148 LIFE OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. VII. 



that the disease would take a favourable turn in the 

 interval, or that the anticipated horrors of the operation 

 would become less appalling by reflection upon them, but 

 simply because it was so probable that the operation would 

 be followed by a fatal issue, that I wished to prepare for 

 death and what lies beyond it, whilst my faculties were 

 clear and my emotions comparatively undisturbed, for I 

 knew well that if the operation were speedily followed by 

 death, I should be in a condition in the last degree un- 

 favourable to making preparation for the great change." 

 The week of delay granted by the surgeons passed slowly 

 yet swiftly away. He concealed from the relatives around 

 what was at hand, partly from an unselfish desire to spare 

 them the grief it would cause, and partly from a fear that 

 his resolution might be shaken by witnessing their distress. 

 At this time he felt himself brought face to face with 

 death. He was not one to stand back from it in a cowardly 

 spirit, but he was too thoughtful and earnest not to be 

 awed and solemnized by such a position. He spent the 

 week previous to the operation in quiet but deep medi- 

 tation as to his fitness for entering upon that unseen world, 

 then brought so near to him. A small copy of the New 

 Testament was his constant companion, and every available 

 moment up to the coming of the surgeons, was devoted to 

 its perusal. In our narrative evidences of his interest in 

 religion from boyhood onwards have not been wanting. A 

 consciousness that life, even with highest intellectual de- 

 velopment, is imperfect without a living relation to God, 

 seems to have been present even in his most ardent long- 

 ings after success in scientific pursuits : and a groping after 

 Him is perceptible in several letters. Nevertheless, that one 

 thing was yet wanting in George Wilson's life, he himself 

 freely acknowledged. Not yet had a living faith in God been 



