From the Bottom Up | Page 7

her. The third Sunday of her
absence I was almost on the point of asking about her; but I mastered
the desire, held my station, and went to Scotland, where I entered a
coal-pit as a helper to one of my brothers. My pay for twelve hours a
day was a dollar and fifty cents a week. If I had not been living in the
same house with my brother, this would not have sustained me in
physical efficiency.
The contrast between my life as a groom and this blackened
underworld was very marked, and I did not at all relish it. We were all,
men 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