Boardman seems to have been a favorite with her and she took notes
of several of his sermons. "Bishop Simpson's Christmas sermon
(1868) on Luke 2:13, 14, filled my heart with peace and good-will
to (all) men," she notes. A sermon by Dr. Willett in November,
1868, on "What do ye more than others?"--Matt. 5:47, and one by
Dr. McGowan on Mark 10:21, "One thing thou lackest," led to much
heart-searching. A short time before leaving Philadelphia she
heard Phillips Brooks preach from Malachi 4:2. "A wonderful
sermon," she termed it, and she greatly enjoyed a talk by him on
tithing, which she determined to act upon.

We have no special record of Dr. Swain's years of study in the
Woman's Medical College, but we may be sure that she improved
every opportunity to perfect herself in her chosen calling. Her
instructors were her warm friends and she corresponded with some
of them after she went to India. Dean Bodley, in one of her
letters, gave the names of nine young women in the college who
were preparing for medical missionary work, and Dr. Swain made a
note of them, saying that she must write to them before their
graduation. Two of these ladies went to India as medical
missionaries.



CALL TO SERVICE IN INDIA


The story of Dr. Swain's call to go to India has been told many
times. Mrs. D.W. Thomas, who, with her husband, had charge of the
girls' orphanage of the Methodist Mission, had long felt the need