Page:The Life and Correspondence of the Reverend John Clowes.djvu/15

2 mother died when her youngest son was but seven years old. The father, however, was also a devout character, not only attending church regularly, but assembling his family in the evening to join in family devotion. To this practice John Clowes afterwards referred with gratitude as the means of implanting in his youthful mind "a lively sense of the Being, the Kingdom, the Providence, the Love, and the Omnipotence of the Father of the Universe."

The piety of the parents seems to have been free from asceticism; and that of the child, while it led him to pray for his Heavenly Father's help, night and morning, and in all times of need, did not prevent his enjoying the healthy amusements of childhood. Those who knew Mr Clowes in his old age and were charmed with the innocent playfulness which remained with him to the last, could well believe that he was a lively child. He would speak with rapture, in his latter years, of the merry days of his childhood, and how he enjoyed playing in the meadows—long since covered with houses—helping his elder brother to draw their little sister in a child's chaise; gathering flowers, and throwing them into her lap.

The father was a man of methodical habits, and firm in requiring order and obedience in his children Mr Clowes used to relate with much animation how he and his brother, having arranged with a schoolfellow to spend a half holiday in a country ramble, were seated at the dinner-table meditating on their anticipated pleasure, when their father broke silence with, "Now, my boys, I have some employment for you after dinner."

"At this," said Mr Clowes, "our countenances, all sunshine before, instantly sank, and when he added, 'I want you to weed the asparagus beds,' we were in despair, for we knew this would take up the whole afternoon; so farewell to our ramble. However, there was no help for it: obedience was the order of my father's house; we had nothing to do but betake ourselves to the garden in what plight we could. We had not been long at work, when oh! the delight of doing my father's commands was not to be told! From that time I knew what the joy of obedience was. Ah!" he continued, raising his head and fine countenance towards heaven, "from practising that lesson I learned, too, the infinitely greater happiness of endeavoring to do the will of my Heavenly Father." John appears to have gone to school at Salford, to the Academy of the Rev. John Clayton, where his elder brother Richard was also prepared for