1844-54- MANY CHANGES. 259 



Need of patience have we all ; 



Only through much tribulation 

 Shall the holiest God doth call 



Pass through their ordained probation, 

 And no longer dread to fall, 



Certain of their soul's salvation. 



Before passing on to new scenes, it will be well to note a 

 few more of the changes which the years we have been con- 

 sidering did not fail to bring. The death of a much-loved 

 aunt, his father's sister, near the close of 185 r, left a sad- 

 ness which was deepened in the following spring by the 

 loss, by marriage, of his youngest sister from the fireside 

 circle. Though his judgment was convinced that he should 

 rejoice with her in the formation of a new circle of home 

 joys, yet somehow his heart never acquiesced in the absence 

 of the "Benjamin" of the household. Shortly after her 

 settlement in England, he quitted the house in Brown 

 Square, after eight memorable years spent in it^ removing to 

 a large and commodious laboratory, and becoming a resi- 

 dent, along with his mother and sister Jessie, with his uncle, 

 in a house built by the latter, in a pleasant suburb of 

 Edinburgh. Here the remainder of his life was happily 

 spent, amidst much to gratify his love for the simple and 

 the beautiful. " Elm Cottage " is now inseparably associated 

 in the minds of many with thoughts of him. The name 

 was chosen, on account of the elm trees beside it, by his 

 brother Daniel, who had scarcely taken possession of one- 

 half of the house (it is a double dwelling), before an 

 appointment to a professorship in Canada carried him and 

 his household far from their native soil. Not long after he 

 left, Alexander Russell, his cousin, settled in Australia with 

 his household, so that of the large circle with which George 

 Wilson was surrounded in our first chapter, only two now 

 remained beside him. All these were changes which left 



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