I was born in the village of Clarkston, near Airdrie, on November 23rd, 1837. My father served his apprenticeship for a papermaker in Clarkston Paper Mill, and my mother was employed in that same mill. Not long after my father's time was out, machinery made the trade not worth following, and as far back as I can remember he was employed about mines. When I first remember, he was a colliery engine-man in connection with Wilsontown Ironworks. These works stopped when I was quite a small boy, and we moved near to Coatbridge. But I need not trace our movements, enough to say that my life was the ordinary life of a boy in a mining village of seventy years ago. There was no compulsory education then. My father's education was a good bit above the average. He was generally calm and always fair. My mother was anxious that I should speak the truth and do the right thing; but she would sometimes punish one for doing a thing and then inquire into why that thing was done. If one had anything to say for oneself, father would hear it in the first place. He made it easy for a boy to speak the truth to him. From my early teens onwards, my father and I were more like brothers than father and son. I went to school for some time, but I never wrote a line nor figured a sum in a day-school. I was helped by evening-schools at two different places.

When I was seven or eight years of age, miners' wages rose to five shillings per day. That was considered a big wage then, and my father took advantage of it and went underground. The Miners' Union of those days put no limit upon the hours which you might work in a day, but they put a limit upon the wage - no man was allowed to earn more than five shillings in a day. But if a miner had a young boy, and took the boy to work with him, he was allowed, if he was able to earn it, so much more, according to the age of the boy. I was not quite ten years of age when my father took me to work with him. This allowed father, if he was able, to earn one-fourth more in the day; and he was generally able, for he was a good workman. I had to be there, but, at first, I was not pushed at all, nor put to do anything that was too heavy for me; still, the heavy work came soon enough. Circumstances brought me a good deal into contact with pit engines, as well as underground work, and I grew up with a fair knowledge of both; so that I was sometimes above ground and sometimes below.

As I passed into my teens I became fonder of reading, and sometimes gave attention to some useful branches of information, arithmetic receiving more consideration than any other thing. But I moved as fancy led me, and I made no systematic attempt to improve my education until I was verging upon manhood.

I was about twenty years of age when I began to think seriously about religion. I was then living in Cumberland in the neighbourhood of Cleator Moor. I was engine-driver at an iron-ore pit near the village of Cleator. I cannot give any one reason for my attention being more seriously called to religion that it had ever been before. I was, upon the whole, doing more thinking than I had ever done before. I was also trying to put my efforts at self-improvement into some shape. I suppose that it would hardly do to speak of my efforts in those days as studies. About that time The Student's Manual, by John Todd, fell into my hands. I was the better for that book; it helped me to put method into my work. When reading that manual one day, I came upon the place where the author speaks of what was one of my bad habits, "As only one of a nest of vipers." I remember putting down the book and reasoning with myself after this fashion: "I have been pleased with that book up till now, but I cannot admit this statement. I know that my language is not what it should be sometimes, but that this is only one of a nest of vipers, though the only one hissing at present - I do not believe that." Still, when I turned my eyes within to try and vindicate my character against the charge made by the author, I only found that there was more truth in the statement than I had up to that time believed. That remark by John Todd deepened my conviction of sin. The more I thought, the more my conviction of sin grew. It was only reasonable that it should. I had always believed in God and in the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And yet I had never spent a single day in the service of God. God has a right to hold the first place in our minds; I had lived without even trying to serve Him. I spent six very unhappy months at that time.

