Both in Pakefield and Richmond, therefore, it was my unspeakable privilege to see the effects produced by the faithful ministry of the Word of God. And yet the two cases were entirely different. Mr. Cunningham was an admirable pastor, but not a particularly interesting preacher; Mr. Langston was a poor pastor, but the grandest preacher I ever heard. I have heard many able men preach many excellent sermons, but there was a richness, a fulness, a power about Mr. Langston’s such as I never met with in any other to whom I have listened. The two instruments, therefore, were entirely different, but God made use of them both. They were both blessed by Him; and it taught me the lesson that I must be prepared to meet with great differences of administration, but in the midst of those differences it is our privilege to look for a blessing. God did not withhold from Mr. Cunningham His blessing, because he had not the preaching power of Mr. Langston; nor did He withhold His blessing from Mr. Langston, because he had not the pastoral zeal of Mr. Cunningham. The lesson taught me was not the only blessing bestowed upon me through the friendship of those excellent people. I had in it the enormous advantage of the ripened experience and tried wisdom of some of the most excellent Christian people living. Never can I forget the friendship of Sir Henry and Lady Baker, of Dr. Julius and of Mrs. Delafosse, to whose loving sympathy and Christian counsel I used continually to resort; and amongst the humbler classes there was Mrs. Abbott, a grand old Christian who had loved the Lord before she heard the preaching of the Gospel, and the moulding of whose faith was drawn from the Prayer-Book. She often used to express to me her astonishment that when people were brought to Christ it did not make them love their Prayer-Book more. And down a row of cottages at the bottom of Water Lane there lived a blind woman named Mrs. Woodrow, whom I shall ever regard as one of the best of my many friends. I had been preaching one day on the importance of praying for the ministry, and when visiting her a few days afterwards I said, “I’m sure you pray for me.” “Indeed I do,” she replied with great emphasis, “morning, noon, and night.” She spoke with such earnestness that I could not refrain from asking her what she prayed for, when she said, “They tell me you’re a very young man, so I pray that you may be kept from the sins of young men.” How much do I owe to the prayers of that blind widow!