A Tathk with Mr Shepherd. 175

 

“Do you want me to be a doctor of your kind,
Mr Shepherd ?”

“No. It is avery wrong thing to take up that
basket without being told by Him who makes the
medicine. If He wants a man to do so, He will let
him know—He will call him and tell him to do it.
But everybody ought to take the medicine, for
everybody needs it; and the happy thing is, that,
as soon as anyone has found how good it is—food
and wine and all upholding things in one—he be-
comes both able and anxious to give it to others,
If you would help people as much as your father
does, you must begin by taking some of the real
medicine yourself.”

This conversation gave Willie a good deal to
think about. And he had much need to think
about it, for soon after this he left his father’s
house for the first time in his life, and went toa
great town, to receive there a little further pre-
paration for college. The next year he gained a
scholarship, or, as they call it there, a bursary, and
was at once fully occupied with classics and mathe-
matics, hoping, however, the next year, to combine
with them certain scientific studies bearing less
indirectly upon the duties of the medical man.