him all the mercy, while he shows him all the sin."

Soon it will be my happiness, I hope, to administer to him, as a
penitent believer, with his now happy wife and a faithful friend, the
precious Communion; and I look forward to see him depart in due time in
the peace of God, to be with Christ, for whom already he has learnt to
testify.

Then comes another visit, to one of our "bettermost" neighbours; this
door bears, or ought to bear, the proverbial brass knocker. But be the
door what it may be, there is great need and great mercy inside it. The
dear man, W.T., lately in active professional life in the home
civil-service, is sinking under the most agonizing of human maladies,
and it is very near the close; this is the second visit to-day, in his
urgent need. But, blessed be God, grace, once absent, has found its way
through the terrible obstacle of pain, and his scarcely articulate
utterance--intelligible to his visitor only because now so
familiar--speaks of the joy and rest of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of
the sufferer's longing for the salvation of another soul, a soul very
dear to him.[23]

[23] Wonderful to say (it is to me very wonderful), I have known more
than one bright conversion take place amidst the untold pangs of such an
illness.

Such visits tell upon the heart, and upon the head, and perhaps the
round among the suffering has been long enough to-day. To-morrow we will
try to get a quiet half-hour with W.R., a shopkeeper, sinking in
consumption; a man of no common natural refinement and thoughtfulness,
but long troubled with that sort of scepticism which is generated (who
knows in how many cases?) by the mysteries, not of God's revelation, but
of His providence. For him, too, the visitor's business is to lay a
gentle siege, "here a little, and there a little," trying never to lose
patience with objections and difficulties, but rather to sympathize with
them _as to their pains_, and then to suggest the answer in Jesus
Christ. And oh joy, the Lord is finding the way in, through His Word,
and the clouds are passing away from the man's mind, and soul, and
forehead, as he is getting to "know WHOM he believes."[24]

[24] I possess a beautiful little Bible given me by dear W.R., who has
now been many years with Christ. Such a gift is a very sacred treasure
to a Pastor.

Then we can walk round the corner--how the beloved streets and lanes
rise up in memory before me as I write!--to see J.F., a young prin