His Love of Children. 285 



though silent, his feelings were deep, and his 

 convictions strong. However ill or suffering 

 he might be, he liked his wife to read a 

 Psalm to him every night ; he delighted in 

 the Psalms, although his well-marked Bible 

 proved his careful study of every portion of the 

 Holy Book. Throughout those last four pain- 

 ful years of his existence, he never lay down 

 in his bed, but was "packed, 1 ' as he termed it, 

 in a spacious easy chair, with head rests, and 

 an inclined board for his feet. Many a time, 

 when he believed his wife to be sleeping, 

 would he pray most fervently for strength to 

 endure to the end. And " endure" he did 

 heroically ; rarely did a murmur escape his 

 lips : but rather, a continual thanksgiving for 

 " mercies and blessings," the existence of 

 which those ministering to him failed to dis- 

 cover. By his earnest entreaty, no hired 

 nurse ever attended his bedside, and it is still 

 a tender consolation to his widow to feel that 

 no hand but her own soothed his last days. 

 He wrote to the very last in the intervals of 

 pain, assisted most patiently and efficiently by 

 his eldest son, Henry Sydenham. Very 

 shortly before his death he bore striking 



