rskine's "Sonnets," or crooning to the birds one of
David's Psalms. His happy partner, our beloved mother, died in 1865, and
he himself in 1868, having reached his seventy-seventh year, an
altogether beautiful and noble episode of human existence having been
enacted, amid the humblest surroundings of a Scottish peasant's home,
through the influence of their united love by the grace of God; and in
this world, or in any world, all their children will rise up at mention
of their names and call them blessed!

CHAPTER IV.
SCHOOL DAYS.

IN my boyhood, Torthorwald had one of the grand old typical Parish
Schools of Scotland; where the rich and the poor met together in perfect
equality; where Bible and Catechism were taught as zealously as grammar
and geography; and where capable lads from the humblest of cottages were
prepared in Latin and Mathematics and Greek to go straight from their
Village class to the University bench. Besides, at that time, an
accomplished pedagogue of the name of Smith, a learned man of more than
local fame, had added a Boarding House to the ordinary School, and had
attracted some of the better class gentlemen and farmers' sons from the
surrounding country; so that Torthorwald, under his _regime_, reached
the zenith of its educational fame. In this School I was initiated into
the mystery of letters, and all my brothers and sisters after me, though
some of them under other masters than mine. My teacher punished
severely--rather, I should say, savagely--especially for lessons badly
prepared. Yet, that he was in some respects kindly and tender-hearted, I
had the best of reasons to know.

When still under twelve years of age, I started to learn my father's
trade, in which I made surprising progress. We wrought from six in the
morning till ten at night, with an hour at dinner-time and half an hour
at breakfast and again at supper. These spare moments every day I
devoutly spent on my books, chiefly in the rudiments of Latin and Greek;
for I had given my soul to God, and was resolved to aim at being a
Missionary of the Cross, or a Minister of the Gospel. Yet I gladly
testify that what I learned of the stocking frame was not thrown away;
the facility of using tools, and of watching and keeping the machinery
in order, came to be of great value to me in the Foreign Mission field.

One incident of this time I must record here, because of the lasting
impression made upon my religious life. Our family, like