When he left Cambridge, he spent four months in travel on the continent and returned to Eton as private tutor to the sons of Lord Powis. The same energetic life of work and play was continued in his new position at Eton. He it was who persuaded Dr. Hawtrey to draw up rules for bathing and boating on the river. Till then there had been no rules, and the river was considered out of bounds. He wished the boys to have freedom to enjoy the river, but to be obliged to learn to swim before they boated. He himself loved boating and long walks, finding his way across country by a compass; he took part in steeplechases, and so learned to ride horses of all kinds over rough country. Whilst he enjoyed all these varied occupations which were to prove a preparation for the life before him, he had as yet not the slightest idea of going to work abroad. A letter written many years afterwards (1850) to his son shows how uncertain he was as a young man about his future career. “I remember that at your age, though I had some desire for the ministerial office I had not any fixed or devoted purpose of heart to undertake its duties, nor any steadfast resolution to frame my life so as to make it a preparation for it. It pleased God that much of the restless energy which then found its vent in mere amusement and running to and fro, as it seemed without point or aim, was a training of which I have since felt the value, to enable me to do the work of an evangelist in seeking out the sheep of Christ that are scattered over a thousand hills.” Before long he began to study Hebrew and theology in preparation for his ordination which took place in 1833. Still remaining a tutor at Eton, he worked first as curate of Boveney and later at the Windsor Parish Church, giving up the curate’s salary for two years in order to help the financial difficulties of the parish. The spirit in which he worked is shown by the following remark in a letter to a friend: “I believe that as clergymen we ought to be willing to be tied like furze bushes to a donkey’s tail, if we can thereby do any good by stimulating what is lazy and quickening what is slow.” He threw himself with zeal into every part of the work of his parish, developing new organizations of many kinds. By his devotion as well as by his preaching he won the warm affection of the parishioners, and together with all this parish work he kept up a close connexion with Eton. His old schoolfellow W. E. Gladstone, said of him: “he was attached to Eton with a love surpassing the love of Etonians. In himself he formed a large part of the life of Eton, and Eton formed a large part of his life.” Always a great organizer, he had much influence both amongst masters and boys, at a time when various reforms were being introduced into the school. The impression he made was of one who had a high ideal of personal and Christian life, not an ascetic, but one who valued bodily training and plain living, because they conduced to success in good work.