What it was he knew not, but expectation and desire for the withheld knowledge kept him pondering and self-withdrawn.

Once in his childhood he was given over for death with a bad attack of confluent small-pox, and his mother came to his bedside to tell him so.

"No, mother," he answered her, "I shall not die now.

God has a work for me to do in the world, and I shall live to do it." Such instruction as Isaac obtained before beginning to earn his own bread was given him in Ward School No.7.A Dr.Kirby was then its principal, and the time was just previous to the introduction of the present system.

The schools were not entirely free, a small payment being required from the parents for each pupil, to supplement the grant of public funds.