LIFE

OF

WILLIAM B. LIGHTON.

CHAPTER I.

Containing an account of his nativity, parantage, early life, and trials, to the 15th year of his age, when he enlisted as a soldier in His Majesty's service.

I was born at Frampton, near Boston, in the County of Lincolnshire, England, on the seventh day of September, 1805. My father possessed a small, but fertile farm, from whence by honest industry, he obtained a comfortable support for himself and family, consisting of a wife and five children, three sons and two daughters. He possessed a sound judgment, a penetrating genius and an active vigorous mind, with a character of untarnished worth. His dealings were always marked with the strictest principles of justice, which rendered him beloved and a useful member of society. Thus was my dear father respected, and through Providence, blest with a cheerful competence that removed him and his family from the dangerous extremes of poverty and wealth, either of which is often productive of much painful anxiety.

My dear mother died while I was quite

young; of course I can say but little about her character. However, the spark of recollection I imbibed is still bright and vivid, her affections were strongly combined with a sense of maternal duty, which rendered her one of the best of mothers. As a christian she was worthy of imitation. Towards the close of a long and painful affliction, which she bore with christian fortitude, she took an affectionate farewell of her husband and children, and after committing them all into the hands of a merciful God, she died in peace and in full hope of a glorious immortality. "Thither may we repair,

That glorious bliss to share."

A few days subsequent to my mother's demise, two of my sisters (twins about four years of age) followed her to the realms of peace. This sudden stroke of Providence made a deep wound in the bosom of my afflicted father, and the mournful aspect of these sorrowful scenes tended to depress his soul with grief and trouble the most keen and trying, though like Job he could submissively say "the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord."

There is something melancholly in the family of the widower, and, notwithstanding the assiduity and care of attendants, the place of the fond wife and affectionate mother cannot be supplied. The husband feels it. He has lost the object of his dearest affections, and though he now posesses a solicitude for his children, almost maternal, yet there is a void in his heart. Does he return from his daily avocations? See

him fixing his vacant gaze upon the place she used to occupy ;-associations are connected with a glance at that empty place which rend his heart, and start the tears into his mournful eyes. Does he retire to his solitary chamber at night? It is but to spend the sleepless hours in remembrances of the past It was so with my father, his bosom was severely wounded, and he lived but to mourn the loss he had experienced. It is felt by the children. They recoil from the cold attention of strangers, which, however kind it may be, never equals the warmth of a mother's love. They miss too those instructions, which they were wont to receive from her beloved and willing lips, by which they were so much improved and amused. Here it was that I suffered by not having a mother, who, in the course of my early years, would have repressed the effects of depraved nature, by her sage counsels and wise government.

After the lapse of several months, my father inarried a second time to an amiable woman of preposessing appearance, and a disposition so agreeable as to win the affection and secure the esteem of all her acquaintances. From her I received that care, which, in some measure, atoned for my former loss. She was kind and

indulgent, though at the same time strict in requiring obedience,-but the reader, who has lost a fond mother, will understand me, when I say she was not my mother.

My parents were strict observers of the rules of the established church. For the truths

of the bible they possessed a deep reverence and sincere regard, and they strove to impress those truths upon the minds of their offspring at the earliest periods of intellectual exfoliation.

The effect of this pious instruction produced in my mind a deep veneration for the character of God, and fear of offending him by a breach of his holy law. The following anecdote, though simple, may serve to show what moraĺ impression was made upon my mind.

It is a matter of most implicit faith among the juvenile class, in some parts of England, that the robin red-breast, from some undefined reason or other, is the peculiar favorite of Deity, that its red-breast is the trait by which it is known as such, and that to destroy it inevitably produces the displeasure of Jehovah. Unfortunately I destroyed a brood of these chirping innocents, which I had no sooner done, than I became the subject of a train of reflection the most painful and disagreeable. Conviction rolled upon my mind, I felt guilty, unhappy, and was full of fear for the deed I had done; in vain did I try to forget the act; I could not; my burden grew heavier, it became insupportable, I wept aloud and cried to God for mercy and pardon, promising if he would forgive me, I never would be guilty of the like offence. The effect of my importunate cry to God gave me the most sensible relief that I ever experienced in my life, My guilt was rolled off my shoulders and my wonted peace returned to my bosom, insomuch that I resumed my

innocent amusements with all the transports of youthful delight. Would to God that my moral sensitiveness had always remained equally sharp!

In order that I might be more efficiently instructed in those scriptures which make “wise unto salvation," I was, at an early age, sent to a Sabbath School, conducted by ladies and gentlemen, whose souls, filled with a Saviour's love, yearned with compassion for the youth of the village, and from whose philanthropic labors, I imbibed a respect for the name and character of the Supreme being, which, in after life, served to restrain me from the depths of vice. O, the blessed and happy effects of Sabbath Schools! Surely they are seats of mercy. Would to God they were more perseveringly attended too. Ye Christians, awake to this important duty, and labor steadily with all your moral powers at this mighty engine of piety and reformation! And may the Omnipotent Jehovah bless you and the institution with success !

My father, being a man of information, and aware of the value of education, placed me under the tuition of Mr. Joshua Dent,a gentleman fitted both by learning, and judgment to superintend the instruction of youth. From this individual I received that assistance which enabled me to acquire a knowledge of the common branches of learning, and had it not been for the indolence to which I was subject, I should have been instructed in the higher branches of literature; but, to my subsequent sorrows I