1850. PHYSICAL WEAKNESS. 433 



matter on which God has not given me a decisive or preponder- 

 ating answer in the negative, and feeling that I do not deserve 

 (as a profitable servant) to die, and further despising the moral 

 cowardice of shrinking from work, I am studying and labouring 

 cheerfully as one who may live and must not cumber the ground. 

 ... In reality, the other world and the shadow of death have 

 been in my thoughts since I remember. Often formerly as 

 much as now, have they been uppermost. Do not, therefore, 

 think me given over to unusual or unworthy sorrow." 



To a fellow-invalid like Daniel Macmillan, he confesses more 

 freely in June to being " very languid, weary, and unfit for work 

 of all kinds. To write even this letter is an effort, and I feel as 

 if to lie down and sleep were the only thing worth doing. I have 

 often been as ill before ; but like you, I feel that some time must 

 be the last, and I often faithlessly and selfishly wish it had come. 



" If I go out of town this autumn it will be to some place 

 near at hand, where I can be quite at rest, and lounge idly back 

 into vigour again. This long cold spring has put its mark upon 

 me, and I slowly find myself burning nearer to the socket. . . . 

 I have no hope of being in Cambridge this year. I am not well 

 enough to travel willingly, and have no prospect of being com- 

 pelled to go south, though perhaps I may be." 



From Melrose, whither he retired for six weeks in autumn, 

 he writes to his brother Daniel, " The weather has not been 

 propitious, yet I have contrived to spend a great deal of time in 

 the open air. and have profited by it. ... The last three months, 

 up to the close of July, were spent in almost continual physical 

 uneasiness, rising often to pain ; and that is not pleasant. But 

 as I now am, I should be very, very ungrateful to the Giver of 

 all good gifts, if I made great complaint, and the future I leave 

 with Him. I enjoy the quiet, and on a Sabbath like this, can 

 meditate on that great world beyond the grave towards which 

 I perceptibly approach nearer and nearer each summer in a 

 way I cannot do in the whirl of town life." 



While at Melrose, he prepared for the press what has been 

 unquestionably the most popular of his writings, " The Five 

 Gateways of Knowledge. " l It " was written to help a Sunday 



1 Macmillan and Co., Cambridge. 

 2 E 



