A little before this, he had said to Mrs. Knowles: "I never knew that just trusting in Christ would give me such peace."
He has said repeatedly: "This sickness is the best thing that has ever happened to me. If it had not been for this, I should have gone on in worldliness."
William has never been accustomed to the common religious phraseology. He is such a babe in such things, that his expressions are sometimes strikingly artless. At one time I was speaking of his sufferings, he looked up with a smile, and hesitating how to express the thought in his mind, said:
"I think it is out of his affections God afflicts us."
His sister had wept much when I delivered his message. As I returned a kind reply from her, he said:
"Tell her I pray for her and her family every day." Then, when after a little conversation I had bidden him good-by, he called me back, and said:
"Be sure and tell my sister I pray for her." He frequently said to me:
"I pray for you everyday;" and on saying this to Mrs. Knowles, he added, at one time:
"I speak your name to God when I pray."
When he says this with so much earnestness, we always feel that his prayers are a rare treasure, since the helpless, self-renouncing prayers are most prevalent in Christ. The tenderness with which William speaks of his sister's family has sometimes touched me. There is nothing like the peace of God to beget good will to man. Knowing that the family had many trials with his sister's ill health and scanty means, he often sends by me messages of sympathy. A few days since it was suddenly discovered that their youngest child, two years old, and a little pet of William's, was in danger of being crippled for life. This new and unexpected sorrow filled the family with great distress. I accompanied the father when the child was brought to St. Luke's for examination. After the physician's opinion had been given, and arrangements made for placing it in the Children's Ward, we went to see William. The unexpected appearance of his brother-in-law, whom he had not seen since coming to the hospital, affected him much. Indeed, the interview was trying to both. I left them alone, and on my return shortly afterward, found William still in tears. He was not so well that morning, and grief for the child, and the sight of the brother reviving the painful memory of their late alienation, was too much for him; yet his peace was not greatly disturbed, for all alienation from man, as from God, had been healed for him.