After graduation, he studied law in London, but the spiritual crisis of his conversion occurred at Richmond, Surrey when he was just about to become a lawyer.

He became a member of the Church Missionary Society in 1875, and after a year's training at Islington he was ordained at St. Paul's Cathedral on Trinity Sunday 1876, together with Rev.

Shortly afterwards Robert Stewart married Louisa Katherine Smyly and the couple set out for China with Rev.

[2] Their educational work, however, was interrupted by the Wu-shih-shan Case of 1878, which resulted in the burning down of the Theological College and the expulsion of the English Mission from the city proper.

Committee to accompany Eugene Stock on his Australian tour, after which he visited India and returned to China via Canada fully restored in the autumn of 1893.