g; so that he seemed ill fitted to
make any headway in the race of life.

His grandfather, who adopted him, failed in business; and Joseph
Livesey commenced his career by doing the work of a domestic servant,
as well as toiling at the loom.

"As we were too poor to keep a servant," he says, "and having no
female help except to wash the clothes and occasionally clean up, I
may be said to have been the housekeeper."

But, whilst he was weaving in the cellar where his grandfather and
uncle also worked, he was at the same time gaining knowledge day by
day.

When his pocket money of a penny a week was increased to threepence,
he felt himself on the high road to wealth, and ere long he was the
possessor of a Bible and a grammar, which he set himself to study
whenever he could get a spare moment.

One can scarcely realise the difficulties that lay in the way of a
studious boy in those days. A newspaper cost sevenpence; there were no
national schools or Sunday schools, no penny publications, no penny
postage, no railways, no gas, and no free libraries, and no free
education! Yet so resolute was he in his desire for education that,
though he was not even allowed a candle after the elders went to bed,
he would sit up till late at night reading by the glow of the embers.

It is sad enough to see the number of families that are ruined by
drink at the present time; but in Livesey's early days people suffered
even more from drunkenness than they do now.

The weavers used to keep Monday as a day of leisure; and the
public-houses were crowded from morning till night with men and women,
who drank away their earnings to the last penny.

In the church to which Joseph Livesey belonged the ringers and singers
were hard drinkers, the gravedigger was a drunkard, and the parish
clerk was often intoxicated!

Living amidst so much sin and misery, this frail lad determined to
strive his hardest to assist others. He found Sunday a day of rest and
rejoicing to him "a feast of good things," and became a Sunday-school
teacher and preacher.

So far as worldly matters went he was not at all successful in early
life. Weaving was so badly paid that he tried several other trades,
but only to meet with failure.

At the age of twenty he received a legacy of a few pounds; and soon
after, having saved a little money, married a good and true woman, who
helped him much throughout life.

"Our cottage," says Mr. Livesey in his autobiography, "thou