MY early days were all spent in the beautiful county of Dumfries,
which Scotch folks call the Queen of the South. There, in a small
cottage, on the farm of Braehead, in the parish of Kirkmahoe, I was
born on the 24th May, 1824. My father, James Paton, was a stocking
manufacturer in a small way; and he and his young wife, Janet Jardine
Rogerson, lived on terms of warm personal friendship with the "gentleman
farmer,"
so they gave me his son's name, John Gibson... On my visit to
Scotland in 1884 I drove out to Braehead; but we found no cottage,
nor trace of a cottage, and amused ourselves by supposing that we
could discover by the rising of the grassy mound, the outline where
the foundations once had been!
While yet a mere child, five years or so of age, my parents took me
to a new home in the ancient village of Torthorwald, about four and
a quarter miles from Dumfries, on the road to Lockerbie. At that time,
say 1830, Torthorwald was a busy and thriving village, and comparatively
populous, with its cottars and crofters, large farmers and small farmers,
weavers and shoemakers, cloggers and coopers, blacksmiths and tailors.
Fifty-five years later, when I visited the scenes of my youth, the village
proper was extinct, except for five thatched cottages where the lingering
patriarchs were permitted to die slowly away, -- soon they too would
be swept into the large farms, and their garden plots plowed over, like
sixty or seventy others that had been blotted out!
From the Bank Hill, close above our village, and accessible in a walk
of fifteen minutes, a view opens to the eye which, despite several easily
understood prejudices of mine that may discount any opinion that I offer,
still appears to me well worth seeing amongst all the beauties of Scotland.
At your feet lay a thriving village, every cottage sitting in its own
plot of garden, and sending up its blue cloud of "peat reek,"
which never somehow seemed to pollute the blessed air; and after all
has been said or sung, a beautifully situated village of healthy and
happy homes for God's children is surely the finest feature in every
landscape! ...
There, amid this wholesome and breezy village life, our dear parents
found their home for the long period of forty years. There too were
born to them eight additional children, making in all a family of five
sons and six daughters. Theirs was the first of the thatched cottages
on the left, past the "miller's house," going up the "village
gate," with a small garden in front of it, and a large garden across
the road; and it is one of the few still lingering to show to a new
generation what the homes of their fathers were. The architect who planned
that cottage had no ideas of art, but a fine eye for durability! It
consists at present of three, but originally of four, pairs of "oak
couples" (Scottice kipples), planted like solid trees in
the ground at equal intervals, and gently sloped inwards till they meet
or are "coupled" at the ridge, this coupling being managed
not by rusty iron, but by great solid pins of oak. A roof of oaken wattles
was laid across these, till within eleven or twelve feet of the ground,
and from the ground upwards a stone wall was raised, as perpendicular
as was found practicable, towards these overhang-wattles, this wall
being roughly "pointed" with sand and clay and lime. Now into
and upon the roof was woven and intertwisted a covering of thatch, that
defied all winds and weathers, and that made the cottage marvelously
cozy, --being renewed year by year, and never allowed to remain in disrepair
at any season. But the beauty of the construction was and is its durability,
or rather the permanence of its oaken ribs! There they stand, after
probably not less than four centuries, japanned with "peat reek"
till they are literally shining, so hard that no ordinary nail can be
driven into them and perfectly capable of service for four centuries
more on the same conditions. The walls are quite modern, having all
been rebuilt in my father's time, except only the few great foundation
boulders, piled around the oaken couples; and parts of the roofing also
may plead guilty to having found its way thither only in recent days;
but the architect's one idea survives, baffling time and change -- the
ribs and rafters of oak.
