Christopher North Author:Mary Gordon Subtitle: A Memoir of John Wilson, Late Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. Compiled From Family Papers and Other Sources by [mary] Gordon. With an Introduction by R. Shelton Mackenzie. Complete in One Volume General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1863 Original Publisher: W. I. Middleton Not... more »es: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: " And many at last were the kind -- some the sad -- farewells, ere long whispered by us at gloaming among the glens. Let them rest for ever silent amidst that music in the memory which is felt, not heard -- its blessing mute though breathing, like an inarticulate prayer !" CHAPTER H. GLASGOW COLLEGE. 1797-1803. " Long, long, long ago, the time when we danced hand in hand with our golden-haircil sister ! Long, long, long ago, the day on which she died; the hour, so far more dismal than any hour that can now darken us on this earth, when her coffin descended slowly, slowly into the horrid clay, and we were borne, deathlike and wishing to die, out of the churchyard, that from that moment we thought we could never enter more." That touching reminiscence of his golden-haired sister, which 'came back among the visions of a merry Christmas long after, points to what was probably John Wilson's first dcep experience of sorrow; and it is no imaginary picture of the scene it recalled. For even in those early years, and still more as life advanced, he was intensely susceptible to emotions of grief, as well as of gladness. A heavier trial awaited him at the threshold of the new life on which he was to enter after leaving the manse of Mearns in his twelfth year. He had seen the yellow leaves fall, on to the close of that last memorable autumn w...« less