"On Wednesday, the 9th, I bought two Commentaries—De Wette on Psalms, and Meyer on Romans; they were rolled up in a sheet of paper taken out of an old book, containing some sixteen pages. I happened to glance at it in unfolding it, and my attention was caught by these words, in German, of which the following is a translation: 'Look upon your children as just so many flowers, which have been lent to you out of God's garden; the flowers may wither or die, yet thank God that He has lent them to you for one summer.' I thought at once that I had surely known the style long ago, and on glancing down the pages I was not at all surprised to find where the letter broke off—'S. R.— Aberdeen, March 7th, 1637.' Was it not strange to come in that odd way on a German translation of Samuel Rutherford's Letters? (See if you can find the passage.) I also notice, in the bookseller's catalogue, that Bunyan's works are all translated, also Spurgeon's, 'Schonberg-Cotta Family,' Mrs. Henry Wood's novels, etc." In the autumn of 1873 Mr. Elmslie came to London. Four years previously Dr. Dykes had assumed the pastorate of the church at Regent Square. His health made it necessary for him to receive, from the commencement, assistance in his work. He was always anxious to secure the services of young men who might be trained under him for high achievements in later years. He heard of Mr. Elmslie's brilliant promise and invited him to fill the position, then vacant, of assistant to himself. The invitation was accepted, and Mr. Elmslie settled in London. At Regent Square he flung himself into the work of the congregation with eager sympathy. He rapidly became popular and was made welcome in every home. In Dr. Dykes he found a wise and kind helper, to whom he became warmly attached. He appreciated his methods of working and his power as a preacher; but most of all he was struck by that grace of devotional fervour which gave Dr. Dykes' prayers so constraining a power to draw the souls of his people into communion with God. Nothing could have been brighter and happier than the life of the young preacher in his new surroundings, and his contagious enthusiasm and energy reacted on all who knew him. Here in London, at the busy centre of so much of the world's activity, his eager, questioning spirit found material for its restless enquiries; whilst that knowledge of human nature and its needs, which lay at the back of his most powerful spiritual work in later years, was slowly moulded by the opportunities of this time. He describes in a letter to his mother the opening of his pulpit work at Regent Square. His chief fear was for his voice: "It looked such a distance," he writes, "to the faces in the end gallery." He got a friend to sit at the far end of the church, just over the clock, with a handkerchief which he was to wave if the speaker were inaudible. The subject of his sermon was, "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin."