CHAPTER XIII.
WHAT AN ILLITERATE BOY MADE OF HIS LIFE.
Just seven days before Christmas, 1851, a baby was born at Mansfield, Nottingham, England, named James Flanaghan, who was destined to have a pretty hard time of it for several years. The baby's father was Patrick Flanaghan, and, as his name would suggest, was Irish by nationality. When he was sober, Patrick Flanaghan was a good husband and father, but when he was drunk—which was pretty often—he acted like a beast. At the sound of his unsteady step on the stairs, his wife and children prepared for the worst. Often what little furniture there was in the Flanaghan home would be smashed to atoms in the fury of the man's drunken passion, and the mother and children would be driven out into the street, to wander around until some one had pity on them and took them in.
After a few years James went to work with his father at the task of pipe-making in a factory. His father was the kiln man, and was clever in the art of giving fixity to moulds of clay by a process of burning. James stood at the table modelling clay into tobacco pipes. It was hard work for the boy, and all he received was sixty cents a week. The father became dissatisfied with such small wages, and so James was taken out of the factory to work in a coal mine.
A lady, in whose class James sat at Sunday school, gave him a coat which was several sizes too large for him. His mother wept when she saw him; he looked so funny; but James was too young to worry over his appearance, and he was glad to have a coat to keep him warm.
The men with whom James worked down the mine, teased him or cursed him, according to their moods. They were rough men and often their language was vile. At meal times James munched his crust of bread and cheese, and heard tales which had been told in the saloon the night before.
Soon he was taken, along with other lads of his age, to the saloon. His sweet singing astonished and pleased the drunken men there. He sang songs which he had heard, and he attended theatres, and such was his memory that he could reproduce whole scenes that he had witnessed. For all this James received a good deal of praise, and especially from the saloon-keepers, who were glad to have any one who could attract men to their drinking places.
Through the influence of a Sunday-school worker, named Parker, James was induced to attend a religious service at a Methodist church. He sat very reverently through the service although it all seemed very strange to him, and much of it he did not understand. When at the close of the service a man took him by the hand and said: "God bless you, my brother," he was deeply touched, and his eyes filled up with tears. He was not accustomed to that kind of speech. It was the kindness of the people which led him back to that church again. Deep impressions for good were made on the young lad's mind, although he could not make up his mind what to do. He had a great many evil companions, and he knew it would be a difficult thing for him to break away from them; however, one Sunday morning as he sat in church, listening to an earnest sermon, he bowed his head, and gave himself to God. It was the turning-point in James Flanaghan's life.
He was at this time about sixteen years of age, but he had practically no education. He could not write his own name, nor even distinguish the letters of the alphabet. He had never been to school one day in his life, and practically all he knew was the vulgar sayings he had heard in the mine, and in the saloons. But he began to improve himself at once, and, big fellow though he was, he bought an alphabet and learned his letters thoroughly, and then he began the simplest kind of reading. Often when he came home from the mine, tired though he was, he sat up until past midnight trying to make up for lost years.
He tried hard and made good progress. As soon as he was able to read well enough to spell out the words, he committed to memory the One Hundred and Third Psalm. It took him quite a while to learn it all for he could only commit to memory a few verses at a time, but he succeeded, and this fine psalm filled his mind with beautiful thoughts during the hours he spent down the mine. Then soon afterwards when there was need for teachers in the Sunday School he offered his services. He was given the beginners' class at first, for he could neither read nor teach the lessons for older scholars, but as he advanced in knowledge he was promoted to other classes, and after a few years was actually made superintendent of the school.
There was a group of earnest men in that church, who, like Flanaghan, worked hard, but who on Sundays preached either in small churches and mission halls of the district, or in the open air. Soon he joined them, and although his first prayers and brief addresses in public were halting and a source of anxiety to him, he rapidly improved, and all the neighbouring churches were glad to have him preach in their pulpits. Miners who had known him for several years could not understand how he had become educated so quickly. They knew that he had never been a day at public school in his life and that even at sixteen he could neither read nor write. Yet now he could read whole chapters of the Bible in public, and could preach sermons that showed he had read many other books as well. He was still working fourteen hours a day in the mine, and his time for reading was strictly limited, but he never wasted a moment, and his perseverance and earnestness, together with his excellent memory, soon enabled him to preach as though he had attended school as other young men.