worst of all the months in Bengal, he himself
was brought near to the grave by a fever, one of the paroxysms
continuing for twenty-six hours without intermission, "when
providentially Mr. Udny came to visit us, not knowing that I was ill,
and brought a bottle of bark with him." He slowly recovered, but the
second youngest child, Peter, a boy of five, was removed by dysentery,
and caste made it long difficult to find any native to dig his grave.
But of this time the faithful sufferer could write:--

"Sometimes I enjoyed sweet seasons of self-examination and prayer, as I
lay upon my bed. Many hours together I sweetly spent in contemplating
subjects for preaching, and in musing over discourses in Bengali; and
when my animal spirits were somewhat raised by the fever, I found
myself able to reason and discourse in Bengali for some hours together,
and words and phrases occurred much more readily than when I was in
health. When my dear child was ill I was enabled to attend upon him
night and day, though very dangerously ill myself, without much
fatigue; and now, I bless God that I feel a sweet resignation to his
will."

A still harder fate befell him. The monomania of his wife became
chronic. A letter which she wrote and sent by special messenger called
forth from Thomas this loving sympathy:--"You must endeavour to
consider it a disease. The eyes and ears of many are upon you, to whom
your conduct is unimpeachable with respect to all her charges; but if
you show resentment, they have ears, and others have tongues set on
fire. Were I in your case, I should be violent; but blessed be God,
who suits our burdens to our backs. Sometimes I pray earnestly for
you, and I always feel for you. Think of Job, Think of Jesus. Think
of those who were 'destitute, afflicted, tormented.'"

A voyage up the Tangan in Mr. Udny's pinnace as far as the north
frontier, at a spot now passed by the railway to Darjeeling, restored
the invalid. "I am no hunter," he wrote, while Thomas was shooting wild
buffaloes, but he was ever adding to his store of observations of the
people, the customs and language. Meanwhile he was longing for letters
from Fuller and Pearce and Ryland. At the end of January 1795 the
missionary exile thus talks of himself in his journal:--"Much engaged
in writing, having begun to write letters to Europe; but having
received none, I feel that hope deferred makes the heart sick.
However, I am so fully satisfied of th