JOINING THE SUNDAY SCHOOL
Then my parents had a talk with me as to joining the Sunday school, and, after some hesitation, I connected myself with the Wesleyan Sunday school at Exley Head. Mr Edward Pickles, manufacturer, Holme Mill (now living, I believe, at Bradford), was the superintendent of the school, and other of the officers were Mr John Dinsdale, who had the distinction of being a local preacher, and the late Mr Thomas Bottomley, of Braithwaite. For some six months I attended the school with the regularity of the Prince Smith Clock, and was not absent a single Sunday. Fellow scholars of mine were, William Scott, Hannah Holmes (afterwards married to a missionary, named Kaberry, with whom she went to Africa), Midgley Hardacre, Thomas Binns, John Pearson, and James Smith, locally known as “Jim o’ Aaron’s,” who met his death by falling down a lime kiln. Sunday school work interested me greatly, and it was with much “happiness at heart” that I looked forward to Sunday. I was not long a scholar ere I was made a teacher. Possessed as I was of what I may call a “theatrical” voice, acquired during my career on the stage, the people liked to hear me read, and I was kept fully occupied in reading chapters from the Bible. Yes; the time I spent at the Sunday school was a very happy one.