"In the year 1845, Miss Searle one day called upon me, and spoke to this effect, 'I have been to see the Bishop of Cashel this morning, and I have arranged that you should call upon him. He will give you information about Ireland, which will be of use to you in the Magazine.' Upon a certain morning, soon after, we set out for the Bishop's private hotel, in Jermyn Street. As we were on our way, I said, 'We are going to see this good man, but really I don't know what to say to him.' Scarcely, however, had we been introduced, a peculiarly strange feeling come over me, for which I was altogether unprepared. I felt, in the presence of the Bishop, ... a mellowness in his manner and his conversation which came home to my very heart. Hence, waiving the subject of Ireland, I could not suppress the feeling that prompted me to ask, 'What, my lord, may be your requirements with regard to the ministry? Do you look for a highly-educated man, or do you look for a man with a knowledge of the Word of God, and a knowledge of his own heart?' The Bishop immediately replied, 'I do not look for mere academical knowledge; but, if I see a man has a knowledge of the Word of God and a knowledge of human nature, and appears to be moved by the Spirit of God to the work of the ministry, I should be sorry to throw a stumbling-block in the way of that man, but be proud to be the outward instrument of bringing him forward.' I then told the Bishop that I was engaged in a large way of business in the City, but that for twenty years I had been so exercised about the ministry that my heart was divided. At the same time I told his lordship that I had never seen my way to enter a university. 'How old are you?' said he. 'Four-and-thirty,' was my reply. 'Oh, why put off the work of the Lord for four years? If you were four-and-twenty, it would be another thing. Come over to Ireland and see it. I shall be glad to entertain you at the palace. A man must have a missionary spirit indeed who is willing to go to Ireland. No full churches there. No large congregations there.' 'Well,' said I, 'my lord, I should be willing to go to Ireland, if the Lord were to make the way plain.'"

Being in business and with a young but growing family he felt unable to pursue his desire for the ministry but the Lord in his providence was to open the way for him. In 1846 one of his major clients in the printing business went into liquidation and Doudney was forced out of business. He handed his business to William Hill Collingridge. Within days of this occurring, he received a letter from the Bishop of Cashel inviting him to Templemore in the West of Ireland to serve as a missionary in that area for a trial period of three months, after which he would be ordained as a minister of the gospel.

Ireland, that troublesome country, a country which has been a thorn in the side of the English nation every since one of the two English popes gave that land to the English King. There have only been two English Popes. One taking the title of Pope John XIII, was in reality a woman, also known as Pope Joan who was trampled to death in the streets of Rome by the crowd in a riot which was caused by her giving birth to an illegitimate child. The other English Pope was Nicholas Breakspeare who took the name Adrian IV. He it was who issue a Papal Bull to King Henry II in 1155 for him to subdue that "barbarian nation to the cross of Christ." And since that time successive governments and monarchs have endeavoured to "Subdue" that nation, with very little success. Come with me, then, in your imagination, to the west coast of Ireland.