Page:History of Duncan Campbell, and his dog Oscar (4).pdf/14

 14 body to read it to him again and again. This incident produced a conversation between my parents, on the expences and utility of education : the consequence of which was, that the week following, Duncan and I were Srut te the parish school, and began at the same instant to the study of that most important and funda- We mad branch of literature, the A, B, C; but my sister Mary, who was older than I, was already an ac- earate and elegant reader. This reminds me of another anecdote of Duncan, with regard to family worship, which I have often Beard related, and which I myself may well remember. My father happening to be absent one night at a fair, when the usual time of worship arrived, my mother desired lad, one of the servants, to act as chaplain for that night: the lad declined it, and slunk away to his bed. My mother testified her regret that we should all be obliged to go prayerless to our beds for that night, observing that she did not remember the time when it had so happened before. Duncan said he thought we might contrive to manage it amongst us, and instantly proposed to sing the psalm and pray, if Mary would read the chapter. To this my mother with some hesitation agreed, remarking, that if he pray- ed as he could, with a pure heart, his prayer had as good a chance of being accepted as some other that were better worded. Duncan could not then read, but have learned several psalms from Mary by rote, he caused her seek out the place, and sung the 23d Psalm from end to end, with great sweetness and de- cency. Mary read a chapter in the New Testament, and then my mother having a child on her knee, we three kneeled in a row, while Duncan' prayed thus:---" O Lord, be thou our God, our guide, and our guard unto death, and through death," that was a sentence my father often used in prayer; Duncan bed laid hold of it, and my mother began to think that he bad often prayed previous to that time. - O Lord, thou - continued Duncan but