ardor, at an evening 
