Cylchgronau Cymru

THE AND GENEEAL TEMPERANCE MONTHLY. No. 2 BRISTOL, OCTOBER i, 1871. ONE PENNY. THIRTY YEARS AGO. A REMINISCENCE OF THE LIFE OF "J.C." fí GREAT poet has pronounced it wise to " talk with our past hours." I confess that amongst the pleasures I prize most is the power of in thought living over the past. I love to recall its earliest memories; the scenes of my childhood ; the companionsof my young life, and the hopes and anticipations with which that period was filled. It seems but as yesterday when I first left my Father's home, and went away into the world to begin the encounter which will only terminate with life itself. How well I remember the day—a glad, beautiful one in autumn—and the scene, my old home, my aged mother, my two sisters, my father, who was to accompany me—some nine mlles—to the place from which I was to start for my far-off desti- nation; how vividly all comes up before me ; and what a strange reality there is about it! I can still see the look of un- utterable love in my mother's eye, and feel the clinging clutch of her hand, as if she feared to let her boy go forth to the world's temptations and dangers; and even now, as I write, her deep, earnest prayer thrills upon my ear and heart, and I can recall the very tones of that sweet voice I shall hear no more this side the " pearly gates." Ahme! the boy then committed to God's keeping is now a gray-haired man. Father, mother, sisters, have all passed away to their rest; the companions of my youth, where are they! I feel like one that treads alone Some banquet hall deserted. The lights are íled, thc garlands dcad, And all butme departed. A friend once told me that when, after a long absence, he returned to his native home in Scotland, he one day wandered alone amongst the scenes with which in boyhood he was so familiar, and sat down by the side of the river where he had often fished, the past came up before him so vividly, he was for the time a boy again, nor was he roused from his duty till the boom of " a bell" which in his youth had oft recalled him from pleasure to duty, now startled him to the reality of his manhood, and he wept to think the happy past was but a dream. I could weep with him were I to give way to the impulse. but I must not. Rather let me draw from that past something that may benefit the present and infiuence the future. I shall not pause to describe in detail the incidents of my journey, nor dwell upon the interest excited by the old Cathedral city—rich in legendary lore—where I spent the nìght, nor will I tell of the morning's ride, on the admir- ably appointed coach, with its team of thorough-bred horses, changed at each relay : all was newr, exciting, and enjoy- able, and served to divert my mind from the sorrow of home leaving, until I reached the city in which, for more than one decade of years, I was to be a dweller. Amongst the first with whom I formed acquaintance in my new home was one whose history I wish especially to narrate in this reminiscence. How shall I de- scribe him ? Physically he was a man amongst men—tall, handsome, free from all physical deformity, with a noble forehead, a dark eagle eye, a face where firmness and benevolence were strangely blended, the united effect of all impres- sing you strongly in his favour. I was