On finding myself alone in my room, I naturally turned my attention to the parcel which appeared to have so strangely intimidated the fresh-coloured young footman.

Had my aunt sent me my promised legacy?
and had it taken the form of cast-off clothes, or worn-out silver spoons, or unfashionable jewellery, or anything of that sort?
Prepared to accept all, and to resent nothing, I opened the parcel--and what met my view?
The twelve precious publications which I had scattered through the house, on the previous day; all returned to me by the doctor's orders! Well might the youthful Samuel shrink when he brought his parcel into my room! Well might he run when he had performed his miserable errand! As to my aunt's letter, it simply amounted, poor soul, to this--that she dare not disobey her medical man.
What was to be done now?
With my training and my principles, I never had a moment's doubt.
Once self-supported by conscience, once embarked on a career of manifest usefulness, the true Christian never yields.

Neither public nor private influences produce the slightest effect on us, when we have once got our mission.

Taxation may be the consequence of a mission; riots may be the consequence of a mission; wars may be the consequence of a mission: we go on with our work, irrespective of every human consideration which moves the world outside us.

We are above reason; we are beyond ridicule; we see with nobody's eyes, we hear with nobody's ears, we feel with nobody's hearts, but our own.