1844 54. RETROSPECTION. 389 



know my stand-point, which I cannot explain to many people, 

 who wonder they do not see me at church, although they know 

 that I am able to lecture. 



" I turn from the self-magnifying morbid introversions of an 

 invalid, to something much safer for me, and more interesting 

 to both of us. I think I have been able to live nearer to God 

 during the last three months than I have ever done before. 

 He has granted me a greater share of faith and patience than I 

 have enjoyed previously ; a deeper sense of brotherhood with 

 Christ Jesus, and of communion with the good Spirit. I am 

 graver than I have often been, but I have a joy and peace in 

 believing, which I would not exchange for the lightness of 

 spirits that has often fallen to my share." 



" March 1850. 



" I have been in the house all to-day and yesterday, confined 

 with a cold which this ungenial weather was certain to distri- 

 bute to me among its other recipients, as one sure to give it 

 suitable accommodation and some days' lodging. I have only 

 once been absent from church this winter, a great cause of 

 thankfulness ; and my health in general has been very fair this 

 year. . . . 



" You tell me I show less vivacity than I once did, and you 

 are not wrong ; but the change noway discontents me. The last 

 two years have greatly sobered me, and my life between twenty 

 and thirty seems now to me a scarcely intelligible and very 

 sorry drama, to be repented and made better without any delay. 

 I met this day-week a lady whom I have not seen since I was 

 some seventeen, nor was there anything to bridge over the long 

 space between our two meetings. It has set me to meditate a 

 great deal, this glimpse of myself at seventeen, with all that 

 filled the years onwards to thirty-two obliterated ; and I realize 

 better than I might otherwise have done, what a changed being 

 I am. I lament not the loss of my vivacity, for I had more 

 than enough of that volatile ingredient, and can well afford to 

 let some of it evaporate. One thing, however, does alarm me, 

 the fear, namely, lest I should settle down into a sombre, prosaic 

 mortal, leading a dawdling, semi-valetudinarian, coddling life, 



