When he was able to sit up and use his arms, he made rope-mats; by which, with casual help from his friends, he supported his mother and paid her rent. He always mended his own and her clothes, and allowed no time to pass away in idleness, which he was able to employ; and so cheerful, so thankful, and so happy did this interesting couple appear, that it afforded a lesson of instruction to be with them. Hannah, who could only distinguish the glare of noon from the gloom of darkness, had lived so long in the forlorn tenement they then inhabited, and knew so well all the turnings of its steep and dangerous stairs, that she could not bear to hear the proposal from some of her friends to provide one more comfortable. Through the latter part of the winter, and the commencement of the spring, George's sufferings greatly increased; he was wholly confined to his bed, and so emaciated with pain and disease, that although he was seventeen years of age, his arms were not thicker than an infant's. He had been a diligent reader of the Holy Scriptures; and though he told me they had been to him a sealed book, until he was brought to that bed of suffering, yet it was evident that his mind had long been enabled to appropriate to his own necessities many of their precious precepts. Though he labored under the combined effects of scrofula and dropsy, in their highest degrees of virulence, yet I never heard him repine; and often, while suffering extreme bodily anguish, he would speak of the relief it afforded the poor afflicted body, to have the mind composed and tranquil, and would say, "O, I feel like a poor worm in the fire; yet all I desire is, to be favored with patience to bear all my pain, and with a willing mind to wait the Master's will to take me away." For many days and nights together he was able to obtain but little sleep; yet he showed no marks of restlessness or discontent. Once, calling me to his bedside, he said, "I am afraid I am not patient enough; but I often feel very weary, and I fear I shall wear my poor mother out. I am more concerned for her than for myself--what should I do for a care-taker if she were gone? She is very kind to me, and I have many kind friends. I am afraid I am not grateful enough for all my favors. To some, this garret would look like a dull place, but it never looks gloomy to me; I have had more pleasure in it than I could have had in the nicest parlor."