I844-54- LETTERS TO INVALIDS. 209 



employed hitherto, or I shall truly be an unprofitable 

 servant." 



"December, 1847. 



" I have found out a means of doing good, that I hope 

 God will bless. I discovered recently that sick people, 

 who will not stand a word of religious advice from their 

 neighbours in health, are more ready to listen to another 

 sick man like me. You will think I have been very late in 

 making so notable a discovery. Never mind that ; one of 

 my pupils of a former year, a remarkably acute, hard- 

 headed, and self-reliant lad, has recently passed into one of 

 the latest stages of a hopeless disease. Knowing that his 

 family, though in intellectualities much above the average, 

 in so far as religious knowledge is concerned, were little 

 likely to make known to the lad how soon he must go 

 to meet God, I cast about for means of getting at my old 

 pupil. His father was in town, and promised to call on 

 me, but was prevented. I intended, had he done so, to 

 have asked his permission to write to his son, but it was a 

 formidable business to do so by a formal letter. Behold, 

 however, the mercy of God, and his answer to the prayer 

 of a servant who had been asking Him for work ! Whilst 

 I was resolving and hesitating to write, a letter came from 

 the lad himself, asking me to write to him occasionally, as 

 it would be a kindness. I replied at once, and found him 

 glad to have the ice broken in respect to his spiritual state. 

 An exacerbation of his illness has turned all his thoughts 

 towards another world, and now he sadly beseeches me to 

 write as often as I can." 



In the same year he apologizes for the non-appearance 

 of a hymn : " It, and all other rhymical work, have been 

 stopped by a painful but pleasing occupation, which has 

 taken up the quiet hours of the Sabbath. A young lady of 



