Untitled - Electric Scotland

1852-56] EXTRACTS FROM DIARIES 181
precarious. Lord, bless to my soul the thoughts
up. Am
. . .
visiting
which this calls
I growing more meet for Thy presence ? . . . I am
what seem to be three deathbeds. What a difference
God, save me from the danger of
between the three ! . . . O
being made callous by the sight of so much misery as is brought
before me in this town."
And again :
"
I have been summoned to-day to attend a man apparently
dying one of our ; Cathedral almsmen, very ignorant and selfsatisfied.
What am I to do to get a better hold over those who
"
are thus united to the Church ?
"Angel Inn, Oxford, Sunday Evening, Feb. 9, 1851. How
greatly I enjoy these visits to Oxford. At this very time of year,
twenty-one years ago, I stood in this inn when I came up to enter
as a freshman. Lord, with what mercies hast Thou surrounded me
since then. This Sunday has passed, not without serious thought,
but yet with too little. I have heard Dr. Pusey preach. The ex
hortation to calmness and love with which he ended was very
good."
. . .
"Ash Wednesday, $th March 1851. Ash Wednesday has
I began to mark
been a solemn day to me now for many years.
it distinctly at Oxford, and tried there to spend it in recollection
1 and prayer. Six years ago Mary was buried on Ash Wednes
day. Three years ago I lay at the point of death on Ash Wed
nesday. I have to-day been talking with my dearest wife of that
solemn time. No one had any hope that I could live. O Lord,
Thou hast been exceeding gracious to me. And now let me ask
myself very solemnly whether my soul has received a blessing.
I will consider my besetting sins. ... I will now go through the
Penitential Liturgy from Jeremy Taylor. O Lord, solemnise my
mind in these prayers. Keep me from wandering, for Jesus Christ s
sake. ..."
Sunday Evening, Feb. 20 [185 3].
I have been reading one
of Arnold s
travelling journals, and was much touched by the
description of the towers, and old trees, and green turf of Rugby
us he whirled past from Fox How to Dover. ... In this town
where my lot is now cast, there is enough of the ruggedness of
life in the misery of the wretched classes round me to fill me
\
1 Mrs. John Tait, sister-in-law of A. C. T.