426 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. X. 



shameful conduct, indifference, cold-heartedness, selfishness, 

 unbrotherliness, and deliberate wickedness : and not a monkey 

 lias answered the advertisement, or supplied even a stupid 

 letter." 



At the close of January he tells his cousin Alick : "I was 

 preaching a sermon last Thursday evening to the medical stu- 

 dents in connexion with the Medical Missionary Society, and 

 rejoiced to find I had courage given me to speak boldly (oh ! I 

 trust, convincingly also) in the name of Christ. Nearer to Him ! 

 nearer to Him ! is my daily prayer. ... I am going to slave 

 less, and now only help religious meetings, or strictly profes- 

 sional ones. My responsibility is much greater than before; 

 my physical fatigue, however, will be less. I live from day to 

 day, feeling no hold upon life, but happy many times, and for 

 long hours, although my temperament is not one which even 

 the choicest mercies could rob of its native inquietude and sen- 

 sitiveness. But all is well. I have great holes in my heart,- 

 and dreary voids in my affections ; but on this side the grave 

 they cannot be filled, and I will work as hard as I can till the 

 manumission comes." 



He writes to his brother a month later : " I am always vexed 

 to see a Friday pass without a letter from me to you ; but I am 

 often hard pressed, and since Christmas the weather has been a 

 succession of rain, and east winds, and sudden frosts, which have 

 engaged me in a battle from which I have come off but partially 

 victorious. I am practising saying No, and improving in the 

 utterance ; but I am still far from perfect, and I suffer in con- 

 sequence. I resolved at the beginning of the winter to give 

 four free lectures, and no more, and to give them to the first 

 who asked them. Dr. Brown's Ragged Kirk got one ; Dr. 

 Chalmers' Territorial Kirk got another ; the medical students a 

 written lecture, under the auspices of the Missionary Society ; 

 and I made a speech for the Medical Missionary Society. Un- 

 fortunately, however, three of these fell on last week, and I had 

 to sit in one of the Ragged Kirks without a fire for an hour on 

 the pulpit steps, the fruit of all which has been a slight attack 

 of haemoptysis, now, however, passing away. 



" Besides these lectures, I have had three on Technology, 



