Little Abe | Page 2

to
speculate about the probable time it will require at their rate of
diminution for nothing to remain of them; and the same may be said of
the little old house in which Abe Lockwood was born; it was always
little, but as years have slowly added to its age, it has gradually begun
to look less, and now, as other houses of larger size and more improved
style have sprung up all around the neighbourhood, it has shrunk into
the most diminutive little hut that can well be imagined as a dwelling
house, and it only requires time enough for it to be gone altogether.[1]
Abe's parents were a poor but honest pair, and laboured hard to make
ends meet. William Lockwood, his father, was a cloth-dresser, and
worked on Almondbury common, about a mile from his home, earning
but a scanty living for the family. In those days, when machinery was
almost unknown in the manufacture and finish of cloth, the men had to
work harder and longer and earned much less than now. Those were the
times when hard-working men thought that the introduction of
machinery into cloth mills would take all the work out of their hands,
and all the bread out of their mouths; and this was the very locality
where the greatest hostility was shown by the people to such
innovations. Many a threatened outbreak was heard of about that time,
and in two or three instances the smouldering fire in the men's minds
actually burst forth into riot and rising, when they found that the great
masters were determined to have their own way and introduce
machinery into their mills. Abe himself was led, some years after, to
take part in one of these risings, and narrowly escaped the hands of the
law, while several others were lodged for some time in York jail in
recognition of the part they had taken in the riots.

Abe's father was a quiet, moral-living man, whose chief aim for many
years seemed to be to provide for his own household; but in after times
his thoughts were drawn to things higher as well, and he became a
God-fearing man; yet during Abe's early life, the most that can be said
for his father is that he was an honest, hard-working, and well-disposed
man.
His mother was a good Christian woman, and was for a long time a
member with the Methodists in Huddersfield, and attended the old
chapel which formerly stood on Chapel Hill. There is no doubt that the
early teaching of his kind and pious mother had a great deal to do with
the formation of Abe's Christian character in after years. Certainly a
long time elapsed before there was any sign of spiritual life in her son;
indeed, she was called away to her eternal rest before there was any
indication of good in his heart; what matters that? the good seed was
there; it would bide its time and then grow all the stronger. Sometimes
people conclude that because there is not immediate growth there is no
life; this does not follow; the grain may slumber for years, then wake
up and grow rapidly. I on one occasion saved some orange pippins,
dried and planted them with the hope that they might grow; as time
went on, I watered and watched them, but there was no indication of
growth; months went by: I lost heart, gave over watering, threw the
plant-pot in which they were sown out of doors; a year was gone by
and more, when one day my eye fell on this same pot all covered with
green growth. "Hey! what's this?" why, positively, they are young
orange plants, standing up hardy and healthy, protesting against my
want of faith and patience. It is often the same with the growth of other
seed in the human breast; when parents have waited long in vain, their
faith grows gradually less and less, until it dies out in despair; but the
good seed may not die, it is sleeping, it lives its winter life, and then
under the tender and genial touch of some spring-like influences it
begins to grow. "Be not afraid, only believe," said the Master of the
vineyard.
Why the young baby that had come to reside in that little cot should
have the honourable name of Abraham may be a subject of question by
some. It evidently was not to perpetuate his father's name, though from

the beginning of generations this has been a sufficient argument for
calling son after father; on that ground John Baptist had a narrow
escape from being called Zacharias. That however could not influence
the decision in Abraham Lockwood's case, because his father's name
was William. Perhaps it was that the child indicated a patriarchal