These Excursions, Often In Company With Brothers,
One Now In Canada, And The Other A Clergyman In The United States,
Gratified my intense love of nature; and though we generally returned
so unmercifully hungry and fatigued that the embryo parson
Shed tears,
yet we discovered, to us, so many new and interesting things,
that he was always as eager to join us next time as he was the last.
On one of these exploring tours we entered a limestone quarry -
long before geology was so popular as it is now. It is impossible to describe
the delight and wonder with which I began to collect the shells found in
the carboniferous limestone which crops out in High Blantyre and Cambuslang.
A quarry-man, seeing a little boy so engaged, looked with that pitying eye
which the benevolent assume when viewing the insane. Addressing him with,
"How ever did these shells come into these rocks?" "When God made the rocks,
he made the shells in them," was the damping reply. What a deal of trouble
geologists might have saved themselves by adopting the Turk-like philosophy
of this Scotchman!
My reading while at work was carried on by placing the book
on a portion of the spinning-jenny, so that I could catch
sentence after sentence as I passed at my work; I thus kept up
a pretty constant study undisturbed by the roar of the machinery.
To this part of my education I owe my present power of completely abstracting
the mind from surrounding noises, so as to read and write with perfect comfort
amid the play of children or near the dancing and songs of savages.
The toil of cotton-spinning, to which I was promoted in my nineteenth year,
was excessively severe on a slim, loose-jointed lad, but it was well paid for;
and it enabled me to support myself while attending medical and Greek classes
in Glasgow in winter, as also the divinity lectures of Dr. Wardlaw,
by working with my hands in summer. I never received a farthing of aid
from any one, and should have accomplished my project of going to China
as a medical missionary, in the course of time, by my own efforts, had not
some friends advised my joining the London Missionary Society on account of
its perfectly unsectarian character. It "sends neither Episcopacy,
nor Presbyterianism, nor Independency, but the Gospel of Christ
to the heathen." This exactly agreed with my ideas of what
a missionary society ought to do; but it was not without a pang
that I offered myself, for it was not quite agreeable to one
accustomed to work his own way to become in a measure dependent on others;
and I would not have been much put about though my offer had been rejected.
Looking back now on that life of toil, I can not but feel thankful
that it formed such a material part of my early education;
and, were it possible, I should like to begin life over again
in the same lowly style, and to pass through the same hardy training.
Time and travel have not effaced the feelings of respect I imbibed
for the humble inhabitants of my native village. For morality, honesty,
and intelligence, they were, in general, good specimens of the Scottish poor.
In a population of more than two thousand souls, we had, of course,
a variety of character. In addition to the common run of men,
there were some characters of sterling worth and ability,
who exerted a most beneficial influence on the children and youth of the place
by imparting gratuitous religious instruction.* Much intelligent interest
was felt by the villagers in all public questions, and they furnished a proof
that the possession of the means of education did not render them
an unsafe portion of the population. They felt kindly toward each other,
and much respected those of the neighboring gentry who,
like the late Lord Douglas, placed some confidence in their sense of honor.
Through the kindness of that nobleman, the poorest among us
could stroll at pleasure over the ancient domains of Bothwell,
and other spots hallowed by the venerable associations of which
our school-books and local traditions made us well aware;
and few of us could view the dear memorials of the past
without feeling that these carefully kept monuments were our own.
The masses of the working-people of Scotland have read history,
and are no revolutionary levelers. They rejoice in the memories
of "Wallace and Bruce and a' the lave," who are still much revered
as the former champions of freedom. And while foreigners imagine
that we want the spirit only to overturn capitalists and aristocracy,
we are content to respect our laws till we can change them,
and hate those stupid revolutions which might sweep away
time-honored institutions, dear alike to rich and poor.
-
* The reader will pardon my mentioning the names of two of these
most worthy men - David Hogg, who addressed me on his death-bed
with the words, "Now, lad, make religion the every-day business
of your life, and not a thing of fits and starts; for if you do not,
temptation and other things will get the better of you;"
and Thomas Burke, an old Forty-second Peninsula soldier,
who has been incessant and never weary in good works for about forty years.
I was delighted to find him still alive; men like these
are an honor to their country and profession.
-
Having finished the medical curriculum and presented a thesis on a subject
which required the use of the stethoscope for its diagnosis, I unwittingly
procured for myself an examination rather more severe and prolonged than usual
among examining bodies. The reason was, that between me and the examiners
a slight difference of opinion existed as to whether this instrument
could do what was asserted. The wiser plan would have been
to have had no opinion of my own. However, I was admitted
a Licentiate of Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons.
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