Of Mr Wilson's piety no intimate friend had any doubt ; 

 and yet no friend was so intimate as to know the exact 

 time and circumstances in which that piety originated. 

 On any subject if his feelings could not be surmised, they 

 were not likely to be spoken, and his own religious 

 experience was about the last theme on which his Chris- 

 tian humility, not to say his constitutional delicacy of 

 mind, would have allowed him to expatiate. His love to 

 the Saviour, the deep reverence with which he approached 

 sacred things, his intimate acquaintance with the Word of 

 God, his tenderness of conscience, his meek, gentle, peace- 

 making spirit, were known and read of all men ; but at 

 what period, and through what agencies the amiable man 

 became the still more amiable Christian, is more a matter 

 of inference than a point on which any one can give 

 precise information. 



As already mentioned, from the time when he quitted 

 the writer's office until he had nearly reached his thirtieth 

 year. Mr Wilson contended with weak health and broken 



spirits. Contrasting his own blighted prospects with the 



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