What more natural than that a son should wish to follow in his father’s steps? I had a minister for a father. It was resolved that I should become one. In Dissenting circles no one was supposed to enter the ministry until he had got what was denominated a call. I persuaded myself that I had such a call, though I much doubt it now. I tried to feel that I was fitted for this sacred post—I who knew nothing of my own heart, and was as ignorant of the world as a babe unborn. I was sent to a London college, now no more, and had to be examined for my qualifications by four dear old fossils, and was, of course, admitted. I passed because my orthodoxy was unimpeachable, and I was to preach—I, who trembled at the sound of my own voice, who stood in terror of deacons, and who had never attempted to make a speech. I hope at our colleges they manage these things better now, and select men who can show that the ministry is in them before they seek to enter the ministry. As it was, I found more than one of my fellow-students was utterly destitute of all qualifications for the pastorate, and was simply wasting the splendid opportunities placed within his reach. The routine of college life was not unpleasant. We rose early, attended lectures from our principal and the classes at University College, and took part in conducting family service in the hall. Occasionally we preached in the College chapel, the principal attendant at which was an old tailor, who thereby secured a good deal of the patronage of the students. By attending the classes at University College we had opportunities of which, alas! only a minority made much use. They who did so became distinguished in after life, such as Rev. Joseph Mullens, Secretary of the London Missionary Society; and John Curwen, who did so much for congregational singing; Dr. Newth, and Philip Smith, who was tutor at Cheshunt, and afterwards Headmaster at Mill Hill. Nor must I forget Rev. Andrew Reed, a preacher always popular, partly on his own and partly on his father’s account; nor Thomas Durrant Philip, the son of the well-known doctor whose splendid work among the Hottentots is not yet forgotten; nor Dr. Edkins, the great Chinese scholar; nor the late Dr. Henry Robert Reynolds, who won for Cheshunt a world-wide reputation. As regards myself, I fear I took more interest in the debates at University College, where I made acquaintance with men with whose names the world has since become familiar, such as Sir James Stansfeld, Peter Taylor, M.P. for Leicester, Professor Waley, of Jewish persuasion, C. J. Hargreaves, Baron of the Encumbered Estates Court, and others who seemed to me far superior to most of my fellow-students training for the Christian ministry. I was much interested in the English Literature Class under the late Dr. Gordon Latham, the great Anglo-Saxon scholar, who would fain have had me Professor in his place.

I cannot say that I look back with much pleasure on my college career. We had two heads, neither of whom had any influence with the students, nor did it seem to me desirable that they should. One of them was an easy, pleasant, gentlemanly man, who was pleased to remark on an essay which I read before him on Christianity, and which was greeted with a round of applause by my fellow-students, that it displayed a low tone of religious feeling. Poor man, he did not long survive after that. The only bit of advice I had from his successor was as to the propriety of closing my eyes as if in prayer whenever I went into the pulpit to preach, on the plea, not that by means of it my heart might be solemnised and elevated for the ensuing service, but that it would have a beneficial effect on the people—that, in fact, on account of it they would think all the better of me! After that, you may be sure I got little benefit from anything the good man might feel fit to say. As a scholar he was nowhere. All that I recollect of him was that he gave us D’AubignÉ’s History of the Reformation in driblets as if we were rather a superior class of Sunday scholars. Mr. Stowell Brown tells us that he did not perceive that the members of his church were in any respect better than those who were hearers alone. And to me something similar was manifested in college. We pious students were not much better than other young men. It seemed to me that we were a little more lazy and flabby, that was all. As a rule, few of us broke down morally, though such cases were by no means rare. I cannot say, as M. Renan did, that there was never a breath of scandal with respect to his fellow-students in his Romanist Academy; but the class of young men who had come to study for the ministry was not, with very rare exceptions, of a high order, either in a religious or intellectual point of view. In this respect I believe there has been a great improvement of late.

My pulpit career was short. At times I believe I preached with much satisfaction to my hearers; at other times very much the reverse. De Foe writes: “It was my disaster first to be set apart for, and then to be set apart from, the honour of that sacred employ.” My experience was something similar. I never had a call to a charge, nor did I go the right way to work to get one. I felt that I could gladly give it up, and yet how could I do so? I had a father whom I fondly loved, who had set his heart on seeing me follow in his honoured steps. I was what they called a child of many prayers. How could I do otherwise than work for their fulfilment? And if I gave up all thought of the ministry, how was I to earn my daily bread? At length, however, I drifted away from the pulpit and religious life for a time. I was not happy, but I was happier than when vainly seeking to pursue an impossible career. I know more of the world now. I have more measured myself with my fellows. I see what ordinary men and women are, and the result is—fortunately or not, I cannot tell—that I have now a better conceit of myself. I often wish some one would ask me to occupy a pulpit now. How grand the position! how mighty the power! You are out of the world—in direct contact with the living God, speaking His Word, doing His work. There in the pew are souls aching to be lifted out of themselves; to get out of the mud and mire of the world and of daily life; to enter within the veil, as it were; to abide in the secret place of the Most High. It is yours to aid them. There are those dead in trespasses and sins; it is yours to rouse them. There are the aged to be consoled; the young to be won over. Can there be a nobler life than that which makes a man an ambassador from God to man?

Yet they were pleasant years I spent at Coward College, Torrington Square, supported by the liberality of an old wealthy merchant of that name, the friend of Dr. Doddridge, and at Wymondley—to which Doddridge’s Academy, as it was termed, was subsequently moved—where were trained, at any rate, two of our most distinguished Nonconformists, Edward Miall and Thomas Binney. I am sorry Coward College ceased to exist as a separate institution. We were all very happy there. We had a splendid old library at our disposal, where we could learn somewhat of

Many an old philosophy
On Argus heights divinely sung;

and for many a day afterwards we dined together once a year. I think our last dinner was at Mr. Binney’s, who was at his best when he gathered around him his juniors, like himself, the subjects of old Coward’s bounty. It was curious to me to find how little appreciated was the good merchant’s grand bequest. I often found that in many quarters, especially among the country churches, the education given to the young men at Coward’s was regarded as a disqualification. It was suspected that it impeded their religious career, that they were not so sound as good young men who did not enjoy these advantages, that at other colleges the preachers were better because not so learned, more devotedly pious because more ignorant. It was held then that a student might be over-educated, and the more he knew the more his religious zeal diminished. In these days the feeling has ceased to exist, and the churches are proud of the men who consecrate to the service of their Lord all their cultivated powers of body and mind. The Christian Church has ceased to fear the bugbear of a learned ministry. One can quite understand, however, how that feeling came into existence. The success of the early Methodists had led many to feel how little need there was for culture when the torpor of the worldly and the poor was to be broken up. The Methodists were of the people and spoke to them in a language they could understand. Learning, criticism, doubt—what were they in the opinion of the pious of those days but snares to be avoided, perils to be shunned? For good or bad, we have outgrown that.