1842-43- WONDER AND GRATITUDE. 155 



am losing day by day the spectral ghastliness which made 

 me for days look, while sleeping, like a corpse. 



" I have no repentance or repining at the step I took, or 

 the loss I sustained. It pleased God, who speaks to some 

 with the still small voice of gentle persuasion, to address 

 me in the whirlwind and the storm, and to vouchsafe me, 

 in the prospect of sore trial, a calmness, even a serenity and 

 patience which could have been supplied me from no other 

 source. I look back on the last month with wonder and 

 speechless gratitude, and place my reliance for the future 

 on the same mighty arm which wrought my deliverance 

 from past affliction. 



" When you pray to God, let thanksgiving mingle with 

 earnest request that more light, and stronger faith, and 

 greater self-renunciation, and all other needful gifts, may be 

 given to me, still standing on the threshold of Christian 

 experience. 



" It's a strange thought, the idea of your foot dying before 

 the rest of you. Well, I'll find it at the resurrection, or, if 

 not, something better. I have likewise been thinking that 

 my mind or soul must be in a more concentrated con- 

 dition than that of bipeds, seeing that it has &foot less of 

 matter to encumber it. What thinks your lordship ? The 

 receipt for concentration admits of extension ; I am con- 

 tented with the amount in my case. I have no feeling of 

 the want of a foot, and seem still to feel toes, great and 

 small. John Cairns thinks this must arise from a pre- 

 ordained harmony between soul and body ! ! ! Well done, 

 John! 



" All that I have already written has been intended to 

 get up the steam for what I now struggle out with, viz., that 

 if, when you held out those magnificent offers about Boer- 

 haave and Turner, you thought that I would generously 



