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;