3o 



COLLEGE LIFE,. 



[Chap. II. 



described in Cowper's lines beginning, " Simple, grave, sincere/ 7 

 etc. He noted, when he preached at Bradford for a fee, that 

 it was his first " hiring out." He always felt some repugnance 

 at being paid for religious services ; yet he was now glad to 

 earn a little : and when he was again at Bradford, on Easter 

 Sunday, he visited Leeds, and spent the rest of his holiday at 

 York, where he was the guest of his old tutors. He " worked 

 very hard at enjoying" himself; he called on all his friends 

 (especially on Stout, the old college porter, with whom he spent 

 two hours), had a pull on the Ouse, fished for shells, went 

 before breakfast to botanize, and, above all, attended three ser- 

 vices at the Minster. He had written beforehand to bespeak 

 a favourite anthem (" Plead thou my cause," Mozart's Twelfth 

 Mass), which his musical friends kindly arranged for him. " I 

 had you in spirit with me at York," he wrote, " and was too 

 busy to feel myself alone there. I shall probably be the last 

 student to see the old place before it is applied to its new 

 purpose — Normal School." (Except the common hall and 

 lecture-room, the buildings consisted of old dwellings round two 

 courts, opposite the York Hospital in Monkgate ; the college 

 library was in Mr. Wellbeloved's house, across the street.) He 

 " went into every hole and corner of the dear old place, rung 

 the two college bells, and did many other sentimental things ! " 



On the following Sunday, April 18, he walked over from 

 Manchester, six miles, to preach at Stand, where the minister, 

 Rev. T. May, had resigned through ill health. He spent the night 

 at Mr. Philips's, The Park, and walked back to his lectures the 

 next morning. In a few days, Mr. Philips called on him, with 

 a unanimous invitation from the congregation. He accepted it 

 with some reluctance, as he " did not feel fit to begin," and 

 wished to continue his studies. 



While his thoughts were much occupied with the new duties 

 before him, he had to work hard for his B.A. examination in 

 London, at the end of May. When it was over, he wrote : "I 

 went to the opera for the first, and I suppose the last, time. I 

 reflected that it was not often that I should have an opportunity 

 of hearing one of Mozart's best operas [' Don Giovanni'] per- 



