From the Bottom Up | Page 7

and boys and sometimes girls, reduced to the common level of blackened humans, with about two garments each. The coal dust covered my skin like a tight-fitting garment, and coal was part of every mouthful of food I ate in that fetid atmosphere. I had a powerful body that defied the dangers of the pit; but the labour was exhausting, and my face was blistered every day with the hot oil dripping from the lamp on my brow.
Sometimes I lay flat on my back and worked with a pick-axe at the coal overhead. Sometimes I pushed long distances a thing called "a hutch," filled with coal.
I left my brother's pit with the hope of getting a larger wage; but there was very little difference between the pits. Everywhere I went, labour and wages were about the same. Everywhere life had the same dull, monotonous round. It was a writhing, squirming mass of blackened humanity struggling for a mere physical existence, a bare living.
The desire to learn to read and write returned to me with renewed intensity, and gave me keen discontent with the life in the pits. At the same time, the spiritual ideal sustained me in the upward look. There was just ahead of me a to-morrow, and my to-morrow was bringing an escape from this drudgery. I exulted in the thought of the future. I could sing and laugh in anticipation of it, even though I lived and worked like a beast. I was conscious that in me resided a power that would ultimately take me to a life that I had had a little taste of--a life where people had time to think, and to live a clean, normal, human life.
I do not remember anything about labour unions in that coal region. If there were any, I did not know of them--I was not asked to join. In those same pits and at that same time worked Keir Hardie, and "wee Keir" was just beginning to move the sluggish souls of his fellow labourers to improve their condition by collective effort. My ideal did not lead me in that direction. I was struggling to get into the other world for another reason. I wanted to live a religious life. I wanted to move men's souls as I had moved the soul of the drunken stone mason in my home town.
I made various attempts to learn to read, but each of them failed. I was so exhausted at the close of the day's work that I usually lay down in the corner without even washing. Sometimes I pulled myself together and went out into the village, praying as I went, that by some miracle or other I should find a teacher. Sometimes I made excursions into the city of Glasgow. One night I wandered accidentally into a mission in Possilpark, where a congregation of miners was listening to a tall, fine-looking young preacher. I had not sufficient energy to keep awake, so promptly went to sleep. I awoke at a gentle shake from the hand of the teacher. I returned, but succeeded no better in keeping awake. I returned again, and the teacher when he learned of my ambition, advised me to leave the pits entirely and seek for something else to do. There was something magnetic in that strong right hand, something musical and inspiring in that wonderful voice. And just when I was about to sink back in despair, and resign myself, perhaps for years, to the inevitable, this man's influence pushed me out into a new venture. The teacher was Professor Henry Drummond.
Trusting to luck, or God, or the power of my hands, I entered the great, smoky, dirty city of Glasgow to look for a job. I considered it a great shame to be without one, and a crime to be prowling the city at night, homeless and workless. God at this time was a very real Person to me and I spent the greater part of many a night on my knees, in some alley, or down by the docks, praying for a chance to work--to be clean--to learn to read.
I slept one night in a large dry-goods box on one of the docks, and, in searching for a place in the box to lay my head, I laid my hand on another human, and at daylight discovered him to be a youth of about my own age. We exchanged experiences, and in a few minutes he outlined a programme; and, having none of my own, I dropped naturally into his. He conducted me to a quarter of the city where the recruiting officers parade the streets, gayly attired in their attractive uniforms. We accosted one man, who had the special attraction of a large bunch of gay ribbons flying from his Glengarry