260 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



at a variety of institutes and public rooms. He recovered 

 his usual condition of health before the close of the year, 

 and 1856 seemed to dawn upon his wife and himself 

 with a more than common promise of happiness and 

 peace. Emily Gosse had begun to undertake a species of 

 religious work, in which she was to achieve a singular 

 success. In the autumn of 1855 was published the Young 

 Guardsman of the Alma, a Gospel Tract issued in leaflet 

 form by the Weekly Tract Society, and founded on an 

 incident of the Crimean War personally known to the 

 writer. She had already printed six of these leaflets, and 

 the enormous demand for this particular one led her to 

 concentrate her attention, during the brief remainder of her 

 life, upon this species of composition. Forty-one of these 

 tracts were published in all, collected after her death in a 

 general volume. It has been stated that not less than 

 half a million copies of these Gospel Tracts of hers were 

 circulated, and they have been spread to the remotest 

 corners of the globe, effecting, as one cannot question, no 

 small benefit by their pious candour and their direct 

 appeal to the unawakened conscience. 



My own memories of her during this winter of 1855-56, 

 the last which we were to spend together in peace, are 

 vivid enough. I specially recollect sitting on a Sunday 

 morning upon a cushion at her knees, one of her long, 

 veined hands resting upon mine, to learn a chapter of the 

 Gospel of St. Matthew by heart ; and, while her soft voice 

 read out the sacred verses, suddenly seeing something in 

 her large eyes and wasted features, which gave me a pre- 

 monition that I should lose her. Most clearly I recall the 

 terror of it, the unexpressed anguish. It is the more 

 strange, because I am sure that this was in the winter, 

 and before any one had guessed that she was stricken with 

 mortal disease. 