Our home consisted of a "but" and a "ben" and a
"mid room," or chamber, called the "closet." The
one end was my mother's domain, and served all the purposes of dining-room
and kitchen and parlor, besides containing two large wooden erections,
called by our Scotch peasantry "box beds"; not holes in the
wall, as in cities, but grand, big, airy beds, adorned with many-colored
counterpanes, and hung with natty curtains, showing the skill of the
mistress of the house. The other end was my father's workshop, filled
with five or six "stocking-frames," whirring with the constant
action of five or six pairs of busy hands and feet, and producing right
genuine hosiery for the merchants at Hawick and Dumfries. The "closet"
was a very small apartment betwixt the other two, having room only for
a bed, a little table and a chair, with a diminutive window shedding
diminutive light on the scene. This was the Sanctuary of that cottage
home. Thither daily, and oftentimes a day, generally after each meal,
we saw our father retire, and "shut to the door"; and we children
got to understand by a sort of spiritual instinct (for the thing was
too sacred to be talked about) that prayers were being poured out there
for us, as of old by the High Priest within the veil in the Most Holy
Place. We occasionally heard the pathetic echoes of a trembling voice
pleading as if for life, and we learned to slip out and in past that
door on tiptoe, not to disturb the holy colloquy. The outside world
might not know, but we knew, whence came that happy light as of a new-born
smile that always was dawning on my father's face: it was a reflection
from the Divine Presence, in the consciousness of which he lived. Never,
in temple or cathedral, on mountain or in glen, can I hope to feel that
the Lord God is more near, more visibly walking and talking with men,
than under that humble cottage roof of thatch and oaken wattles. Though
everything else in religion were by some unthinkable catastrophe to
be swept out of memory, or blotted from my understanding, my soul would
wander back to those early scenes, and shut itself up once again in
that Sanctuary Closet, and, hearing still the echoes of those cries
to God, would hurl back all doubt with the victorious appeal, "He
walked with God, why may not I?"
 SOMEWHERE in or about his seventeenth year, my father passed through
a crisis of religious experience; and from that day he openly and very
decidedly followed the Lord Jesus. His parents had belonged to one of
the older branches of what is now called the United Presbyterian Church;
but my father, having made an independent study of the Scotch Worthies,
the Cloud of Witnesses, the Testimonies, and the Confession of Faith,
resolved to cast in his lot with the oldest of all the Scotch Churches,
the Reformed Presbyterian, as most nearly representing the Covenanters
and the attainments of both the first and second Reformations in Scotland.
This choice he deliberately made, and sincerely and intelligently adhered
to; and was able at all times to give strong and clear reasons from
Bible and from history for the principles he upheld.
Besides this, there was one other mark and fruit of his early religious
decision, which looks even fairer through all these years. Family Worship
had heretofore been held only on Sabbath Day in his father's house;
but the young Christian, entering into conference with his sympathizing
mother, managed to get the household persuaded that there ought to be,
daily morning and evening prayer and reading of the Bible and holy singing.
This the more readily, as he himself agreed to take part regularly in
the same... And so began in his seventeenth year that blessed custom
of Family Prayer, morning and evening, which my father practised probably
without one single avoidable omission till he lay on his deathbed, seventy-seven
years of age; when, even to the last day of his life, a portion of Scripture
was read, and his voice was heard softly joining in the Psalm, and his
lips breathed the morning and evening Prayer, -- falling in sweet benediction
on the heads of all his children, far away many of them over all the
earth, but all meeting him there at the Throne of Grace.
Our place of worship was the Reformed Presbyterian Church at Dumfries,
under the ministry, during most of these days, of Rev. John McDermind
-- a genuine, solemn, lovable Covenanter, who cherished towards my father
a warm respect, that deepened into apostolic affection when the yellow
hair turned snow-white and both of them grew patriarchal in their years.
The Minister, indeed, was translated to a Glasgow charge; but that rather
exalted than suspended their mutual love. Dumfries was four miles fully
from our Torthorwald home; but the tradition is that during all these
forty years my father was only thrice prevented from attending the worship
of God -- once by snow, so deep that he was baffled and had to return;
once by ice on the road, so dangerous that he was forced to crawl back
up the Roucan Brae on his hands and knees, after having descended it
so far with many falls; and once by the terrible outbreak of cholera
at Dumfries.
Each of us, from very early days, considered it no penalty, but a great
joy, to go with our father to the church; the four miles were a treat
to our young spirits, the company by the way was a fresh incitement,
and occasionally some of the wonders of city-life rewarded our eager
eyes. A few other pious men and women, of the best Evangelical type,
went from the same parish to one or other favorite Minister at Dumfries;
and when these God-fearing peasants "forgathered" in the way
to or from the House of God, we youngsters had sometimes rare glimpses
of what Christian talk may be and ought to be.
