“I fully agree with you,” said I; “we have heard much of late of the want of education among the poor; I hope we shall hear, soon, of the necessity of a better system of education among the rich. But, my good old friend, you are quite forgetting that your tale is about anything else than that with which it professed to begin, ‘The Old Church Clock.’” “Right! my dear sir; like many other old men I have allowed my tongue to out-run my tale. Well, sir, Sunday came—a day of joy to me, both as a rest from unusual labour, and as an opportunity of pouring out my soul in prayer in the manner that I used to do in my native mountains; so that I looked to be reminded of my temporal and eternal home, by joining once more in the same form of worship with my absent parents, and my good old pastor, Robert Walker. Little do they know of the beauty of a prescribed form of prayer who have never offered it up in a distant land! Alas! how were my hopes and expectations disappointed! I naturally entered the first place of worship within my reach, expecting it to be, like Seathwaite chapel, free and open to all comers. But I was woefully mistaken! A well-cloaked and liveried beadle soon informed me that there was no room for strangers, and that the aisle was the only place for me. It was true that I had this advantage over the sleepers in the well-cushioned pews around me, that I could kneel in prayer to GOD, whilst the rest were compelled to sit in His presence while they asked Him to forgive them their sins! Still it was most painful to me to worship in communion with those to whom my joining with them in prayer was an unwelcome act; and I now felt myself really a solitary amidst crowds, when, not even in the presence of our common FATHER, had they any sympathy with their homeless brother! Well, sir, time passed on; and among my smaller grievances was the occasionally receiving, and indeed deserving a reprimand from my over-looker, for having been behind my time in a morning, at the early hour at which the work of our establishment commenced. Six was the precise hour; and even a minute behind that time subjected the truant to a serious fine. I well remember, one cold wintry morning, looking anxiously for the first sight of the Old Church Clock, as I crossed the Salford bridge into Manchester, and saw, to my horror, that it pointed to exactly five minutes past that hour. There seemed to my imagination an expression of strong displeasure in the hard outlines of that old clock’s face, which administered a far stronger rebuke to me than the violent and unfeeling language which was addressed to me by the over-looker; and I resolved, if it were possible, not to fall into the same disgrace again. The next morning I was, by the same clock, ten minutes before my time. The old clock seemed to smile at my punctuality, as I do now at the recollection. How apt is the youthful mind to put a