296 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. VII. 



This gradual enlightenment of mind may clearly be traced 

 within the last two years. Step by step had God been leading 

 him into the wilderness, that there He might plead with him 

 face to face, and now he was not far from the kingdom of 

 heaven. In the estimation of some of his most devoted friends, 

 he was already a child of God ; so great was the change at hand, 

 however, that he always dated the dawn of the new life in his 

 soul, when, with death in view, he was enabled so to realize the 

 mercy of God in Christ Jesus, as to come to Him weary and 

 heavy laden, and enter into that peace which passeth all under- 

 standing. In a letter to a friend not long after this period, he 

 says, "When I was recently struggling in a 'great fight of 

 afflictions/ soul and body racked and anguished, my life hang- 

 ing in the balance, and eternity in prospect, I prayed to God 

 for light and help, and my prayer was heard and answered." 



The week of delay granted by the surgeons passed slowly yet 

 swiftly away. He concealed from the relatives around what 

 was at hand, partly from an unselfish desire to spare them the 

 grief it would cause, and partly from a fear that his resolution 

 might be shaken by witnessing their distress. A small Testa- 

 ment was his constant companion, and every available moment 

 up to the coming of the surgeons was devoted to its perusal. 

 For very life he searched ; like Bunyan's pilgrim, for " life, life, 

 eternal life." 



On the morning of the operation, with a " trembling hope in 

 Christ" in his heart, he performed his toilet with unusual care, 

 in order to disarm the apprehensions of those beside him, in 

 whose hearts an instinctive fear lurked, knowing that the sur- 

 geons were to come that day. However, the ruse was success- 

 ful, and the truth was only revealed to them by the irrepressible 

 cries of agony from the sufferer. In an adjoining room the 

 little group was assembled, and to this very day the scene is as 

 vividly before the eyes of the survivors, and the cries ring as 

 loudly through their hearts, as in that hour of anguish. 



" During the operation," George says, " in spite of the pain 

 it occasioned, my senses were preternaturally acute. I watched 

 all that the surgeons did with a fascinated intensity. Of the 

 agony it occasioned, I will say nothing. Suffering so great as 



