tender, untiring nurse, comforting and upholding his spirit unto death; and then she stood out all alone to fight the battles of his children amidst the wreck of his fortunes.

“Those days were gloomy indeed; and the wonder now in looking back upon them is that she survived them.  It would have seemed a perfectly natural thing if she had died of a broken heart, and been borne away to lie in my father’s grave.

“But she had reasons for living.  Her children bound her to earth, and for our sakes she toiled on with unswerving devotion and unintermitting care.  After a time the waters found a smoother channel, so far as this world’s troubles were concerned, and her days were ended, in her eighty-fifth year, in comparative peace.”

“During one of my Motor Campaigns to Nottingham,” The General wrote on another occasion, “my car took me over the Trent, the dear old river along whose banks I used to wander in my boyhood days, sometimes poring over Young’s Night Thoughts, reading Henry Kirke White’s Poems, or, as was frequently the case before my conversion, with a fishing-rod in my hand.

“In those days angling was my favourite sport.  I have sat down on those banks many a summer morning at five o’clock, although I rarely caught anything.  An old uncle ironically used to have a plate with a napkin on it ready for my catch waiting for me on my return.

     “And then the motor brought us to the ancient village of Wilford,
     with its lovely old avenues of elms fringing the river.

“There were the very meadows in which we children used to revel amongst the bluebells and crocuses which, in those days, spread out their beautiful carpet in the spring-time, to the unspeakable delight of the youngsters from the town.

“But how changed the scene!  Most of these rural charms had fled, and in their places were collieries and factories, and machine shops, and streets upon streets of houses for the employes of the growing town.  We were only 60,000 in my boyhood, whereas the citizens of Nottingham to-day number 250,000.

“A few years ago the city conferred its freedom upon me as a mark of appreciation and esteem.  To God be all the glory that He has helped His poor boy to live for Him, and made even his former enemies to honour him.”

But we all know what sort of influences exist in a city that is at once the capital of a county and a commercial centre.  The homes of the wealthy and comfortable are found at no great distance from the dwellings of the poor, while in the huge market-places are exhibitions weekly of all the contrasts between town and country life, between the extremest want and the most lavish plenty.