later joined the Presbyterian church in 1798. By age 14 Robert left school and was apprenticed to his father's business. For a couple of years he kept company in disregard of his Christian upbringing and fell occasionally into drunkenness. However, this behavior soon ended. In Robert's own words When Morrison was at work at his father's business he was employed at manual labour for twelve or fourteen hours a day; yet he seldom omitted to find time for one or two hours of reading and meditation. He read and re-read frequently those few books he was able to obtain. The diary, which he began to keep very early in his life, shows that he did much self-introspection; his earnestness was clearly intense, and his sense of his own shortcomings continued to be remarkably vivid. Soon he wanted to become a missionary and in 1801, he started learning Latin, Greek Hebrew as well as systematic theology and shorthand from the Rev. W. Laidler, a Presbyterian minister in Newcastle, but his parents were opposed to his new vocation. During this period, Robert often spent free time in the garden in quiet meditation and prayer. At work, the Bible or some other book such as Matthew Henry's Commentary was open before him while his hands were busy. He regularly attended church on Sundays, visited the sick with the "Friendless Poor and Sick Society", and in his spare time during the week instructed poor children. He shared his faith in Christ with another young apprentice and to a sailor, showing a deep concern for the conversion of friends and family. On 7 January 1803 he entered the Hoxton Academy in London and was trained as Congregationalist minister. He visited the poor and sick and preached in the villages around London. By the age of 17 Morrison had been moved reading about the new missionary movement in The Evangelical Magazine and The Missionary Magazine. However, he had promised his mother he would not go abroad so long as she lived and was present to care for her during her last illness, when he received her blessing to proceed. Preparing to be a missionary After his mother's death in 1804, he joined the London Missionary Society. He had applied to the Society in a letter dated 27 May 1804, offering himself for missionary service. The next day he was interviewed by the board and accepted at