50 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. III. 



clinging to life, the reader will easily surmise. Catherine 

 was the second oldest of the cousins, and was loved as 

 a sister. Her illness was of long continuance, as will be 

 seen from references in future letters. Truly the clouds 

 returned after the rain in this household, and the stern 

 monitor, affliction, seemed commissioned to take up her 

 abode in it, and teach, for many years to come, lessons 

 hard to be learned. 



" I read, with very great pleasure and sympathy, of your 

 kneeling at the altar of St. Paul's. I cannot understand the 

 religion which mingles not with every act and feeling, or 

 conceive of those who dismiss God with the morning and 

 evening prayer, as too pure and holy for the affairs of this 

 busy world. The busy world may perhaps be the scene 

 of many actions where God could not be invoked as the 

 spectator or disposer of what was just or good, but * an 

 undevout anatomist,' Dr. Fletcher says, ' is a maniac ; ' and 

 while perhaps the chemist has less powerfully than the ana- 

 tomist the incitements to devotion, yet must he study his 

 subject in a wrong way if he find them not. I have no 

 altar to kneel at but my own bedside, where I have often 

 prayed to God for you ; but there I have prayed for success 

 in my endeavours, and there, should God grant me the 

 honour of going deeper into His laws than others, I would 

 pour forth my sincere thanks and gratitude. I found a 

 strange verse in reading over the Psalms. I have not now 

 time to look for the exact place, but it was to this effect, 

 that he who obeys God ' shall have the desire of his own 

 heart' Do look at the passage. I think it is in the early 

 Psalms ; but of course to love God should be the primary 

 feeling, though the secondary ' desire ' will in our minds too 

 often supplant it. ... 



"You say the folks ask if I'm coming to town.. I think 



