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CHAPTER I.

Early Days.

REMEMBER not the faults
And frailty of my youth:
Remember not how ignorant
I have been of thy truth.

Nor after my deserts
Let me thy mercy find:
But of thine own benignity,
Lord, have me in thy mind.
Psalm xxv. 6.-Sternhold.

The Sabbath was too often spent in the study of Virgil and Horace. But the later hours of his evenings, which were not dedicated to amusement, seem to have been laudably employed in storing his mind with classical and general knowledge.-Memoirs of Dr Claudius Buchanan.

RICHARD WILLIAMS was the second son of Mr Rice Williams, of Dursley, Gloucestershire, and was born there on the 15th of May 1815.

From the first he evinced great tenderness of feeling; and very early he exhibited that ardent and affectionate disposition which distinguished him through life. But as he grew from infancy to boyhood, there were frequent outbreaks of a passionate temper, and his strong determination amounted to obstinacy. He gave no indication of piety; but in the transparency and truthfulness of his character might be perceived the germ of future excellence. For if little can be hoped from a childhood where deceit is the constitutional sin, it is seldom that the boy attains to nothing noble, who, like Washington, "cannot tell a lie."

Richard's first school was in Yorkshire; but he was soon brought back to Dursley, and placed under the care of the Rev. John Glanville, now the much-esteemed minister of Kingsland Tabernacle,

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