As showing the force of these convictions, we may quote another letter, written to Dr. Anderson when on the point of departure:--
“I have now reached that height that I can behold the tumults of nations with indifference, confident that the reins of events are in our Father’s hands. May you and I (not like the stubborn mule, but like the weaning child) obey His hand, that after all the troubles of this dark world in which we are truly strangers, we may, through the wonders of atonement, reach a far greater and exceeding weight of glory. I wish you may be able to look upon the day of your departure with the same resignation that I do on mine. My hope is now approaching to a certainty. If I be deceived, may God alone put me right, for I would rather die in the delusion than wake to all the joys of earth. May the Holy Spirit dwell for ever in your heart, my dear friend, and if I never see my native land again, may I rather see the green sod on your grave than see you anything but a Christian.”
Nothing noteworthy marked this voyage to Sumatra, but his stay there was by no means wasted time, since it afforded him an excellent opportunity of indulging his scientific tastes, not as the collector merely, but also and chiefly as the accurate observer.
A paper in the Linnean Transactions on eight new fishes from Sumatra is sufficient evidence both of his industry and of his scientific attainments.
Park returned to England after a year’s absence, and was now ripe for the work in store for him. It nowhere appears that so far he had even once thought of Africa as a possible field for his ambition and energies. His natural temperament, however, had been a fertile soil for the romantic ideas which his early environment had planted. His medical education had further fitted him for the work of exploration, besides bringing him more sympathetically in contact with his botanical brother-in-law, who again was to bring him within the sphere of influence of Sir Joseph Banks, and through him of the African Association. Following these various determining influences came the first taste of travel, the wider experience, and the knowledge of the good and evil of the wanderer’s life. All that remained wanting was the golden opportunity to prove in action his potential capacity for heroic service in the fields of geographical research.