196 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. VIII. 



These were printed shortly after in the " Monthly Journal 

 of Medicine," for September 1849, and by their truthful 

 beauty impressed many of Dr. Reid's friends with the con- 

 viction that to their author alone could the preparation of 

 a fit memorial of him be intrusted. With what feelings he 

 responded to their urgent solicitations, we learn from various 

 letters of that period. " I can sincerely say that I have no 

 personal end in view in undertaking the sketch. My hands 

 are full of work, and only the hope of preserving a most 

 estimable man's memory from untimely oblivion, and his 

 character from misconception, would induce me to engage 

 in the task. His death and latter days were believed to 

 have made a profound impression on the profession, one 

 such as no death in my remembrance has made on medical 

 men." " His life was so completely one into which hundreds 

 of medical men can enter, and the example of which, they 

 cannot refuse as lying above and beyond their sympathies, 

 that it commended itself to me as peculiarly deserving to 

 be recorded." The great matter to be illustrated is, "the 

 eminent Christian example which Dr. Reid's later days 

 afforded to all men, but especially his professional brethren, 

 who so much need to be reminded of the claims of Chris- 

 tianity upon them. To dwell upon this would be to myself 

 a labour of love. It has fallen to my own lot to sit by the 

 sickbeds and deathbeds of many near relations and friends, 

 and to have deeply impressed upon me what the power of 

 Christianity is to sustain under protracted suffering and the 

 approach of death. I have more than once been at the 

 brink of the grave myself, and was led to see the need of a 

 Saviour, and to experience that He is mighty to save, at a 

 time when recovery was very doubtful. I have supposed 

 that, in consequence of these things, I could better enter 

 into Dr. Reid's conflicts and triumphs than many could. . . . 



