less fits, when one or other of them had
to give him their whole attention; and it was all his most earnest
efforts could do to keep from the old habit of fretfulness and murmuring.
And he grieved so much over the least want of temper, and begged pardon
so earnestly for the least impatient word--even if there had been real
provocation for it--that it was a change indeed since the time when he
thought grumbling and complaint his privilege and relief. Nothing helped
him more than Paul's reading Psalms to him--the 121st was his
favourite--or saying over hymns to him in that very sweet voice so full
of meaning. Sometimes Ellen and Paul would sing together, as she sat at
her work, and it almost always soothed him to hear the Psalm tunes, that
were like an echo from the church, about which he had cared so little
when he had been able to go there in health and strength, but for which
he now had such a longing! He came to be so used to depend on their
singing the Evening Hymn to him, that one of the times when it was most
hard for him to be patient, was one cold evening, when Ellen was so
hoarse that she could not speak, and an unlucky draught in from the shop
door had so knit Paul up again, that he was lying in his bed, much nearer
screaming than singing.

Most of all, however, was Alfred helped by Mr. Cope's visits, and the
looking forward to the promised Feast, with more earnestness as the time
drew on, and he felt his own weakness more longing for the support and
blessing of uniting his suffering with that of his Lord. 'In all our
afflictions He was afflicted,' was a sound that came most cheeringly to
him, and seemed to give him greater strength and good-will to bear his
load of weakness.

There was a book which young Mrs. Selby had given his mother, which was
often lying on his bed, and had marks in it at all the favourite places.
Some he liked to look at himself, some for Paul to read to him. They
were such sentences as these:

'My son, I descended from Heaven for thy salvation; I took upon Me thy
miseries; not necessity, but charity, drawing Me thereto, that thou
thyself mightest learn patience, and bear temporal miseries without
grudging.'

'For from the hour of My Birth, even until My Death on the Cross, I was
not without suffering and grief.'

And then again:

'Offer up thyself unto Me, and give thyself wholly for God, and thy
offering shall be acceptable.'

'Behold, I offered up Myself wholly unto My Fa