328 BRITISH PHYSICIAN'S. and was now approaching the same spot again on a similar, and as poignant an occasion. The scene was singularly instructive, it cried out with a voice, which I heard to my centre, of the en- durableness and curability of grief — of the inse- curity of every thing — the transience of life — the rapid and inevitable current with which we are all hurrying on ; and it asked me, how I could fear to submit to that state into which so many whom I had dearly loved had already passed before me ? You will be interested to know the state of the contents of the tomb after the lapse of so many years ; both the coffins looked as if they had been deposited yesterday, as clean, as dry, as firm : if they could have been opened, I have little doubt the bodies would have been found in proper form, though clianged. I added my beloved boy to its former inhabitants, and then asked myself, who goes next." Within ten years he was himself deposited in the same spot. The death of his favourite child and his own ill health naturally directed Gooch's thoughts more and more to the subject of religion. Like many wise and truly pious men he had at times misgivings with regard to the efficacy of liis own faith : one night, soon after the funeral, when he had been harassed by doubts, praying fer- vently for their removal, and in a very excited state of mind longing for the apparition of his boy, he fell asleep, thinking, that if such a vision should be vouchsafed him, he could never doubt again. The dream which followed is not the less striking because it may be reasonably explained by the state of his mind and body at the time. — He
