years ago, as it affected my head tremendously, so he applied it outwardly by painting; this painting did not reduce them, and he strongly pressed my having London advice, for he said that if not reduced and the swellings increased internally, they would press on the windpipe and choke me:  it was somewhat a surgical matter.  So on Tuesday the 12th inst. we went to London, and I consulted Paget.  He entirely agreed with Whitby, and thought it very serious, and ordered iodine internally at all hazards.  I took it, and by God’s mercy it agreed with me.  Paget wished to talk over the case with Watson, and they met on the 16th, Saturday.  They quite agreed, and did not conceal from me that if iodine did not reduce the swellings, and they should increase internally, the result must be fatal.  How soon, or in what particular manner, they could not tell; it might even become cancerous.  They did not wish me to stay in town, but thought I was better here, and Paget, knowing Whitby, has perfect confidence in his watching, and will correspond with him, if necessary.  At present there is no reduction of the swellings.  The iodine has certainly lessened the pains in my limbs, but does not seem, so to speak, to determine to the throat, but it may be there has been hardly time to say that it will not.  My own impression is, that it will not, and that it is highly improbable that I shall last very long.  I mean that I shall not see 1862, nor perhaps the summer or autumn of this year.  I cannot tell why, but this near prospect of death has not given me any severe shock, as perhaps it ought to have done.  It brings more than ever to my mind serious recollection of the sins of my youth, and the shortcomings of my after life in thousands of instances.  I have never been a hardened sinner, but years ago, if I did what was sin, it smote me, and I tried to repent; yet there has always been in me a want of fervid love to God, and to my blessed Redeemer for His unspeakable love in suffering for my sins; but it has been cold—­that may have been the natural constitution of the man, I cannot tell—­but I never have placed my hopes of forgiveness and of blessedness hereafter in anything but in His merits, and most undeserved goodness in offering me salvation, if I have not thrown it away.  But what shall I say?  As the time approaches, it may please Him in His mercy to give me a warmer heart, and a more vivid perception of all that He has done for me.  If I were to say that I am not a sinner, the truth would not be in me; and if I am washed in His blood and cleansed, it is not by any efforts or merits of my own, but by His unlimited mercy and goodness.  Pray for me, that when the time comes I may not for any fears of death fall from Him.  You know that as far as regards this world and its enjoyments, save the love of my dear good children, they have sate but lightly upon me for some time; but it is not because we have nothing that we are unwilling to leave, therefore we are prepared for that which is to come.  Perhaps it may please God to give me still a short time that I may try more strenuously to prepare myself.  We shall never meet again in this world.  Oh! may Almighty God in His infinite mercy grant us to meet again in His kingdom, through the merits of our blessed Redeemer....