How the Kitchen-Boy Became a Bishop.
By A. Macleod
About two hundred and eighty years ago a clerk was wanted in the parish church of Ugborough, a little village of Devonshire; and one of the candidates was a young lad about sixteen years of age, who came from a neighboring village. But he did not get the place because of his youth. He was very much cast down. He was the son of poor, but worthy parents, and one of a large family of brothers and sisters. He said to his mother with a heavy heart, "I must not be a burden any longer upon father and you; I shall set out and find work of some kind or other elsewhere, and support myself." So he bade farewell to his father and brothers and sisters, and, with a little bundle in his hand, he left his home. His mother went with him two or three miles of the way. When at length she was obliged to turn back, she knelt down with him at the roadside and asked God to bless him and go with him and keep him from every evil way. Then she took out some money and gave it to him for the journey. Then the two kissed each other, and, weeping, parted. By-and-by he arrived at the city of Exeter. He went to the cathedral; he wandered about the streets; he called at the shops; but of all, to whom he applied that day, no one had work for him. At last he found himself standing at the window of a book-shop, looking at the rows of books on the shelves within. At that moment, happening to raise his eyes, he caught a glimpse of the cathedral; and the thought suddenly shot into his mind that there was a connection between these books and the cathedral. If he, poor though he was, could become learned in books, he might be worthy of a place some day in the cathedral. It was a mere thought and soon passed away from his mind. He left Exeter and traveled on and on, till he found himself in Oxford. He knew nobody there. But, having passed through Exeter, and knowing that Exeter College was the one to which Devonshire students went, he knocked at the gates of that college and asked if they wanted a lad like him, for any work he could do. They did want such a lad as he. And in a short time he was employed to scour pans, to clean knives, to brush shoes, and in other ways to help in the kitchen. John was a faithful servant, and soon became a favorite with everybody about the college. And, as he had a good many hours of leisure, he set himself to learn Latin and Greek. And by-and-by the dons going past saw the kitchen boy poring over loose leaves of grammars, and would ask him jokingly if he was reading Homer or the Latin poets. But after awhile, one and then another gave up joking at the lad and went near him, and saw that by himself alone he had come very near to the reading both of Homer and the Latin poets. And then the dons took him away from the kitchen and made room for him in the classes of their college, and he became one of their foremost scholars, and one in whom they all felt pride. And by and by John was made a "fellow," and then a professor of divinity, and for twenty-seven years he labored in that college as a professor and writer of books, where he had served as a kitchen boy. And at the end of that time he was made Bishop of Worcester, and therein proved the truth of the thought that shot through his mind, at the window of the book-shop at Exeter, that there was a way through books to a place in a cathedral. Bishop Prideaux was never ashamed of his early trials. He kept the leathern clothes, in which he set out from his father's house, to his old age. He loved to visit the village in which he was born. He greatly loved his parents. In his kindness he would plan surprise visits. He would bring his doctor's scarlet gown and put it on to please them. He never tired of showing them reverence. Often he would say, "If I had got the clerk's place in Ugborough, I should never have been Bishop in Worcester." He loved to think that his mother's prayers had been answered in the happiest events of his life. And he did not think differently when the happy years came to an end, and years of disgrace and war came in their stead. Those who triumphed in that war drove him from Worcester, but he still felt and said, that all his life had been planned out for him by God:—A. Macleod, D. D.