the whole
school. There were several cases of fever in different houses, he
said; but Dr. Robertson, after the most careful examination, had
assured him that it was not infectious, and that if proper care were
taken, there could be no reason for stopping the school work at
present. The examinations were just coming on, and it would be very
unadvisable to break up now. However, any boys who chose to do so were
at liberty to write home, and if their parents wished it, to leave at
once. He should send the whole school home if the fever spread.

The next day Arthur sickened, but there was no other case. Before the
end of the week thirty or forty boys had gone, but the rest stayed on.
There was a general wish to please the Doctor, and a feeling that it
was cowardly to run away.

THE DOCTOR'S SERMON.

On the Saturday Thompson died, in the bright afternoon, while the
cricket-match was going on as usual on the big-side ground: the Doctor
coming from his death-bed, passed along the gravel-walk at the side of
the close, but no one knew what had happened till the next day. At
morning lecture it began to be rumored, and by afternoon chapel was
known generally; and a feeling of seriousness and awe at the actual
presence of death among them came over the whole school. In the long
years of his ministry the Doctor perhaps never spoke words which sank
deeper than some of those in that day's sermon. "When I came yesterday
from visiting all but the very death-bed of him who has been taken
from us, and looked around upon all the familiar objects and scenes
within our own ground, where your common amusements were going on with
your common cheerfulness and activity, I felt there was nothing
painful in witnessing that; it did not seem in any way shocking or out
of tune with those feelings which the sight of a dying Christian must
be supposed to awaken. The unsuitableness in point of natural feeling
between scenes of mourning and scenes of liveliness did not at all
present itself. But I did feel that if at that moment any of those
faults had been brought before me which sometimes occur amongst us;
had I heard that any of you had been guilty of falsehood, or of
drunkenness, or of any other such sin; had I heard from any quarter
the language of profaneness, or of unkindness, or of indecency; had I
heard or seen any signs of that wretched folly which courts the laugh
of fools by affecting not to dread evil and not to care for good, then
the