CHAPTER X

Summary

Having thus matured their plans for making the College the nursery of the mission, and placing the stations under its superintendence, Dr Marshman determined to visit England, and make arrangements for carrying them into effect. He embarked in January 1826, with a letter from his colleagues, introducing the subject to the committee. It stated that they had already six students training for the mission, and hoped to be able to double the number; and as no youth would be received into the class who did not exhibit the best evidence of piety and devotion to the cause, they expected to obtain a succession of men well qualified to continue the missionary labours at the stations for which they were now seeking aid. They were anxious that all the operations of the Baptist mission should come before the public in connexion with the Society, and they asked that £1000, and eventually £1500 a year, should be appropriated for the support of their stations from the sums raised in England on the combined reports. Dr Marshman landed at Brighton on the 17th of June, and posted down to Wiltshire. In his diary he describes the ecstasy of his feelings as he gazed on the old white horse chalked out on the slope of the hill near Westbury, and drove through the scenes of his boyhood, and traversed the streets in which every spot called up some cherished recollection.