ime the
preaching of the Gospel in English, of which I knew enough to understand a
part of what was said.--My going to England by the way of Rotterdam was
not the usual way; but consulting with a brother in Berlin, who had been
twice in England, I was told that this was the cheapest route. My asking
this brother, to be profited by his experience, would have been quite
right, had I, besides this, like Ezra, sought of the Lord the right way.
Ezra viii. 21. But I sought unto men only, and not at all unto the Lord,
in this matter. When I came to Rotterdam, I found that no vessels went at
that time from that port to London, on account of the ice having just
broken up in the river, and that it would be several weeks before the
steamers would again begin to ply. Thus I had to wait nearly a month at
Rotterdam, and, therefore, not only needed much more time than I should
have required to go by way of Hamburgh, but also much more money.

On March 19th, 1829, I landed in London. I now found myself, in a great
measure, as it regards liberty, brought back to the years when I was at
school; yea, almost all the time I had been at school, and certainly for
the last four years, previous to my coming to England, I was not so much
bound to time and order as I was in this seminary; and had not there been
a degree of grace in me, yea, so much as not to regard the liberty of the
flesh, I should now probably have given up all idea of being a missionary
to the Jews. But as I did not see that anything was expected from me which
I could not conscientiously accede to, I thought it right to submit
myself, for the Lord's sake, to all the regulations of the institution.

My brethren in the seminary, most of them Germans, had instruction in
Hebrew, Latin, Greek, French, German, &c., scarcely any of them having had
a classical education; I read only Hebrew, and was exempted from all the
rest. I remember how I longed to be able to expound the Scriptures in
English, when I heard a German brother do so, a few days after my arrival.
And I also remember what joy it gave me, when a few weeks after, for the
first time, I spoke in English to a little boy, whom I met alone in the
fields, about his soul, thinking that he would bear with my broken
English.--I now studied much, about twelve hours a day, chiefly Hebrew;
commenced Chaldee; perfected myself in reading the German-Jewish in
Rabbinic characters, committed portions of the Hebrew Old Testament to
memor