shing Heathen in the
South Seas; and I saw that few were caring for them, while I well knew
that many would be ready to take up my work in Calton, and carry it
forward perhaps with more efficiency than myself. Without revealing the
state of my mind to any person, this was the supreme subject of my daily
meditation and prayer; and this also led me to enter upon those medical
studies, in which I purposed taking the full course; but at the close of
my third year, an incident occurred, which led me at once to offer
myself for the Foreign Mission field.

The Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland, in which I had been
brought up, had been advertising for another Missionary to join the Rev.
John Inglis in his grand work on the New Hebrides. Dr. Bates, the
excellent convener of the Heathen Missions Committee, was deeply
grieved, because for two years their appeal had failed. At length, the
Synod, after much prayer and consultation, felt the claims of the
Heathen so gently pressed upon them by the Lord's repeated calls, that
they resolved to cast lots, to discover whether God would thus select
any Minister to be relieved from his home-charge, and designated as a
Missionary to the South Seas. Each member of Synod, as I was informed,
agreed to hand in, after solemn appeal to God, the names of the three
best qualified in his esteem for such a work, and he who had the clear
majority was to be loosed from his congregation, and to proceed to the
Mission field--or the first and second highest, if two could be secured.
Hearing this debate, and feeling an intense interest in these most
unusual proceedings, I remember yet the hushed solemnity of the prayer
before the names were handed in. I remember the strained silence that
held the Assembly while the scrutineers retired to examine the papers;
and I remember how tears blinded my eyes when they returned to announce
that the result was so indecisive, that it was clear that the Lord had
not in that way provided a Missionary. The cause was once again solemnly
laid before God in prayer, and a cloud of sadness appeared to fall over
all the Synod.

The Lord kept saying within me, "Since none better qualified can be got,
rise and offer yourself!" Almost overpowering was the impulse to answer
aloud, "Here am I, send me." But I was dreadfully afraid of mistaking my
mere human emotions for the will of God. So I resolved to make it a
subject of close deliberation and prayer for a few days longer,