e him from
lecturing. He was amused by one of his friends proposing to put him
under trustees for the purpose of looking after his health. But he
would not be restrained from working, so long as a vestige of strength
remained.

One day, in the autumn of 1859, he returned from his customary lecture
in the University of Edinburgh with a severe pain in his side. He was
scarcely able to crawl upstairs. Medical aid was sent for, and he was
pronounced to be suffering from pleurisy and inflammation of the lungs.
His enfeebled frame was ill able to resist so severe a disease, and he
sank peacefully to the rest he so longed for, after a few days' illness:

"Wrong not the dead with tears!
A glorious bright to-morrow
Endeth a weary life of pain and sorrow."

The life of George Wilson--so admirably and affectionately related by
his sister--is probably one of the most marvellous records of pain and
longsuffering, and yet of persistent, noble, and useful work, that is
to be found in the whole history of literature. His entire career
was indeed but a prolonged illustration of the lines which he himself
addressed to his deceased friend, Dr. John Reid, a likeminded man, whose
memoir he wrote:--

"Thou wert a daily lesson
Of courage, hope, and faith;
We wondered at thee living,
We envy thee thy death.

Thou wert so meek and reverent,
So resolute of will,
So bold to bear the uttermost,
And yet so calm and still."

CHAPTER VIII.--TEMPER.

"Temper is nine-tenths of Christianity."--BISHOP WILSON.

"Heaven is a temper, not a place."--DR. CHALMERS.

"And should my youth, as youth is apt I know,
Some harshness show;
All vain asperities I day by day
Would wear away,
Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree"--SOUTHEY.

"Even Power itself hath not one-half the might of Gentleness"
--LEIGH HUNT.

It has been said that men succeed in life quite as much by their temper
as by their talents. However this may be, it is certain that their
happiness in life depends mainly upon their equanimity of disposition,
their patience and forbearance, and their kindness and thoughtfulness
for those about them. It is really true what Plato says, that