I DON’T think there is anything worse than the sense of utter
desolation that envelops you when the hospital door finally closes on
everybody you know, and you are alone with total strangers and unknown
terrors ahead. The dreariest moment of my whole life was when I found
myself alone in a private ward at Mildmay, with no one whom I knew
within call.
Yet was it mere chance, I wonder, that the nurses at their prayers that
day sang Matheson’s beautiful hymn—“O Love, that wilt not let me go”?
It came to me along the corridor, as I lay staring at the ceiling. I
tried, in my heart, to sing it with them; but I gave it up when they
got to the verse—
“O Joy, that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to Thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.”