We had, too, special Bible Readings on the Lord's Day evening, -- mother
and children and visitors reading in turns, with fresh and interesting
question, answer, and exposition, all tending to impress us with the
infinite grace of a God of love and mercy in the great gift of His dear
Son Jesus, our Saviour. The Shorter Catechism was gone through regularly,
each answering the question asked, till the whole had been explained,
and its foundation in Scripture shown by the proof texts adduced. It
has been an amazing thing to me, occasionally to meet with men who blamed
this "catechizing" for giving them a distaste to religion;
every one in all our circle thinks and feels exactly the opposite. It
laid the solid rock-foundations of our religious life. After-years have
given to these questions and their answers a deeper or a modified meaning,
but none of us have ever once even dreamed of wishing that we had been
otherwise trained. Of course, if the parents are not devout, sincere,
and affectionate, -- if the whole affair on both sides is taskwork,
or worse, hypocritical and false, -- results must be very different
indeed?
Oh, I can remember those happy Sabbath evenings; no blinds down, and
shutters up, to keep out the sun from us, as some scandalously affirm;
but a holy, happy, entirely human day, for a Christian father, mother
and children to spend. Others must write and say what they will, and
as they feel; but so must I. There were eleven of us brought up in a
home like that; and never one of the eleven, boy or girl, man or woman,
has been heard, or ever will be beard, saying that Sabbath was dull
and wearisome for us, or suggesting that we have heard of or seen any
way more likely than that for making the Day of the Lord bright and
blessed alike for parents and for children. But God help the homes where
these things are done by force and not by love!
As I must, however, leave the story of my father's life -- much more
worthy, in many ways, of being written than my own -- I may here mention
that his long and upright life made him a great favorite in all religious
circles far and near within the neighborhood, that at sick-beds and
at funerals he was constantly sent for and much appreciated, and that
this appreciation greatly increased, instead of diminishing, when years
whitened his long, flowing locks, and gave him an apostolic beauty;
till finally, for the last twelve years or so of his life, he became
by appointment a sort of Rural Missionary for the four nearest parishes,
and spent his autumn in literally sowing the good seed of the Kingdom
as a Colporteur of the Tract and Book Society of Scotland. His success
in this work, for a rural locality, was beyond all belief. Within a
radius of five miles he was known in every home, welcomed by the children,
respected by the servants, longed for eagerly by the sick and aged.
He gloried in showing off the beautiful Bibles and other precious books,
which he sold in amazing numbers. He sang sweet Psalms beside the sick,
and prayed like the voice of God at their dying beds. He went cheerily
from farm to farm, from cot to cot; and when he wearied on the moorland
roads, he refreshed his soul by reciting aloud one of Ralph Erskine's
"Sonnets," or crooning to the birds one of David's Psalms.
His happy partner, our beloved mother, died in 1865, and he himself
in 1868, having reached his seventy-seventh year, an altogether beautiful
and noble episode of human existence having been enacted, amid the humblest
surroundings of a Scottish peasant's home, through the influence of
their united love by the grace of God; and in this world, or in any
world, all their children will rise up at mention of their names and
call them blessed!
IN MY BOYHOOD, Torthorwald had one of the grand old typical Parish
Schools of Scotland; where the rich and the poor met together in perfect
equality; where Bible and Catechism were taught as zealously as grammar
and geography; and where capable lads from the humblest of cottages
were prepared in Latin and Mathematics and Greek to go straight from
their Village class to the University bench. Besides, at that time an
accomplished pedagogue of the name of Smith, a learned man of more than
local fame, had added a Boarding House to the ordinary School, and had
attracted some of the better class gentlemen and farmers' sons from
the surrounding country; so that Torthorwald, under his regime, reached
the zenith of its educational fame. In this School I was initiated into
the mystery of letters, and all my brothers and sisters after me, though
some of them under other masters than mine. My teacher punished severely
-- rather, I should say, savagely -- especially for lessons badly prepared.
Yet, that he was in some respects kindly and tender-hearted, I had the
best of reasons to know.
When still 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.
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 low, 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 of 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:
"O my children, love your Heavenly Father, tell Him in faith and
prayer all your needs, and He will supply your wants so far as it shall
be for your good and His glory."
