commodate forty. Of course I felt a
little strange at first, and even long after had serious doubts as
to the settlement of the question, Which is better, life in or out
of college? The lectures, as a rule, were all in the forenoon.

'The summer vacation I spent in studying for the Soper scholarship,
value twenty pounds, which was to be bestowed after examination.

'I commenced the 1868 and 1869 session at Cheshunt, very busily,
and in addition to the class work and the Soper work, read some
books which gave almost a new turn to my mind and my ideas of
pastoral or missionary life. These books were James's _Earnest
Ministry_, Baxter's _Reformed Pastor_, and some of Bunyan's works,
which, through God's blessing, affected me very much for good.

'The Soper examination should have come off before Christmas, but
it did not, so that I remained over Christmas at Cheshunt, grinding
away as hard as I could. I was longing eagerly for the time when
the examination would be over, that I might the more earnestly
devote myself to the work of preaching and evangelising. Well, the
examination came and passed off satisfactorily, and I got the
twenty pounds.

'Now was the decisive point. Now had I come to another period,
when there was an opportunity of going on a new tack; but I found
myself tempted to seek after another honour, the first prize in
Cheshunt College. In my first session I had got the second only,
and now I had an opportunity of trying for the first. It was a
temptation indeed, but God triumphed. I looked back on my life, and
saw how often I had been tempted on from one thing to another,
after I had resolved that I would leave my time more free and at my
disposal for God, but always was I tempted on. So now I made a
stand, threw ambition to the winds, and set to reading my Bible in
good earnest. I made it my chief study during the last three months
of my residence at Cheshunt, and I look back upon that period of my
stay there as the most profitable I had.

'In September, 1869, I entered the missionary seminary at Highgate,
and also studied Chinese in London with Professor Summers. I went
home again at Christmas, and on returning to London learned that I
could go to China as soon as I liked. I said I would go as soon as
the necessary arrangeme