Silas was educated in the noble foundation school of Edward Colston in Bristol. The life of this excellent philanthropist was so remarkable, and in many particulars so like his own, that we cannot wonder that he stops for some pages in his early story to recite some of the remarkable phenomena in Colston’s life. Silas’s childhood was singular, and the stories he tells are especially noticeable, because in after-life the turn of his character seems to have been especially real and practical. Thus he tells how, when a child, wandering with his sister in the King’s Wood, near Bristol, they lost their way, and were filled with the utmost consternation, when suddenly, although no house was in view, nor, as they thought, near, a dog came up behind them, and drove them clear out of the wood into a path with which they were acquainted; especially it was remarkable that the dog never barked at them, but when they looked round about for the dog he was nowhere to be seen. Careless children out for their own pleasure, they sauntered on their way again, and again lost their way in the wood—were again bewildered, and in greater perplexity than before, when, on a sudden looking up, they saw the same dog making towards them; they ran from him in fright, but he followed them, drove them out of the labyrinths, and did not leave them until they could not possibly lose their way again. Simple Silas says, “I then turned about to look for the dog, but saw no more of him, although we were now upon an open common. This was the Lord’s doings, and marvellous in our eyes.”