I don't think things happen by chance. Indeed I am sure they do not. I have never felt so humbled to the earth. One sees one's life as a whole, when one is helpless and can do nothing, and the whole looks very poor and mean. It is like the {189} judgment-day--only with this grand exception, that life is not yet over, that the night has not yet come in which 'no man can work,' that you have still a chance to make the future better, more honest, more noble than the past. Then, again, I learnt the utter and wonderful kindness of my friends. I felt so selfish and so surprised at the goodness they showed me. Again, I saw something of the mystery of pain. My own was so trivial compared with that which some others had to bear. Yet I had enough to startle me that such a fact should be permitted on earth at all. I don't suppose we can understand its meaning; but my consolation was that it is not necessarily a sign of God's displeasure--that the highest life was a life of suffering, that the Son of Man was a 'Man of Sorrows.' Everything seems to me to depend upon the way in which one takes the pain--if one voluntarily says, 'Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,' then one is entering into the highest life, and the pain becomes a new method of serving and knowing God. But physical pain, if prolonged, is a terrible thing; and there is no time on a bed of sickness for praying or thinking much of God unless one is accustomed to do so in health. The needs of the poor body press in upon one. Death-bed repentances are realities, but I am inclined to think that they are very rare. It is terribly dangerous to defer being good until we are ill. Illness does not necessarily make us good. I am afraid I was but a poor coward, and yet my faith did not utterly fail. God is the one hope for a man who is ill, and He is true to His word. He {190} hides His face behind the clouds; but even when I couldn't see Him at all, I felt that He was there. Pray for me; at present I feel too weak to pray much for myself. I want--I do want--to be a better man, to help others nearer the kingdom. I want, when life is over, to have a better record to look back upon than I had in hospital. _To F. S. H._ Alassio, Italy; January 2, 1904. Your letter came to me at a time when I was rather low. I had to have a second operation. However, after fifteen weeks of Nursing Homes I escaped, and, as soon as I could, made my way to St. Moritz. For once the place didn't seem to suit me very well. So, after little more than a week, I came down into Italy. I am so far recovered now that I quite hope to be able to go back to college at the beginning of this term.