328 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. XI. 



To Dr. Cairns he writes, after returning to town : 

 " Greatly did I desire to see you, greatly wish to have a 

 long, long talk about heaven and earth, the world that is, 

 and the world that is to be. ... Come to see us as soon 

 as you can, and give me the benefit of a long Christian 

 gossip with you. The way of life grows, blessed be God, 

 clearer and clearer to me, and I know Christ better and 

 better, though there is much darkness and despondency 

 still, and weak faith, and downright sin. But I am thankful 

 for much light and peace, and hope for more." 



The introductory lecture on Technology for 1858-9 has 

 been published, under the title 'The Progress of the Tele- 

 graph.' l Under what circumstances the session was opened, 

 a letter to his brother Daniel, of date November 25, ex- 

 plains : 



" Lest to-morrow should prove, like all recent Fridays for 

 a long time back, a letterless day, I take a sheet of paper 

 into bed with me and begin an epistle. ... In spite, as 

 seemed, of all needful rustication, I was threatened on the 

 very eve of beginning this winter's course with erysipelas in 

 the legs, and had to spend the day before opening in bed. 

 I was induced to think that I might require to borrow the 

 deceased Peggy Brown's lapidary inscription, with the due 

 change of gender : 



* She had two bad legs and a baddish cough, 

 But the legs it was that carried her off. ' 



The legs got better, but by way of mending the cough, I 

 contrived, forgetting as I always do that I am a damaged 

 locomotive, to fall upon the corner of a thick board, and hit 

 my side such a thump that I thought I had broken a rib. 

 However, it was not fractured, though it has ached and 

 1 Macmillan & Co. 1859. 



