From the Forge to the Pulpit, a Life of Devotion and Application.
“SO you want me to tell you of myself,—to ‘blaw my ain harn,’ as
we used to say in old Yorkshire. Well, I’m not in love with the
undertaking, for what we call a self-made man usually shows that he
has made a pretty poor fist of it when he begins to describe the job
himself. However, if an outline of my life be of service, I give it
gladly. The beginning was in the hamlet of Ilkley, Yorkshire, England,
seventy-five years ago. I was born well; that is, I was born of simple,
hard-working folk who inspired in me very early a hearty respect for
work. My mother was a noble woman. I can see the old home now,—the bit
of grass in front, the plum tree, the whitewashed walls, and within,
the two rooms with floor of flags, the old prints on the walls, the
highly polished chairs and bureau, the tall clock that was always too
fast at bedtime and in the morning, and always too slow at mealtime,
the little shelf of books,—Bunyan, ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ Goldsmith, and
the Bible, full of pictures. Until I was eight years old, I went to
school to old Willie Hardie, who tried to find in me the spring of
what we called the humanities in the same way that they used to try to
locate a spring of water, namely: with a hazel rod.”