oks of
travels. He occupied his spare hours, which were but few, in the
pursuit of botany, scouring the neighborhood to collect plants. He
even carried on his reading amidst the roar of the factory machinery,
so placing the book upon the spinning-jenny which he worked, that he
could catch sentence after sentence as he passed it. In this way the
persevering youth acquired much useful knowledge; and as he grew
older, the desire possessed him of becoming a missionary to the
heathen. With this object he set himself to obtain a medical
education, in order the better to be qualified for the work. He
accordingly economized his earnings, and saved as much money as
enabled him to support himself while attending the Medical and Greek
classes as well as the Divinity Lectures, at Glasgow, for several
winters, working as a cotton-spinner during the remainder of each
year. He thus supported himself, during his college career, entirely
by his own earnings as a factory workman, never having received a
farthing of help from any other source. "Looking back now," he
honestly said, "at that life of toil, I cannot but feel thankful that
it formed such a material part of my early education; and, were it
possible, I should like to begin life over again in the same lowly
style, and to pass through the same hardy training." At length he
finished his medical curriculum, wrote his Latin thesis, passed his
examinations, and was admitted a licentiate of the Faculty of
Physicians and Surgeons. At first he thought of going to China, but
the war then waging with that country prevented his following out the
idea; and having offered his services to the London Missionary
Society, he was by them sent out to Africa, which he reached in 1840.
He had intended to proceed to China by his own efforts; and he says
the only pang he had in going to Africa at the charge of the London
Missionary Society was, because "it was not quite agreeable to one
accustomed to worked his own way to become, in a manner, dependent
upon others." Arrived in Africa, he set to work with great zeal. He
could not brook the idea of merely entering upon the labors of
others, but cut out a large sphere of independent work, preparing
himself for it by undertaking manual labor in building and other
handicraft employment, in addition to teaching, which, he says, "made
me generally as much exhausted and unfit for study in the evenings as
ever I had been when a cotton-spinner." Whilst laboring