342 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. XI. 



the country. "The hills all round, and even low down, 

 had white mantles yesterday, and some of them are slow to 

 part with them to-day. The only plants that appear to 

 enjoy the weather are the snowdrops, and they come ready- 

 made out of the sky." " Snow, rain, and hail, have appa- 

 rently been recommended change of air, and come here in 

 search of it. The day before yesterday another stranger, 

 High Wind, Esq., whom I never met here before, paid the 

 village a visit, and made a great row ; but he has packed 

 up, and I hear nothing of him to-day. 



" I brought with me an aching arm, which, had it been a 

 leg, I should have declared was suffering from gout. To-day, 

 however, I am better, and the peace and quietness are, as 

 they always do, doing me good." 



At the close of May, in writing to Dr. Cairns, he alludes 

 to, the physical languor felt throughout the previous winter, 

 and adds, " I cannot say that morally I have spent an 

 unhappy or an unprofitable winter. The powers of the 

 world to come draw nearer to me than ever, and stand in a 

 more benignant relation. 



" I have become wondrously indifferent to the praise of 

 men, but increasingly anxious to do my daily work, which 

 is far from unpleasant, honestly, heartily, and earnestly. I 

 would count it no healthy token if I shrank from daily 

 work. Far otherwise, I wish I were ten times stronger and 

 healthier than I am, to do ten times more work in the great 

 Taskmaster's eye. But in spite of many disheartening and 

 even distressing things, and cares, and fears, and sins, I 

 have tasted so largely of the mercies of God ; the all- 

 attractiveness of the blessed Saviour's character, and the 

 perfection of his example, have risen more recently into 

 such prominence before me ; and the sense of a higher 

 presence, enabling me to enter into communion with God, 



