Writing of these days many years later, when as
a Minister of the Crown he was in attendance upon her Majesty at
Balmoral, he says: "I thought my life was aimless, purposeless, and I
wanted something else to do; but events compelled me to what promised
to be a dull life and a useless one: the result is that few men have
had more interesting work to do".
In his earlier years W.H. Smith made a list of subjects for daily
prayer, embracing repentance, faith, love, grace to help, gratitude,
power to pray, constant direction in all things, a right understanding
of the Bible, deliverance from besetting sin, constancy in God's
service, relatives and friends, missionaries, pardon for all ignorance
and sin in prayer, etc., etc.; and it was one of the characteristics
of his nature that he felt prayer both in youth and age to be _a
necessity_.
It was a busy life in which Smith was launched at the commencement of
his career.
His father had already laid the foundation of the newsagency business
which is now of world-wide fame. Every week-day morning, summer and
winter, throughout the year, sunshine or rain, fog or snow, father
and son left their home for the business house in the Strand, at four
o'clock.
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