I felt quite set up.

It was my birthday, a Good Friday, and on the same day I fell in love with my future wife.
"But the people would have nothing to do with me.

They 'did not want a parson.' They reckoned they were all parsons, so that at the end of the three months' engagement the weekly income came to an end; and, indeed, I would not have renewed the engagement on any terms.

There was nothing for me to do but to sell my furniture and live on the proceeds, which did not supply me for a very long time.
I declare to you that at that time I was so fixed as not to know which way to turn.
"In my emergency a remarkable way opened for me to enter college and become a Congregational minister.

But after long waiting, several examinations, trial sermons and the like, I was informed that on the completion of my training I should be expected to believe and preach what is known as Calvinism.