I CHAPTER I Autobiography Early Life HEATHLANDS October 1891 HAVE been led, while sitting alone this autumn, to note down for my children some of the details of my life with which they may not be so well acquainted as they will by-and-by wish to be. I was born in Edinburgh, at No. 15, Nelson Street, on the 23rd April, 1821, and was the second son of Duncan Matheson, advocate at the Scottish Bar, and Sheriff-Substitute of Edinburgh at Leith. My mother was Annabella Farquharson, daughter of Thomas Farquharson, Esq., of Howden, Midlothian, and grand-daughter of Donald Macleod, of Geanies, Sheriff of Ross-shire. She died in 1829, bequeathing to her children the memory of a singularly sweet and self-denying Christian character. She had us each alone in her room, and taught us prayers which she had written out. I remember, as if it were but yesterday, kneeling at her bedside shortly before she was taken from us. The last text she gave me to learn was Luke iv. 18-21: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me," etc., a text of which I have ever since been specially fond, and which was the first from which I spoke at Strathpeffer more than forty years later. In one of my father's letters to me when in Glasgow he wrote as follows, and I quote the passage to show the spirit in which both father and mother sought the highest good of their children. Having commenced business under such auspices, it will depend on your own steadfastness, attention, and good, trustworthy conduct in the first instance whether you are to be successful in the world or not. Mr. Ewing himself had no greater advantages than you have when he began, and you may by a high tone of honour and integrity, joined to those other qualities of active life which make a man be found useful, and above all with the blessing of God on your endeavour, be equally successful, or at least so much so as should satisfy every reasonable wish. You know, however, that this blessing is only to be attained by constant and regular and earnest supplication at the throne of grace. It is my firm belief that in your case an abundant share of it is conspicuous already in your getting into such a situation, and that it is in a great measure the result of the prayers of a pious mother, who was most exemplary and unwearied in the performance of her duties to her children, and breathed many a fervent prayer on their be. half. I mention this as preparatory to my recommending to you most earnestly to continue the practice of private devotion to which you were so regularly trained, even though removed from my observation and from the parental roof. My father was the eldest son of Captain Donald Matheson, of Shiness, County of Sutherland, who, with his ancestors for many generations, had held the estate of Shiness as a wadset, or redeemable property, under the Earls of Sutherland. My father was born at Shiness in 1784. Gaelic was the first language he spoke, his nurse and all the surrounding families being Gaelic. Shiness was redeemed by the Duchess Countess of Sutherland somewhere about the year 1812. My education was all carried on at day schools, first at Circus Place School when very young, then at Mr. Brown's Academy in Nelson Street, where I had for companions and friends John Mackintosh of Geddes ("the earnest student") and his brother Alick. After Mr. Brown's death I was sent for a short time to Mr. White, North St. David Street, then for one session to Leith High School, and for five years (from 1830 to 1835) to the High School of Edinburgh, my masters being Mr. Lindsay and the Rector, Dr. Carson, the latter for one year only. Finally, for about six months, I attended Mr. Cunningham's Institution in Hill Street, where I derived |