I could look therefore to no person but myself; and the question was, whether I was prepared to make the sacrifice.

In favour of the undertaking, I urged to myself, that never was any cause, which had been taken up by man in any country or in any age, so great and important; that never was there one in which so much misery was heard to cry for redress; that never was there one in which so much good could be done; never one in which the duty of Christian charity could be so extensively exercised; never one more worthy of the devotion of a whole life towards it; and that, if a man thought properly, he ought to rejoice to have been called into existence, if he were only permitted to become an instrument in forwarding it in any part of its progress.

Against these sentiments, on the other hand, I had to urge, that I had been designed for the church; that I had already advanced as far as deacon's orders in it; that my prospects there on account of my connexions were then brilliant, that, by appearing to desert my profession, my family would be dissatisfied, if not unhappy.

These thoughts pressed upon me, and rendered the conflict difficult.

But the sacrifice of my prospects staggered me, I own, the most.