During these years he was diligently prosecuting his studies, and read the Scriptures in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Like many another poor student, he was fain to borrow what he could not buy in the way of books, and "laid the libraries of all the friends around him under contribution." Notwithstanding his extraordinary abilities and diligence, he does not seem to have displayed any marked qualities as a preacher. It was with difficulty he got through his trial sermons before the church of which he was now a member. The very decided "personal influence" of the pastor, the Rev. John Suttcliffe, was required to enable the modest young shoemaker to obtain the church's sanction to his receiving "a call to the ministry." The church to which he ministered at Earl's Barton was poor, and scarcely able to keep its pastor in clothing, much less provide for his entire maintenance. For this he was dependent on his trade, and as the times were now very bad he was obliged to travel from village to village to dispose of his work and obtain fresh orders. Nothing but the assistance of his relatives saved him at this time from destitution. And here we are bound to pause and notice the greatest mistake Carey made in all his life. We refer to his marriage at the age of twenty to the sister of his former employer. "This imprudent union," it is said, "proved a severe clog on his exertions for more than twenty-five years." The match was about as unfortunate and unsuitable as a match could be. Mrs. Carey was much older than her husband, ill-educated in mind and temper, and quite incapable of sympathizing with her husband's studies and projects. How he came to contract such a miserable union passes comprehension, for he was remarkably sensible and business-like in common affairs. But there are those who can cultivate another man's vineyard while they neglect their own, wise for others and simple for themselves; and in regard to this particular business, as Froude the historian has well said, some men are apparently "destined to be unfortunate in their relations with women." The judicious Hooker was judicious in everything else but the choice of a wife, for he married a jade who was wont to give him the baby to nurse and stand and scold him into the bargain, as he sat writing the works that were destined to make his name illustrious for all time. Molière, who exposed in the most masterly manner in his plays the follies and foibles of the women of Parisian society in his day, married, to his bitter regret, as weak and vain a woman as any that figures in his own works. Milton's second wife went home again within three months of their wedding-day; and John Wesley's wife left him a short while after their marriage. But if these good men made a mistake in their choice, they one and all acted with good sense and feeling in their treatment of their ill-matched partners. Nothing could be better than the common-sense of stern John Wesley in