When about ten years old, his father enlisted into the army, and soon afterwards his mother died, when John went to live with an uncle, who treated him with great unkindness, his food being of the commonest kind. The treatment he met with was the means of driving him away from his uncle's, to seek a home elsewhere. Being of a gay and lively disposition and under no restraint, he ran into great lengths of sin and folly, the remembrance of which gave him much distress, and made him feel greatly ashamed through life. His companions were of the most debased kind. One incident will show their character. They went one Lord's day to a place of worship, the pews of which were very high-backed,…