providing a stock of physical health that has enabled me to preach for
fifty-six years without ever having spent a single Sabbath on a
sick-bed!

My Sabbaths in that rural home were like the good old Puritan Sabbaths,
serene and sacred, with neither work nor play. Our church (Presbyterian)
was three miles away, and in the winter our family often fought our way
through deep mud, or through snow-drifts piled as high as the fences. I
was the only child among grown-up uncles and aunts, and the first
Sunday-school that I ever attended had only one scholar, and my good
mother was the superintendent. She gave me several verses of the Bible
to commit thoroughly to memory and explained them to me; I also studied
the Westminster Catechism. I was expected to study God's Book for
myself, and not to sit and be crammed by a teacher, after the fashion of
too many Sunday-schools in these days, where the scholars swallow down
what the teacher brings to them, as young birds open their mouths and
swallow what the old bird brings to the nest. There is a lamentable
ignorance of the language of Scripture among the rising generation of
America, and too often among the children of professedly Christian
families.

The books that I had to feast on in the long winter evenings were
"Robinson Crusoe," "Sanford and Merton," "The Pilgrim's Progress," and
the few volumes in my grandfather's library that were within the
comprehension of a child of eight or ten years old. I wept over "Paul
and Virginia," and laughed over "John Gilpin," the scene of whose
memorable ride I have since visited at the "Bell of Edmonton," During
the first quarter of the nineteenth century drunkenness was fearfully
prevalent in America; and the drinking customs wrought their sad havoc
in every circle of society. My grandfather was one of the first
agriculturists to banish intoxicants from his farm, and I signed a
pledge of total abstinence when I was only ten or eleven years old.
Previously to that, I had got a taste of "prohibition" that made a
profound impression on me. One day I discovered some "cherrybounce" in a
wine-glass on my grandfather's sideboard, and I ventured to swallow the
tempting liquor. When my vigilant mother discovered what I had done, she
administered a dose of Solomon's regimen in a way that made me "bounce"
most merrily. That wholesome chastisement for an act of disobedience,
and in the direction of tippling, made me a teetotaller for life; and,
let m