Again the blessed book was read aloud; again he led the prayer, that was prayer indeed, for it arose from a sense of actual want, and it arose in the assurance that, through the merits of the Redeemer, that want, the temporal as well as the spiritual, would be supplied. And the thought of the mercies of yesterday quickened his faith, and gave animation to his voice as he raised it in the hymn of praise: and then he “went forth to his labour,” for that was _his_ part, and he felt strong to do it. We will not prolong our history by recording the details of days that came and went in like manner: for about three weeks the father continued to work at the embankment, returning to his family with the fruits of his labour every evening. But day by day his strength declined, and on the fifth of February, it was two hours past midnight before he returned to his anxious wife. He found her in earnest prayer, and as he stepped over the threshold, the words, “Lord, wilt Thou leave us to perish, the mother with the little ones?” fell on his ear in accents wrung from an agonized spirit. In the intenseness of her supplication she had not heard even _his_ approach. Her head which had been flung back was suddenly bent forward, her hands relaxed somewhat of the tightness of their grasp, and the anguish seemed to have passed away as she fervently and firmly added,—“Yet not _my_ will, but _Thine_ be done.” It must be so indeed, for would our gracious God have bidden us “cast our burden upon him,” unless it had been his purpose to receive it from us?[4] Her eye now fell upon her husband, and a strange chill crept over her as she remarked his wild and haggard look. Yes, the plague had begun! nature overtasked day by day, could hold out no longer; and though the spirit of the man had sustained his infirmities, his strength had failed at last. For some days he had been struggling with low fever, but he felt that he could struggle no more, and that the hand of death was upon him. He looked round upon his wife and children, but he remembered who had said,—“Leave thy fatherless children to Me, and let thy widows trust in Me;” and he felt that in exchanging the weak ministry of his unnerved arm for the strength of the “everlasting arms,” there was no room for lamentation.