Perhaps, amidst all their struggles in rearing a family of eleven,
this was the hardest time they ever had, and the only time they ever
felt the actual pinch of hunger; for the little that they had was marvelously
blessed of God, and was not less marvelously utilized by that noble
mother of ours, whose high spirit, side by side with her humble and
gracious piety, made us, under God, what we are to-day.
I saved as much at my trade as enabled me to go for six weeks to Dumfries
Academy; this awoke in me again the hunger for learning, and I resolved
to give up that trade and turn to something that might be made helpful
to the prosecution of my education. An engagement was secured with the
Sappers and Miners, who were mapping and measuring the county of Dumfries
in connection with the Ordnance Survey of Scotland. The office hours
were from 9 A.M. till 4 P.M.; and though my walk from home was above
four miles every morning, and the same by return in the evening, I found
much spare time for private study, both on the way to and from my work
and also after hours. Instead of spending the mid-day hour with the
rest, at football and other games, I stole away to, a quiet spot on
the banks of the Nith, and there pored over my book, all alone. Our
lieutenant, unknown to me, had observed this from his house on the other
side of the stream, and after a time called me into his office and inquired
what I was studying. I told him the whole truth as to my position and
my desires. After conferring with some of the other officials there,
he summoned me again, and in their presence promised me promotion in
the service, and special training in Woolwich at the Government's expense,
on condition that I would sign an engagement for seven years. Thanking
him most gratefully for his kind offer, I agreed to bind myself for
three years or four, but not for seven.
Excitedly he said, "Why? Will you refuse an offer that many gentlemen's
sons would be proud of?"
I said, "My life is given to another Master, so I cannot engage
for seven years."
He asked sharply, "To whom?"
I replied, "To the Lord Jesus; and I want to prepare as soon as
possible for His service in the proclaiming of the Gospel."
In great anger he sprang across the room, called the paymaster and
exclaimed, "Accept my offer, or you are dismissed on the spot?"
I answered, "I am extremely sorry if you do so, but to bind myself
for seven years would probably frustrate the purpose of my life; and
though I am greatly obliged to you, I cannot make such an engagement."
His anger made him unwilling or unable to comprehend my difficulty;
the drawing instruments were delivered up, I received my pay, and departed,
without further parley. Hearing how I had been treated, and why, Mr.
Maxwell, the Rector of Dumfries Academy, offered to let me attend all
classes there, free of charge so long as I cared to remain; but that,
in lack of means of support, was for the time impossible, as I would
not and could not be a burden on my dear father, but was determined
rather to help him in educating the rest. I went therefore to what was
known as the Lamb Fair at Lockerbie, and for the first time in my life
took a "fee" for the harvest. On arriving at the field when
shearing and mowing began, the farmer asked me to bind a sheaf ; when
I had done so, he seized it by the band, and it fell to pieces! Instead
of disheartening me, however, he gave me a careful lesson how to bind;
and the second that I bound did not collapse when shaken, and the third
he pitched across the field, and on finding that it still remained firm,
he cried to me cheerily:
"Right now, my lad; go ahead!"
It was hard work for me at first, and my hands got very sore; but,
being willing and determined, I soon got into the way of it, and kept
up with the best of them. The male harvesters were told to sleep in
a large hayloft, the beds being arranged all along the side, like barracks.
Many of the fellows were rough and boisterous; and I suppose my look
showed that I hesitated in mingling with them, for the quick eye and
kind heart of the farmer's wife prompted her to suggest that I, being
so much younger than the rest, might sleep with her son George in the
house -- an offer, oh, how gratefully accepted! A beautiful new steading
[service building of a Scottish farm] had recently been built for them;
and during certain days, or portions of days, while waiting for the
grain to ripen or to dry, I planned and laid out an ornamental garden
in front of it, which gave great satisfaction -- a taste inherited from
my mother, with her joy in flowers and garden plots. They gave me, on
leaving, a handsome present, as well as my fee, for I had got on very
pleasantly with them all. This experience, too, came to be valuable
to me, when in long-after days, and far other lands, Missions buildings
had to be erected and garden and field cropped and cultivated without
the aid of a single European hand.
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