388 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. IX. 



bably two- thirds, at least one-half, of the cases of fatal illness, 

 before alarm is felt, pain or what is far worse, unless the 

 agony be tremendous, sickness has prostrated the intellect, 

 and clogged or maddened every emotion. Consecutive thought 

 is impossible ; meditation, reflection, or even distinct apprehen- 

 sion, greatly weakened ; often out of the question. Who dare 

 expect in such circumstances that the long-despised mercy of 

 God shall be experienced, when the very power to listen to a 

 verse of the Bible, or to understand it, is gone, and memory is 

 palsied ; or, worst of all, has no promise to remember, or one 

 stay or rock of strength to fall back upon ? God's mercy is in- 

 finite, and reacheth to the eleventh hour, and is often glorified 

 and manifested at it. Yet, beseech your young people to commit, 

 commit, commit to memory the Bible. They'll find the precious 

 comfort of it when sickness comes. And the elders will see that 

 the ' hope set before them ' is so realized in health that it shall 

 only require to be ' laid hold of ' when sickness comes. To 

 attain unto this is to be, with the Holy Spirit's help, far more 

 the great object of my life than it has hitherto been. The re- 

 view of the last three weeks shows such abounding mercies, 

 favours, love my cup literally running over with them that 

 the pain, disappointment, fear, and discomfort, have passed 

 into the background already, desponder though I am." A 

 year later he tells the same friend : " I am leading the very 

 quietest of lives, and yet it is as happy as when I was busier. 

 I am broken in to an indoor existence, and do not feel that 

 trouble in getting through the day that active men must feel 

 when first reduced to draw coal waggons at a mile an hour, 

 instead of being special engines at a mile a minute. And 

 though I have no progress to report in the way of bettered 

 health, but the opposite, and begin seriously to contemplate 

 the great possibility of having to submit to an ugly operation, 

 yet the pain I suffer is quite bearable, my intellect is clear, and 

 there are many more mercies than miseries in niy cup. Do not 

 whisper or hint to any one about the possibility of an operation 

 being necessaiy. It might reach the folks here and terribly 

 distress them. The thing may not be necessary, and need not 

 therefore be talked about. I speak of it to you that you may 



