1858. EVENINGS IN BED. 461 



sing he says : " I was greatly delighted and comforted. Music 

 is an amazing thing even upon this earth, what must it be in 

 heaven ? " On first hearing the Messiah in Exeter Hall, its 

 effect was so overpowering that he could scarcely stagger out of 

 the place. 



But now these pleasures had to be foregone, and the evening 

 spent in bed, where, surrounded by books and writing materials, 

 he carried on his literary work for five or six hours consecu- 

 tively. Special calls were attended to as before, but all avail- 

 able time was spent in a recumbent posture, with application of 

 lotions. At the close of December he tells his brother : " I 

 have 110 news to send you of a stirring sort. The winter hitherto 

 has been more than ordinarily monotonous : much of it spent 

 in bed, and much of it in doing work with an effort. This 

 morning I am somewhat seedy, in consequence of an hour and 

 three-quarters' lecture last night at Leith. 



" I was induced to give it to help the funds of a Free Church, 

 presided over by one of those pre-eminently good and lovable 

 men, to whom less good and lovable people cannot say No, and 

 who should be taken periodically before a magistrate and 

 cautioned against asking favours from their brethren. Return- 

 ing from this lecture I speculated, as I suppose you do on such 

 occasions, as to the good such prelections do. In this case I 

 had the comfort of knowing that I had helped to raise 50 for 

 the cause a consolation seldom to be had. The ordinary result 

 I take to be such as was experienced by a young minister 

 lecturing on astronomy in the south country to an audience of 

 shepherds, etc. He had dilated pretty largely on the immense 

 distances which separate the heavenly bodies from each other, 

 and when his lecture was over, a friend heard two of the shep- 

 herds discussing its merits : ' Jock ! d'ye believe a' the minister 

 said ? ' To which Jock replies (more Scotticd), ' Div ye ? ' and 

 Tam emphatically answers, ' No ae word ! ' 



" I am going off to Bridge of Allan for three or four days 

 next week, in hope that it will set me up a bit, and enable me 

 to work with less sense of oppressive dulness than has been the 

 case hitherto." 



