42 PRÆTERITA-I

undertaken to do it. And, assuredly, had she not done it,-well, there’s no knowing what would have happened; but I’m very thankful she did.

48. I have just opened my oldest (in use) Bible,-a small, closely, and very neatly printed volume it is, printed in Edinburgh by Sir D. Hunter Blair and J. Bruce, Printers to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, in 1816. Yellow, now, with age; and flexible, but not unclean, with much use; except that the lower corners of the pages at 8th of 1st Kings, and 32nd Deuteronomy, are worn somewhat thin and dark, the learning of these two chapters having cost me much pains. My mother’s list of the chapters with which, thus learned, she established my soul in life,* has just fallen out of it. I will take what indulgence the incurious reader can give me, for printing the list thus accidentally occurrent:-

Exodus,chapters15th and 20th.

2 Samuel”1st, from 17th verse to the end.

1 Kings”8th.

Psalms”23rd, 32nd, 90th, 91st, 103rd, 112th, 119th, 139th.

Proverbs”2nd, 3rd, 8th, 12th.

Isaiah”58th.

Matthew”5th, 6th, 7th.

Acts”26th.

1 Corinthians”13th, 15th.

James”4th.

Revelation”5th, 6th.

And truly, though I have picked up the elements of a little further knowledge-in mathematics, meteorology, and the like, in after life,-and owe not a little to the teaching of many people, this maternal installation of my mind

* This expression in Fors¹ has naturally been supposed by some readers to mean that my mother at this time made me vitally and evangelically religious. The fact was far otherwise. I meant only that she gave me secure ground for all future life, practical or spiritual. See the paragraph next following.

¹ [That is, in Letter 42, here embodied in Præterita: see Vol. XXVIII. p. 101.]

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