328 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. VIII. 



for these lectures compelled the thought that this was work 

 specially done for the unseen Master. The last of these appear- 

 ances in the summer of 1859, is now thought of with the interest 

 that clings to such unconscious farewells. To Dr. Cairns he 

 sent the following report of it : " A few nights ago the young 

 women at it [a Bible class] were invited to a festival, where tea, 

 strawberries, and a lecture on light, got up, 'regardless of 

 expense/ with specimens, balloons, blue lights, and what not, 

 were furnished. A well-known ' Prestidigitateur' took charge 

 of the ' spectacle,' and the whole affair was a great success. 

 Some liked the tea, and some the pictures : some the straw- 

 berries, and some the balloon. A few 'general hearers' liked 



everything I took more trouble with the fete than I have 



done with almost anything, and rejoiced much in its successful- 

 ness. May the omen be blessed ! May He, for whose sake the 

 work was done to interest the little ones of His flock, feed me 

 and lead me as one of His sheep once far astray, but now 

 admitted by the door into the true fold S" 



In 1852 he speaks of a similar occasion to his friend Mr. 

 Charles Tomlinson. " I am much interested in your Vauxhall 

 doings. 1 I know how pleasant such work is. I had more 

 pleasure in two lectures (on the Chemistry of a Candle), to two 

 ragged schools this winter than in most of my other lectures. 

 At one of them a very excellent dissenting minister, 2 who is the 

 mainspring of a most beneficent system, came up to me before 

 the lecture commenced, and said apologetically, ' We generally 

 begin with prayer ; have you any objection to our doing so 

 now ?' I at once said, ' No ;' and he offered up (what Scotch 

 prayers on such occasions are not always) a brief, expressive, 

 singularly appropriate prayer, in which he prayed for me as a 

 chemist. I cannot tell you how I was touched. I said in my 

 secret heart, Til give him another lecture for that.' We 

 chemists are generally held to be men who, provided we can 

 tell ink from blacking when asked, do not require moral char- 



1 The reference here is to a lecture given by Mr. Tomlinson, to supplement the 

 benevolent labours of the Messrs. Wilson, in the Belmont Candle Works, on behalf 

 of those employed by them. 



2 The Rev. James Trench. See Cairns's ' Memoir of John Brown, D.D.,' p. 262. 



