174 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. VII. 



ratory ; to the sofa ; and to bed, where he reposed at his 

 master's feet. While he lay on the sofa at supper-time, 

 Strony (as he was usually called) sat on his hind legs and 

 begged for biscuits ; and puss (a Manx cat) lay on his chest 

 and patted his mouth to coax bread out of it. Their impor- 

 tunities were a pleasure, as expressive of the strength of their 

 love and trust, and his patience with them was exhaustless. 



The summer session of 1844 was opened by a lecture on 

 transmutation, which attracted much attention at the time, 

 owing to its bearing on the new views then under discus- 

 sion. Dr. Chalmers and Lord Jeffrey were amongst the 

 auditors, and with both of them a lasting friendship was 

 the result. The lecture was afterwards published, with 

 some enlargement, in the " Edinburgh New Philosophical 

 Journal," for July 1844, and in it the whole subject of 

 isomeric transmutation is discussed. 



His summer classes occupied three hours daily, besides 

 laboratory duties, so that it is not surprising to find the 

 remark, "I am getting very tired of summer work, and 

 longing for the country. We have as good as settled to 

 return to our old quarters at Morningside. Two ladies, 

 a crow, and one or two cats, are the present inhabitants 

 of the cottage." 



A month previously he had told Dr. Cairns, " I have 

 been baptized by immersion, having satisfied myself that it 

 was the scriptural and most ancient method, and desiring, 

 since I had the choice, to realize as fully as possible in the 

 symbolical rite, the application of such passages as ' buried 

 with Christ in baptism,' &c. But I incline strongly to con- 

 sider the mode unimportant, and to believe that affusion ot 

 water is all that is implied in the idea of baptism. My mind 

 is still quite undecided as to the question of the proper 

 objects of the ordinance, and I look for your assistance in 



