e of flying in the face of Providence as well
as the Fifth Commandment. The piety which kept a pure and GOD-fearing
atmosphere about my home, and to which I owe all the strength I have
found against evil since I left it, was far too sincere in both my
parents for me to speak of any phase of it with disrespect. Though I may
say here that I think it is to be wished that more good people exercised
judgment as well as faith in tracing the will of Heaven in their own.
Practically I did not even then believe that I was more "called" to that
station of life which was to be found in Uncle Henry's office, than to
that station of life which I should find on board a vessel in the
Merchant Service, and it only discredited truth in my inmost soul when
my father put his plans for my career in that light. Just as I could not
help feeling it unfair that a commandment which might have been fairly
appealed to if I had disobeyed him, should be used against me in
argument because I disagreed with him.

I did disagree with him utterly. Uncle Henry's office was a gloomy
place, where I had had to endure long periods of waiting as a child when
my mother took us in to the dentist, and had shopping and visiting of
uncertain length to do. Uncle Henry himself was no favourite with me. He
was harder than my father if you vexed him, and less genial when you
didn't. And I wanted to go to sea. But it did not seem a light matter to
me to oppose my parents, and they were both against me. My dear mother
was thrown into the profoundest distress by the bare notion. In her view
to be at sea was merely to run an imminent and ceaseless risk of
shipwreck; and even this jeopardy of life and limb was secondary to the
dangers that going ashore in foreign places would bring upon my mind and
morals.

So when my father spoke kindly to me at supper, and said that he had
arranged with Mr. Wood that I should read with him for two hours every
evening, in preparation for my future life as an articled clerk, my
heart was softened. I thanked him gratefully, and resolved for my own
part to follow what seemed to be the plain path of duty, though it led
to Uncle Henry's office, and not out into the world.

The capacity in which I began life in Uncle Henry's office was that of
office boy, and the situation was attended in my case with many
favourable conditions. Uncle Henry wished me to sleep on the premises,
as my predecessor had done, but an accidental circumstance led to