1844-54 '" HIS DEEP HUMILITY. 207 



surely must be something of the hypocrite in him, or 

 people would not esteem him so much better than he 

 deserved. " I cannot but painfully contrast," he writes to 

 a friend, " my own poor deservings with your estimate of 

 my worth ; a little praise is all that is good for me, and 

 I get frightened when I have much of it. I shall try to 

 deserve your good opinion, and that of your kind friends." 

 This grace of humility, doubtless, cast a charm over all 

 his acts, and in it somewhat of the secret of influence may 

 be found. 



Evidence has already been afforded of the new principle 

 by which George Wilson's life became actuated after his ill- 

 ness of 1843. It would be impossible, however, to give 

 to those who never came in contact with him any adequate 

 impression of the extent to which his whole life was influenced 

 by his religion. After the date above mentioned, it may be 

 said that an unseen world was never altogether absent 

 from his thoughts. It was obvious to those who lived with 

 him, that it was a life-long aim to cast away whatever 

 hindered the progress of true spiritual life ; and few can 

 guess how religion purified and ennobled what was already 

 in him of goodness and beauty. In all suffering, and 

 work, and intercourse with others, it was clear that the 

 Christianity by which he was influenced was something 

 which strengthened him for his actual life ; and thus was 

 he ever steadily increasing in sympathy with," and striving 

 towards, that which can be fully realized only in another 

 world. 



One thing is to be noted of him as exceedingly charac- 

 teristic. It was only at rare intervals that he ever spoke 

 to others of that which thus exerted so mighty an influence 

 upon himself. Nothing was more distasteful to him than 



