1842 43. ENTERS HALT INTO LIFE. 299 



ment that in the mind of the sufferer all was peace and joy. 

 To the sorrow-stricken mother this was an unspeakable com- 

 fort. " If that be the result," she said, " then all is well." An 

 expression of sympathy with his sufferings made by her, called 

 forth the remark, " Don't regret them ; think how much better 

 off I am than so many in the Infirmary. Besides, I have learned 

 from them to look at things in a new light, which is worth them 

 all." 



From letters of later years we gain further insight into the 

 mental struggles of this season, the more precious, that, being 

 averse to speak much of his inner life, a few earnest words 

 uttered when the deeper emotions were stirred, were all that 

 ever could be obtained. The first extract is from a letter to Dr. 

 Cairns on New Year's Day, 1854 : " There is no day so pain- 

 ful to me to recall as the 1st of January, so far as suffering is 

 concerned. It was on it, eleven years ago, that the disease in 

 my foot reappeared, with the severity which, in a few days 

 thereafter, compelled its loss, and the season always comes back 

 to me as a very solemn one ; yet if, like Jacob, I halt as I walk, 

 I trust that, like him, I came out of that awful wrestling with 

 a blessing I never received before ; and you know that if I were 

 to preach my own funeral sermon, I should prefer to all texts, 

 ' It is better to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be 

 cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched.' " 



And to a young friend he says, in 1847 : "I can profoundly 

 sympathize with your feelings of agitation, agony, and alarm, at 

 finding your strength and health failing, and another world 

 looking closer at hand than it did a short while ago. I have 

 been in this condition, and only passed out of it after a spiritual 

 struggle such as I still feel appalled at gazing back upon. 



" When I was recovering, you can well believe that there 

 were many weary, wretched, sleepless hours, especially during 

 darkness. Particularly dreary was the first waking in the dull 

 grey morning. Despair seemed ready to overwhelm me. It 

 was then I fully realized the unspeakable preciousness of prayer, 

 and that not to an overwhelming mysterious agency such as elec- 

 tricity or gravitation, but to an agent, a person, and he not sepa- 

 rated from me by all that intervenes between God and man ; 



