292 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. X. 



day, and reproached me with unfriendliness, ingratitude, 

 shame/m, shame/}// conduct, indifference, cold-heartedness, 

 selfishness, unbrotherliness, and deliberate wickedness : and 

 not a monkey has answered the advertisement, or supplied 

 even a stupid letter." 



At the close of January he tells his cousin Alick : " I 

 was preaching a sermon last Thursday evening to the 

 medical students in connexion with the Medical Missionary 

 Society, and rejoiced to find I had courage given me to 

 speak boldly (oh ! I trust, convincingly also) in the name 

 of Christ. Nearer to Him ! nearer to Him ! is my daily 

 prayer. ... I am going to slave less, and now only help 

 religious meetings, or strictly professional ones. My respon- 

 sibility is much greater than before ; my physical fatigue, 

 however, will be less. I live from day to day, feeling no 

 hold upon life, but happy many times, and for long hours, 

 although my temperament is not one which even the 

 choicest mercies could rob of its native inquietude and 

 sensitiveness. But all is well. I have great holes in my 

 heart, and dreary voids in my affections ; but on this side 

 the grave they cannot be filled, and I will work as hard as 

 I can till the manumission comes." 



He writes to his brother a month later : " I am always 

 vexed to see a Friday pass without a letter from me to you ; 

 but I am often hard pressed, and since Christmas the 

 weather has been a succession of rain, and east winds, and 

 sudden frosts, which have engaged me in a battle from 

 which I have come off but partially victorious. I am prac- 

 tising saying No, and improving in the utterance ; but I am 

 still far from perfect, and I suffer in consequence. I re- 

 solved at the beginning of the winter to give four free 

 lectures, and no more, and to give them to the first who 

 asked them. Dr. Brown's Ragged Kirk got" one ; Dr. 



