502 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. XTI. 



the very heart of the city, complete seclusion is attained, and 

 one may echo his words : " to be wi' Eichie !" l 



As early as 1847 we find anticipations in his mind of the 

 time when for him earthly things should have ceased. " My 

 dear D.," he writes, "had it pleased God to grant us bodily 

 health, I venture to say that we should both have done some- 

 thing to help forward the great cause of science, and have 

 earned the love and respect of our fellow-men. But it is plain, 

 from the wasting illness that God has sent us, that He does not 

 need us as expositors of the laws He, the great Chemist, has 

 imposed upon His own universe. Neither you nor I, in all 

 human probability, will be long left to study earthly chemistry. 

 We shall soon, very soon, I anticipate, be called away from seeing 

 all things through a glass darkly, to meet God face to face, and 

 shall have to answer to Him for the deeds done in the body. 

 We should certainly exhibit the most inordinate vanity if we 

 thought that the great mass of our fellow-men would be losers 

 by our being swept off this great chess-board of a world. This 

 board, indeed, is always so crowded, that, with the exception of 

 our attached relatives and a few friends, the greater number of 

 our neighbours will be glad to know that our being cleared 

 away has left more elbow-room. Think how soon the world gets 

 over the death of a Chalmers or an O'Connell, and let us be con- 

 tent that the place that knew us once shall know us no more." 



Those who were in George Street, Edinburgh, about mid- day 

 on the Sabbath following the funeral would have been tempted 

 to say that such forgetfulness of him could never be. Long 

 before the hour for afternoon service crowds were pressing into 

 the Music Hall, where a funeral sermon was to be delivered by 

 Dr. Alexander. The place was chosen for its size, but a hall 

 three times as large would have been required to admit all who 

 desired entrance. 



From the words, " I heard a voice from heaven saying unto 

 me, Write, blessed are the dead that die in the Lord," occasion 

 was taken to point to the hopes of the Christian in anticipating 

 death with heaven-taught courage, and the inexpressible joys to 

 which it introduces him. Then followed a sketch of George 



1 Ante, p. 368. 



