isters to enter into the
ministerial work, feeling myself as yet unqualified for it, and still
doubting whether I should ever engage in it, or in another profession.

I felt a strong desire to pursue further my classical studies, and
determined, with the kind counsel and aid of my eldest brother, to
proceed to Hamilton, and place myself for a year under the tuition of a
man of high reputation both as a scholar and a teacher, the late John
Law, Esq., then head master of the Gore District Grammar School. I
applied myself with such ardour, and prepared such an amount of work in
both Latin and Greek, that Mr. Law said it was impossible for him to
give the time and hear me read all that I had prepared, and that he
would, therefore, examine me on the translation and construction of the
more difficult passages, remarking more than once that it was impossible
for any human mind to sustain long the strain that I was imposing upon
mine. In the course of some six months his apprehensions were realized,
as I was seized with a brain fever, and on partially recovering took
cold, which resulted in inflammation of the lungs by which I was so
reduced that my physician, the late Dr. James Graham, of Norfolk,
pronounced my case hopeless, and my death was hourly expected.

In that extremity, while I felt even a desire to depart and be with
Christ, I was oppressed with the consciousness that I should have
yielded to the counsels of the chief ministers of my Church, as I could
have made nearly as much progress in my classical studies, and at the
same time been doing some good to the souls of men, instead of refusing
to speak in public as I had done. I then and there vowed that if I
should be restored to life and health, I would not follow my own
counsels, but would yield to the openings and calls which might be made
in the Church by its chief ministers. That very moment the cloud was
removed; the light of the glory of God shone into my mind and heart with
a splendour and power that I had never before experienced. My Mother,
entering the room a few moments after, exclaimed: "Egerton, your
countenance is changed, you are getting better!" My bodily recovery was
rapid; but the recovery of my mind from the shock which it had
experienced was slower, and for some weeks I could not even read, much
less study. While thus recovering, I exercised myself as I best could in
writing down my meditations.

My Father so earnestly solicited me to return, th