It is scarcely less interesting, in the case of one so gifted for the
work of visiting the careless, and so singularly skilled in
ministering the word by the bedside of the dying, to find a record of
the occasion when the Lord led him forth to take his first survey of
this field of labor. There existed at that time, among some of the
students attending the Divinity Hall, a society, the sole object of
which was to stir up each other to set apart an hour or two every week
for visiting the careless and needy in the most neglected portions of
the town. Our rule was, not to subtract anything from our times of
study, but to devote to this work an occasional hour in the intervals
between different classes, or an hour that might otherwise have been
given to recreation. All of us felt the work to be trying to the flesh
at the outset; but none ever repented of persevering in it. One
Saturday forenoon, at the close of the usual prayer-meeting, which met
in Dr. Chalmers' vestry, we went up together to a district in the
Castle Hill. It was Robert's first near view of the heathenism of his
native city, and the effect was enduring.

"_March 3._--Accompanied A.B. in one of his rounds through some of the
most miserable habitations I ever beheld. Such scenes I never before
dreamed of. Ah! why am I such a stranger to the poor of my native
town? I have passed their doors thousands of times; I have admired the
huge black piles of building, with their lofty chimneys breaking the
sun's rays,--why have I never ventured within? How dwelleth the love
of God in me? How cordial is the welcome even of the poorest and most
loathsome to the voice of Christian sympathy! What imbedded masses of
human beings are huddled together, unvisited by friend or minister!
'No man careth for our souls' is written over every forehead. Awake,
my soul! Why should I give hours and days any longer to the vain
world, when there is such a world of misery at my very door? Lord, put