But before I left this school, a dark, bronzed, and severe-looking man came in one day, and I was called out of class to work a problem on the blackboard for him. I suppose it was done fairly, for I went back to the class thrilling with the touch of Dr. Livingstone. He had said something to me, and placed his hand on my head. I never knew what he said, but I felt his hand, and my heart and pulses beat the faster. Now, if I had been a good boy, I should have been inspired by that touch, and have decided then and there to become a missionary, but truth compels me to say that I was not a good boy, and did not feel called to the missionary field; but I did feel inspired--I felt certain that I could kill lions. But after all, you see, I am in the direct line of succession. A great missionary’s hand has been laid upon my head, and not ‘all the water in the rough, rude sea can wash away the balm.’
But that was not the reason why I became a missionary; in fact, there was no particular reason why I should, but there was a long chain of circumstances, a series of events looking small enough in themselves at the time, but, seen in the light of experience, to me large and important events. But who shall say what is great or small in our lives’ history? It was a small thing that led me to a night-school, and to teach there for years after a hard, long day’s work, but I did it. Temperance societies, literary societies, mutual improvement societies are small things, but I worked hard for them all; and if I did not do a lot of good to others, I did some good to myself; if I could not teach much, I could learn a lot. It was a small thing that led me to take a men’s Bible class in a purely Welsh-speaking district on Sunday afternoons, but it altered the course of my life, made a missionary of me against my will, and brought me to London to write this book.
The Divinity that shapes our ends shaped mine in a painful manner. Let me tell you how. It was a beautiful Sunday morning in early June, and I had gone with my boy and my Bible into the grounds of an old Welsh castle for the purpose of quietly preparing my afternoon lesson. It was a beautiful spot; the old ivy-covered castle behind me, a lovely valley in front, beyond which rose the Welsh mountains, while the sheen of the sea was visible some miles to the right. As I lay prone with my Bible before me, I forgot in the enjoyment of the morning all about the afternoon, for I had to learn another lesson. I knew the poetry of Isaiah, and I called out: ‘“He weighs the hills in a balance, He measures the water in the hollow of His hand”; “He spreadeth out the heavens as a curtain.”’ I was full of oxygen and ecstasy. Immediately below me was a plain famous in Welsh history, for great battles had been fought there. So by one of those tricks of the mind--my mind, at any rate--I found myself at home, not with Isaiah, but Ingoldsby. ‘And I thought upon Wales and her glories, and all I’d been told of her heroes of old.’ I was just reeling it off when----‘See me roll, papa!’ I looked at my boy as he rolled about, and instead of laughing, I began to feel pathetic, with a sort of lump in my throat. I don’t know whether other folk are the same, but the sight of a happy child brings to me thoughts too deep for tears. Alone on a mountain-top, in the solitude of woods, or alone by the sea-shore, I experience the same feelings. I could not talk to my boy, so he spoke to me. ‘You roll, papa!’ and he pushed at me. I rolled. I heard his merry laugh. I rolled again, and then--chaos. Some time after I heard a little voice say, ‘Have you woke up, papa?’ I stared stupidly. I could see the sky above, and that was all; at length I realized that I was in the castle moat, and I remembered rolling. ‘I am only sick and giddy,’ I said to myself. But the feeling did not pass off, so I managed to crawl home, for I lived close by. I did not leave my bed for some months, for I had broken blood vessels, and streams of blood ran from my mouth. Thus I became a missionary, though suffering and pain and poverty for dark days and anxious years followed that Sunday morning--years in which I was learning my lesson. Slow years they were, not of sorrow, nay, nay, but years of grinding anxiety. I could not dig, to beg I was ashamed, and no man gave unto us. Several times I tried the iron foundry again, but I was weak and ill, hæmorrhage still threatened me, and having made up my mind not to die, I had to find some way to live.