remarking that there
were serious difficulties in the way of the execution of the plan.
Whereupon the Mayor turned upon the unfortunate engineer and remarked,
'We pay you your salary, Mr. Engineer, not to tell us that difficulties
exist, but to show us how to surmount them!' I thought it rather a
severe rebuke at the time, but very often since, when I have been
tempted to allow my handicaps to divert me from my duty, I have been
glad that I heard the poor engineer censured.

I was once deeply and permanently impressed by a chairman's speech at a
meeting in Exeter Hall. That noble old auditorium was crowded from
floor to ceiling for the annual missionary demonstration of the
Wesleyan Methodist Church. The chair was occupied by Mr. W. E. Knight,
of Newark. In the course of a most earnest plea for missionary
enthusiasm, Mr. Knight suddenly became personal. 'I was born in a
missionary atmosphere,' he said. 'I have lived in it ever since; I
hope I shall die in it. Over forty years ago my heart was touched with
the story of the world's needs; when I heard such men as Gervase Smith,
Dr. Punshon, Richard Roberts, G. T. Perks, and others, I said, "Lord,
here am I, send me." I came up to London forty-one years ago as a
candidate for the Methodist ministry. I offered myself, but the Church
did not see fit to accept my offer. I remember well coming up to the
college at Westminster and being told of the decision of the committee
by that sainted man, William Jackson. I went to the little room in
which I had slept with a broken heart. I despised myself. I was
rejected of men, and I felt that I was forsaken of God.' Now here is a
man heavily handicapped; but let him finish his story. 'In that moment
of darkness,' Mr. Knight continued, 'the deepest darkness of my life,
there came to me a voice which has influenced my life from then till
now. It said. "If you cannot go yourself, send some one else." I was
a poor boy then; I knew that I could not pay for anybody else to go.
But time rolled on. I prospered in business. And to-night I shall lay
on the altar a sum which I wish the committee to invest, and the
interest on that sum will support a missionary in Africa, not during my
lifetime only, but as long as capital is capable of earning interest.
And, ladies and gentlemen, I assure you that this is a red-letter day
in my life!'

Of course it was! It was the day on which he had turned his handicap
to that account for