And thinking now and then in this fashion, I was all of a sudden
asked to undertake a charge such as would once have been my very
ideal: and in that noble city where my work began, and so which
has always been very dear. But I felt that everything was changed.
Before these years of growing experience, I dare say I should not
have feared to set myself even to work as hard; but now I doubted
greatly whether I should prove equal to it. That time in the country
had made me sadly lose confidence. And I thought it would be very
painful and discouraging to go to preach to a large congregation,
and to see it Sunday by Sunday growing less, as people got discontented
and dropped away.

But happily, those on whom I leant for guidance and advice, were
more hopeful than myself; and so I came away from my beautiful
country parish. You know, my friends, who have passed through the
like, the sorrow to look for the last time at each kind homely
face: the sorrow to turn away from the little church where you have
often preached to very small congregations: the sorrow to leave
each tree you have planted, and the evergreens whose growth you
have watched, year by year. Soon, you are in all the worry of what
in Scotland we call a flitting: the house and all its belongings
are turned upside down. The kindness of the people comes out with
tenfold strength when they know how soon you are to part. And some,
to whom you had tried to do little favours, and who had somewhat
disappointed you by the slight sense of them they had shown, now
testify by their tears a hearty regard which you never can forget.

The Sunday comes when you enter your old pulpit for the last time.
You had prepared your sermon in a room from which the carpet had