The man talked in a perfectly rational manner, though at the same time in an extremely impressive tone. “I did not come to the conclusion lightly,” he continued. “I weighed all the _pros_ and _cons_; faced all the circumstances of the case, and I could not see that my life was of any value; in fact, in many ways my family would be better off without me. I had not much pluck left to face the inevitable racks of pain and disease, so after hours and days of mental torment I decided to end it all. “Night came. “Having determined to wait quietly until all the family were in bed, I sat in my study and read. I read and thought, and planned and argued, and the hours appeared to drag interminably. For some reason the servants seemed later than usual in retiring, and I watched the hands of the clock slowly move along. It was almost midnight. The lights had been put out in the passages. I could no longer hear the tread of people overhead; but for fear that it was still too early I returned to the book I was reading. Strangely enough, my eye fell on the word _suicide_. It seemed to rivet me with a weird and terrible fascination. I looked again, and that word appeared to be written in letters of blood. Was it a message, I wondered, to a man standing on the brink of the grave, on the verge of cutting the knot of life? What did that word _suicide_ portend? I read on.... “Gradually I became interested. Here was a strange case. A man battling with blindness, a man whose circumstances seemed somewhat similar to my own; and as I read, I discovered that he had thought deeply on the same subject, he had disentangled the same problem. Yes, as I read and re-read the words they seemed to burn into my brain. I realised that this man decided that he was _not_ justified in taking his own life, that even though blindness threatened he still had a mission to fulfil; and when I had learnt those words by heart, I banged down the book, rose from the table, clenched my fist, and determined to go on quietly and live my life to the bitter end. That page which altered the course of events was in the ‘Life’ you wrote of your father.[1] Since that evening I have read the book from end to end. Clearly he was right. He had a mission to fulfil and fulfilled it. I have, I hope, now passed through the darkest hour of my life, but I could not rest until I came to tell you personally that if you had not written the book, which chance put into my hand that night, I should have been a dead man to-day.” Seizing both my hands, he uttered, “God bless you and thank you! God bless you! Good-bye.” And he was gone. This incident set me thinking.