238 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. IX. 



on awaking myself, rising at seven, shaving with cold water, 

 looking out clean shirts and collars, and other painful and 

 harassing duties. You will too plainly see that the power 

 of continuous thinking is gone, and that the mind wanders 

 distressingly." 



While in London in 1854, giving evidence before a Com- 

 mittee of the House of Commons, the death of his cousin, 

 John Russell, after a lingering illness, made him hasten 

 home, as once before, in 1839, to be present at the last 

 services of love. " For all this whirling and night travel- 

 ling I was to pay. The sleeping volcano in my lungs was 

 roused from its slumbers, and the day after my return saw 

 me prostrate in bed, with a sharp febrile attack, headache, 

 semi- delirium, and cough. Rest, starvation, and a big 

 blister, soothed the volcano to its old condition of mere 

 muttering." 



" My work in London," he tells his kind hostess, Mrs. J. 

 H. Gladstone, "which I expected to be a mere whirl of 

 business, turned out not only a work of great pleasure, but 

 a period of religious refreshment such as I have not enjoyed 

 for a very long time, and the illness I have had has deepened 

 this, for though it was not severe, it was sufficient to remind 

 me afresh how feeble my hold upon life is, and how ready 

 I should be for the great change. Blessed things, too, are 

 taught us in illness, such as health cannot teach, and I have 

 risen from my sick-bed with a subdued and grateful heart, 

 praying to be taught to serve Christ more and better. . . . 

 I felt it a great privilege to get back to church to-day ; to 

 hear again my own dear minister's pleasant voice ; to hear 

 our own folks sing (and famously too) our beautiful hymns, 

 and to join in the commemoration of the death of my 

 blessed Lord and Saviour." "It is a comfort..! rarely 



