The faults I have alluded to are such only as are compatible with general sincerity--such as have a character of frailty. Those which include tendencies essentially low--untruth, double-dealing, and selfish policy--assume so disgusting an aspect, when tested by the trying light and amidst the solemn leisure of the sick-room, that it cannot be wrong to follow willingly the irresistible leadings of nature--to dismiss them with loathing, and invite to our arms the simple and heroic sincerity, and the cheerful devotedness to the honour of God and the interests of man, which here assume much of the radiance in which they come back in vision from beyond the grave. If it be true that our moral taste becomes more sensitive in our seclusion, I trust that such sensitiveness has not necessarily any fastidiousness in it, but that its relish of good grows in full proportion to its discipline. I trust that if its disgust deepens as the low and cowardly order of faults are stripped to nakedness, so does its appreciation become more expanded and generous in regard to qualities which befit our heroic and aspiring nature and destination. As for our best resource under the liabilities I have alluded to, a mere reference will suffice. “Whatsoever things are honest, pure, holy, lovely--to think on these things;” to fill our souls with conceptions of the god-like, so that our sensitiveness may turn in time to a keen apprehension of all that is in affinity with these; this is what we have to do--partly for present solace, and much more for the chance of converting our weakness into power--our mortal discipline into a heavenly habitude. As for the ordinary and familiar sufferings and dangers of our state, the weariness of life which every one but the physician wonders at, often as it is witnessed; the longing for non-existence, which some pious people, who admit no bodily origin of any mental affection, are very much shocked at; the despair during protracted violent pain, which, however, being dumb, is seldom known at the moment--these cannot be illustrated, nor remedied, by anything that can be said on paper. One can only suggest to the sufferer, and to wise nurses, that in the power of ideas we are furnished with an implement of natural magic which may possibly operate at the most hopeless times. It was in a sort of despair that the father of the lame child, inconsiderately led out too far, gave the boy his stick to ride home on; whereupon the aching foot actually traversed the needful mile without being felt to ache. So the wise nurse may possibly find that a nobler idea than any hope of rest or relief may reanimate a spirit under a far severer pain. And assuredly there are some who could tell how, in the midst of anguish, the briefest suggestion of endurance, the slightest spiritual touch upon deep filial affections, has made a miraculous truce for them with torment and despair.