At The Age Of Ten I Was Put Into The Factory As A "Piecer",
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 school, which met between
the hours of eight and ten.
The dictionary part of my labors
was followed up till twelve o'clock, or later, if my mother did not interfere
by jumping up and snatching the books out of my hands. I had to be
back in the factory by six in the morning, and continue 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 knew Virgil and Horace
better at sixteen than I do now. Our schoolmaster - happily still alive -
was supported in part by the company; he was attentive and kind,
and so moderate in his charges that all who wished for education
might have obtained it. Many availed themselves of the privilege;
and some of my schoolfellows now rank in positions far above
what they appeared ever likely to come to when in the village school.
If such a system were established in England, it would prove
a never-ending blessing to the poor.
In reading, every thing that I could lay my hands on was devoured
except novels. Scientific works and books of travels
were my especial delight; though my father, believing,
with many of his time who ought to have known better, that the former
were inimical to religion, would have preferred to have seen me
poring over the "Cloud of Witnesses", or Boston's "Fourfold State".
Our difference of opinion reached the point of open rebellion on my part,
and his last application of the rod was on my refusal to peruse Wilberforce's
"Practical Christianity". This dislike to dry doctrinal reading,
and to religious reading of every sort, continued for years afterward;
but having lighted on those admirable works of Dr. Thomas Dick,
"The Philosophy of Religion" and "The Philosophy of a Future State",
it was gratifying to find my own ideas, that religion and science
are not hostile, but friendly to each other, fully proved and enforced.
Great pains had been taken by my parents to instill the doctrines
of Christianity into my mind, and I had no difficulty in understanding
the theory of our free salvation by the atonement of our Savior, but it was
only about this time that I really began to feel the necessity and value
of a personal application of the provisions of that atonement to my own case.
The change was like what may be supposed would take place
were it possible to cure a case of "color blindness". The perfect freeness
with which the pardon of all our guilt is offered in God's book
drew forth feelings of affectionate love to Him who bought us with his blood,
and a sense of deep obligation to Him for his mercy has influenced,
in some small measure, my conduct ever since.
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