written than fifty poems composed at the expense of my neglected duty.
Then she warned me tenderly of the misery which my conceit would bring
upon me, and bade me, when I said my evening prayers, to add that
prayer of King David, 'Keep Thy servant from presumptuous sins, lest
they get the dominion over me.'

"Alas! they had got the dominion over me already, too strongly for her
words to take any hold. 'She won't even look at my poem,' I thought,
and hurried proudly from the room, banging one door and leaving
another open. And I silenced my uneasy conscience by fresh dreams of
making my fortune and hers. But the punishment came at last. One day
the doctor took me into a room alone, and told me as gently as he
could what everyone but myself knew already--my mother was dying. I
cannot tell you, child, how the blow fell upon me--how, at first, I
utterly disbelieved its truth! It seemed _impossible_ that the only
hope of my life, the object of all my schemes and fancies, was to be
taken away. But I was awakened at last, and resolved that,
GOD helping me, while she did live, I would be a better son.
I can now look back with thankfulness on the few days we were
together. I never left her. She took her food and medicine from my
hand; and I received my First Communion with her on the day she died.
The day before, kneeling by her bed, I had confessed all the sin and
vanity of my heart and those miserable dreams; had destroyed with my
own hand all my papers, and had resolved that I would apply to my
studies, and endeavour to obtain a scholarship and the necessary
preparation for Holy Orders. It was a just ambition, little woman,
undertaken humbly, in the fear of GOD, and in the path of
duty; and I accomplished it years after, when I had nothing left of my
mother but her memory."