ss. Two or three
years later propositions of an unusually favourable nature were made to
me with regard to medical study, on the condition of my becoming
apprenticed to the medical man who was my friend and teacher. But I felt
I dared not accept any binding engagement such as was suggested. I was
not my own to give myself away; for I knew not when or how He whose
alone I was, and for whose disposal I felt I must ever keep myself free,
might call for service.

Within a few months of this time of consecration the impression was
wrought into my soul that it was in China the LORD wanted me. It seemed
to me highly probable that the work to which I was thus called might
cost my life; for China was not then open as it is now. But few
missionary societies had at that time workers in China, and but few
books on the subject of China missions were accessible to me. I learned,
however, that the Congregational minister of my native town possessed a
copy of Medhurst's _China_, and I called upon him to ask a loan of the
book. This he kindly granted, asking me why I wished to read it. I told
him that GOD had called me to spend my life in missionary service in
that land. "And how do you propose to go there?" he inquired. I answered
that I did not at all know; that it seemed to me probable that I should
need to do as the Twelve and the Seventy had done in Judaea--go without
purse or scrip, relying on Him who had called me to supply all my need.
Kindly placing his hand upon my shoulder, the minister replied, "Ah, my
boy, as you grow older you will get wiser than that. Such an idea would
do very well in the days when CHRIST Himself was on earth, but not now."

I have grown older since then, but not wiser. I am more than ever
convinced that if we were to take the directions of our MASTER and the
assurances He gave to His first disciples more fully as our guide, we
should find them to be just as suited to our times as to those in which
they were originally given.

Medhurst's book on China emphasised the value of medical missions there,
and this directed my attention to medical studies as a valuable mode of
preparation.

My beloved parents neither discouraged nor encouraged my desire to
engage in missionary work. They advised me, with such convictions, to
use all the means in my power to develop the resources of body, mind,
heart, and soul, and to wait prayerfully upon GOD, quite willing, should
He show me that I was mistaken, to follow H