he acts, which again brought on illness. He had
broken a blood-vessel in the stomach, and he returned to Halle, never
again to enter a theatre. Subsequently being asked to go to Berlin for a
few weeks to teach German, he went, hoping at the Prussian capital to
find access to the court through persons of rank and secure the desired
exemption. But here again he failed. There now seemed no way of escaping
a soldier's term, and he submitted himself for examination, but was
pronounced physically unfit for military duty. In God's providence he
fell into kind hands, and, being a second time examined and found unfit,
he was thenceforth _completely exempted for life from all service in the
army._

God's lines of purpose mysteriously converged. The time had come; the
Master spake and it was done: all things moved in one direction--to set
His servant free from the service of his country, that, under the
Captain of his salvation, he might endure hardness as a good soldier of
Christ, without entanglement in the affairs of this life. Aside from
this, his stay at the capital had not been unprofitable, for he had
preached five times a week in the poorhouse and conversed on the Lord's
days with the convicts in the prison.

In February, 1829, he left for London, on the way visiting his father at
Heimersleben, where he had returned after retirement from office; and he
reached the English metropolis March 19th. His liberty was much
curtailed as a student in this new seminary, but, as no rule conflicted
with his conscience, he submitted. He studied about twelve hours daily,
giving attention mainly to Hebrew and cognate branches closely connected
with his expected field. Sensible of the risk of that deadness of soul
which often results from undue absorption in mental studies, he
committed to memory much of the Hebrew Old Testament and pursued his
tasks in a prayerful spirit, seeking God's help in matters, however
minute, connected with daily duty.

Tempted to the continual use of his native tongue by living with his
German countrymen, he made little progress in English, which he
afterward regretted; and he was wont, therefore, to counsel those who
propose to work among a foreign people, not only to live among them in
order to learn their language, but to keep aloof as far as may be from
their own countrymen, so as to be compelled to use the tongue which is
to give them access to those among whom they labour.

In connection with this remo