He reared his children in connection with the Kirk of Scotland--a religious establishment which has been an incalculable blessing to that country--but he afterward left it, and during the last twenty years of his life held the office of deacon of an independent church in Hamilton, and deserved my lasting gratitude and homage for presenting me, from my infancy, with a continuously consistent pious example, such as that ideal of which is so beautifully and truthfully portrayed in Burns's "Cottar's Saturday Night".

He died in February, 1856, in peaceful hope of that mercy which we all expect through the death of our Lord and Savior.

I was at the time on my way below Zumbo, expecting no greater pleasure in this country than sitting by our cottage fire and telling him my travels.

I revere his memory.
The earliest recollection of my mother recalls a picture so often seen among the Scottish poor--that of the anxious housewife striving to make both ends meet.

At the age of ten I was put into the factory as a "piecer", to aid by my earnings in lessening her anxiety.