“John, whenever you need anything after this, just tell your father to ‘tak’ the Book,’ and God will send it in answer to prayer!”
Years passed by before I came to know, what the reader has already guessed, that the good-hearted schoolmaster’s hand lifted the latch that evening during my father’s prayer.
All his influence, however, was marred by occasional bursts of fierce and ungovernable temper, amounting to savagery. His favouritism, too, was sometimes disheartening,—as when I won a Latin prize for an exercise by the verdict of the second master, yet it was withheld from me, and prizes were bestowed without merit on other and especially wealthier boys; so at least I imagined, and it cooled my ambition to excel. Favouritism might be borne, but not mere brutality when passion mastered him. Once, after having flogged me unjustly, on my return only at my mother’s entreaty, he ran at me again, kicked me, and I fled in pain and terror from his presence, rushing home. When his passion subsided, he came to my parents, apologized, and pled with me to return; but all in vain,—nothing would induce me to resume my studies there. Undoubtedly at that time I had a great thirst for education, and a retentive memory, which made all lessons comparatively easy; and, as no other school was within my reach, it was a great loss that my heart shrank from this teacher.
Though 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.
How much my father’s prayers at this time impressed me I can never explain, nor could any stranger understand. When, on his knees and all of us kneeling around him in Family Worship, he poured out his whole soul with tears for the conversion of the heathen world to the service of Jesus, and for every personal and domestic need, we all felt as if in the presence of the living Saviour, and learned to know and love Him as our Divine Friend. As we rose from our knees, I used to look at the light on my father’s face, and wish I were like him in spirit,—hoping that, in answer to his prayers, I might be privileged and prepared to carry the blessed Gospel to some portion of the heathen world.
One incident of this time I must record here, because of the lasting impression made upon my religious life. Our family, like all others of peasant rank in the land, were plunged into deep distress, and felt the pinch severely, through the failure of the potato, the badness of other crops, and the ransom-price of food. Our father had gone off with work to Hawick, and would return next evening with money and supplies; but meantime the meal barrel ran empty, and our dear mother, too proud and too sensitive to let any one know, or to ask aid from any quarter, coaxed us all to rest, assuring us that she had told God everything, and that He would send us plenty in the morning. Next day, with the carrier from Lockerbie came a present from her father, who, knowing nothing of her circumstances or of this special trial, had been moved of God to send at that particular nick of time a love-offering to his daughter, such as they still send to each other in those kindly Scottish shires—a bag of new potatoes, a stone of the first ground meal or flour, or the earliest homemade cheese of the season—which largely supplied all our need. My mother, seeing our surprise at such an answer to her prayers, took us around her knees, thanked God for His goodness, and said to us,—