I deeply felt my need of pardon, but was not by any means clear as to how pardon was to be obtained. I sometimes went to gospel meetings conducted by the Methodists. I paid the best of attention, for I was interested. They made it plain enough that God loved you, that Christ died for you, and that it was the will of God that you should be saved; but every preacher that I listened to at that time conveyed the impression that you must get to know that you are saved by the Holy Spirit speaking peace to your soul. I prayed earnestly and often, but I could never persuade myself that the Holy Spirit spoke directly to me. I did not, therefore, find peace in that way. Praying was a new thing for me; I was not until then in the habit of praying before I went to bed; as long as I wished to keep clear of religion, I kept clear of the form. Though I could not find peace in that way, I did not doubt the honesty of those who thus professed to know or believe that their sins were forgiven. It never occurred to me to ask if this was the way in which people came to a knowledge of pardon in New Testament times. Nor did it ever occur to me to take the New Testament and try to think out the subject for myself. It appeared strange in after years that this did not occur to me. I had, before that time, mastered some hard tasks with nothing but the printed page to help me, and yet it never came into my mind to take the New Testament and study this subject for myself. I have found that a great many have had the same experience with regard to this point that I had. Years after the time about which I am now writing, I made the acquaintance of an old farmer who had a very extensive knowledge of the Scriptures, but he confessed to having the same experience to begin with that I had. He explained that circumstances inclined us to shrink from the study of the Gospel rather than take to it. He expressed himself after this manner: "A man has to be a better scholar than an ordinary working man before he goes to college, and there he has to pass years of study before he is considered fit to preach the Gospel. We therefore infer that the Gospel must be a very hard thing to understand when all this is required before a man can preach it. Then we naturally conclude that it is beyond the reach of the ordinary man, and, as a consequence, we do not try to understand it." I then asked him how be came to know so much about the Bible. In reply he said: "I owe all that to a farmer. In my younger days I was a country blacksmith. In the spring and summer evenings when farmers or their servants came to have work done, the blacksmith's shop was sometimes quite a lively place, and all kinds of things were discussed there. One evening preaching was the topic of conversation. A farmer was working the bellows for me, and during the conversation he said to me: 'James, I do not see much need for all this preaching.' 'Why not?' I asked. 'Because,' said the farmer, 'it was all preached before.' That remark by that farmer sent my mind out on a new track. I thought of the four Gospels, how much of these were taken up with what Jesus said to the people. The Acts of the Apostles contained much that was spoken by the Apostles to the people. Most of the Epistles were written to churches, to be read there. I then reasoned with myself, that if these Scriptures were at the first delivered to ordinary people for the purpose of instructing them, then, unless I was more stupid than an ordinary person I ought to be able to understand the most of these Scriptures. From that time I set to work to study the Scriptures with the conviction that if I paid earnest attention I might make something of them. But it was that farmer's remark which caused me to begin; I owe it all to him."

My experience at first was so far like the blacksmith's, and perhaps his reason why is as likely as any. Be that as it may, the fact remains that I did not begin to study the Gospel for myself when I should have done it.

While in this state of mind, inclining to the light and not seeing my way clearly, I left Cumberland and went back to Scotland to the town of Carluke in Lanarkshire. My father had been in Cumberland, but had returned to Scotland some considerable time before that. When I went back I found my father living a religious life and connected with the Evangelical Union. The minister was an earnest preacher, and he invited those who were anxious about salvation to call upon him on the Monday evenings. His preaching, like the preaching of our Methodist friends, left the impression upon me that I must get to know that I am saved by some direct operation of the Holy Spirit upon my spirit. After hearing this preacher for some weeks, I called on him one Monday evening. He asked me if I was saved. I said, "No, that is just what I am anxious about." He asked if I had been praying. I answered "Yes." "What have you been praying for?" he asked. "I have heard you preaching a good deal about the Holy Spirit," I replied, "and I was praying that I might receive the Holy Spirit and that I might know that I was saved." "That was a mistake on your part," he said; "it is because you are saved that you receive the Holy Spirit - it is because you are a son that God gives you the Spirit of a son; you must be saved first." "Well," I said, "if my praying was a mistake I fear there was some mistake about your preaching. However, if I have been going wrong, I wish to be put right." "Do you believe the Scriptures?" he asked. "Yes," I replied. "Do you believe that Christ died for your sins? "I do," I answered. He then called my attention to John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life." "Now," he said, "you say that you believe and this passage says that he that believes has everlasting life: if that be so, you must have everlasting life." I thought that was quite clear. I knew that I believed, and if whosoever believeth hath everlasting life, then I must have everlasting life. I was perfectly satisfied and left that house a very happy man.

I know that I had not seen all round that subject at that time, but for the time being I was perfectly satisfied. My active religious life started from that time. I attended all the meetings in connection with that Church, and was willing to help in any way I could. This took place in the year 1858, and just before the great religious Revival of 1859, generally spoken of as the Irish Revival because it took its rise in that country. I gained more religious experience of one kind and another in that year than I would have been likely to gain in a number of ordinary years. It meant religious meetings somewhere every night and generally very excited and excitable meetings. I shall not attempt a description, I do not feel equal to that. I attended as many of these meetings as I could and took some part in them. One man started a prayer-meeting in his house at seven o'clock on the Sunday morning. I do not think that I missed one of these meetings while they continued. The minister sometimes called upon me to engage in prayer at the close of the Gospel meeting on the Sunday evenings.