500 MEMOIK OF GEOKGE WILSON. CHAP. XII. 



centre of all this stir. We can only understand it by listening 

 to these words : " Them that honour me, I will honour." Now 

 that they have come close to the gate, the procession is inverted, 

 those in front falling back and lining the road, while the hearse 

 passes up the centre, and the relatives immediately follow. 

 During the short period spent within the walls, the overpower- 

 ing grief of the mourners passes beyond bounds. But this 

 last putting to sleep does not take long, and he soon lies with 

 his twin-brother and the many dearly-loved ones there before 

 him. " The heavens waited just till they covered him in, and 

 then wept a quick cold shower, which cleared off, and the new 

 moon lighted up the west." The private mourners left the 

 burial-ground while the remainder of the procession was still 

 passing in. " The grave is the great laboratory, whence alone 

 the incorruptible, glorious, powerful, spiritual product of the 

 Eesurrection can emerge. Death is the gate of life. Let us see 

 those we love borne through it without dismay, since they go 

 in the train of Christ, and come forth from the temporary shade 

 in the brightness and splendour of their Divine leader." 1 



To the relatives in distant lands those tokens of love came 

 with soothing power. Speaking of the multitude who thus 

 gave unmistakable evidence of affection, his cousin in Australia 

 writes : " God bless all their warm hearts ! " And his brother 

 Daniel says : " It is not a light thing now to remember that 

 one whose years of public life have been so few, and even these 

 encroached on by the ever- increasing impediments of failing 

 health, has been laid in his grave amid demonstrations of public 

 sorrow such as have rarely indeed been accorded, in that native 

 city of his, to Edinburgh's greatest men." 2 " There was some- 

 thing rare and touching in the homage with which Edinburgh 

 the least demonstrative of cities followed him to the grave." 3 



Over his resting-place there has been raised, by his uncle, an 

 antique cross, harmonizing with that he suggested for his cousin 

 James Eussell. The two stand side by side, alike but different. 

 It is twelve feet in height, and bears the inscription : 



1 From unpublished Sermon on 1st Corinthians xv., by the Rev. Dr. Cairns. 



* ' Canadian Journal/ March 1860. 



3 ' Macmillan's Magazine,' January 1860. 



