172 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. VII. 



beside the watchful sceptics I am among. I could write to 

 you whole reams ; fortunately for you, the paper is done." 



To a sister : " We buried dear James yesterday in that 

 beautiful churchyard.' Young trees were budding out, and 

 the grass wearing the bright green of spring, as if to show us 

 how many earthly symbols there are of the ' Resurrection 

 and the Life/ Alick is anxious to have a stone raised over 

 his and Catherine's grave. He got a design of an obelisk, 

 with an urn on the top, which I strongly objected to, and 

 recommended in its place a cross, like those which fill the 

 German churchyards. He was afraid of being suspected of 

 Puseyism, but I smile at that. A cross is a precious Pro- 

 testant symbol, apart from the follies of Puseyite or Papist. 

 It is in our hearts, however, that his memory must be pre- 

 served, and assuredly it will be. 



" How much I miss, and shall miss him, I have scarcely 

 dared to think. . . .When I recall his sensitive spirit, how- 

 ever, and how little relish he had for even the most engross- 

 ing subjects of this earth, I feel how justly we can say of 

 him, that he was * taken away from the evil to come.' " 

 And six years later he says, "If I often feel that a fine 

 ethereal genius like his would have done much to exalt and 

 refine my nature, had we lived together, yet life was to him 

 such a bitter, dreary wilderness, that I could not wish him 

 back, whatever might be the gain to me. To die and be 

 with Christ, was for him, above all my lost ones, far better 

 than any career of earthly life could have been." 



The purpose of erecting a cross on the grave was carried 



out, and on it may be seen the names of brother and sister, 



I dying at the same age (twenty-one), in the same month (with 



an interval of five years), and of the same disease. Jt was 



