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 of
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 advantage.
He reared his children in connection with the Kirk of Scotland -
a religious establishment which has been an incalculable blessing
to that country - but he afterward left it, and during the last
twenty years of his life held the office of deacon of an independent church
in Hamilton, and deserved my lasting gratitude and homage for presenting me,
from my infancy, with a continuously consistent pious example,
such as that ideal of which is so beautifully and truthfully portrayed
in Burns's "Cottar's Saturday Night". He died in February, 1856,
in peaceful hope of that mercy which we all expect through
the death of our Lord and Savior. 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 "piecer",
to aid by my earnings in lessening her anxiety.
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