“All we did was no more than our duty and even our immediate interest. It was no more than the necessities of our position impelled us to attempt. Our sole chance of escape was to resist to the last. The path of duty, of honour, and of safety was clearly marked out for us. The desperation of our circumstances nerved us to the uttermost. There never, perhaps, was an occasion when it was more necessary to win or to die. To use the words of my heroic brother at Lucknow, it was incumbent on us never to give in. We had no retreat, no scope for compromise. That we were eventually successful against the fearful odds which beset us, was alone the work of the great God who so mercifully vouchsafed His protection.” This passage will probably be regarded as effective oratory, indeed few orators would express these particular points with more of nervous force. Thus an idea may be formed of what his style would have been, had he received training when young, and had he retained his health. But though he had at this time, 1859, frequently to make speeches in public, on all which occasions the modesty, simplicity and straightforwardness of his utterance pleased his hearers, yet he was not at all an orator. In his early and middle life he had never, as previously explained, any practice or need for public speaking. Had he been so practised, he would doubtless have been among speakers, what he actually was among writers, forcible, direct, impressive, not at all ornate or elaborate, perhaps even blunt and brief. In short he would have been an effective speaker for practical purposes, rising on grave occasions even to a rough eloquence--inasmuch as he had self-possession and presence of mind in a perfect degree. But now, as he was fully entered into middle life, all this was impossible by reason of physical depression. Had this depression been anywhere but where it actually was, it might have failed to spoil his public speaking. But its seat was somewhere in the head, and any attempt at impromptu or extempore delivery seemed first to affect the brain, then the voice and even the chest. He could no doubt light up for a moment and utter a few sentences with characteristic fire; or he could make a longer speech quietly to a sympathetic audience; but beyond this he was no longer able to go. As his health improved, his power of speaking increased naturally, still it never became what it might have become had he been himself again physically. In the autumn of 1859 he proceeds to Ireland, where his wife revisits the scenes of her early years. He returns to London, where he spends a happy Christmas in his domestic circle, with rapidly improving health. In the spring of 1860, he attests his abiding interest in the cause of religious missions to India by attendance at an important gathering in Exeter Hall, to hear his friend Edwardes (of Peshawur) deliver a remarkable speech.