se truculent old Red
Indians in their barbarian original tongue. Yet I would not for much
forget those days when we saw him escaping utterly from all worries
and troubles and perfectly happy before a blackboard covered with
amazing characters. It was pure innocent delight in a new world of
knowledge, like a child's in a new story-book."

When he was sixty-three he added Arabic to his other acquirements. It
is not quite clear whether he had in view any purpose in connection
with his professional work beyond the desire to know the originals
of all the authorities quoted in his lectures. But, when he had
sufficiently mastered the language to be able to read the Koran,
he knew that he had two grounds for self-congratulation, and these
were sufficiently characteristic. One was that he had his revenge on
Gibbon, who had described so triumphantly the career of the Saracens
and who yet had not known a word of their language. The other was
that he was now able to pray in Arabic for the conversion of the
Mohammedans.

About the same time he began to learn Dutch. He assigned as one reason
for this that he wanted to read Kuenen's works. But as the only one of
these that he had was in his library already, having come to him from
the effects of a deceased friend, it is possible that this was just an
unconscious excuse on his part for indulging in the luxury of learning
a new language--that he read Kuenen in order to learn Dutch, instead
of learning Dutch in order to read Kuenen. However, his knowledge of
the language enabled him to follow closely a movement which excited
his interest in no common degree, viz. the secession of a large
evangelical party from the rationalistic State Church of Holland,
under Abraham Kuyper, the present Prime Minister of that country,
and their organisation into a Free Presbyterian Church.

Other languages at which he worked during this period were Spanish,
of which he acquired the rudiments during his tour in California;
and Dano-Norwegian, which he picked up during a month's residence at
Christiania in 1877, and furbished for a meeting of the Evangelical
Alliance at Copenhagen in 1884. All this time he was pursuing his
Patristic and other historical studies with unflagging vigour,
always writing new lectures, always maintaining his love of abstract
knowledge and his eager desire to add to his already vast stores of
learning. When, a year and a half before his death, a vacancy occurred
in the Church