ends, in the xxth chapter with the account of the day of judgment: that the coming and reign of Christ, before and during the millennium, will be spiritual, not personal: that the resurrection of souls does not mean the resurrection of bodies-but as John the Baptist was Elijah: and that, at last, we are all much in the dark, and should not be confident; as our descendants will know.-If the new Jerusalem-examine its form and size is to be placed literally in Judea, how can all the kings of the earth bring their glory and riches into it,-from Mexico, Peru, China, Russia, &c.? and what is to be done with them there ?-But I desist: I can conceive of a figurative, but can form no manner of conception of a literal fulfilment: and the whole book is allegorical....

"Our best love to Mrs. M., and your brother and relations in London, and to my goddaughter, Jane. May God bless you, and them, and all their's, and make them blessings! May he grant you and your's a happy year, and many happy years! Pray that God would increase my faith, hope, and patience, especially, during my closing scene, that I may finish my course with joy.-I remain, dear sir, with much affection and esteem, your faithful friend and brother,

CHAPTER XVI.

HIS LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH.

Or the last solemn scenes of this chapter, the Rev. D. Wilson thus introduces the account, which he has already given to the public in his excellent. funeral sermons.

"During several years preceding the event itself, his bodily infirmities had been gradually increasing. His strength and natural spirits at times sensibly failed. His own impression was that his departure was approaching, and he contemplated it with the calmness and tranquillity which I have already noticed as being implied in the first clause of my text.1 He preached more than once from the words of St. Peter, with an evident reference to his own case, Knowing that I must shortly put off this my tabernacle. He said to me about two years since, I feel nature giving way; I am weary of my journey, and wish to be at home, if it be God's will;' meaning that he desired to depart and to be with Christ. The nearer he came to the time of his dismissal, he became the more earnest in prayer, that God would uphold him during the scenes of suffering and trial which might await him before his last hour, expressing at the same time the deepest conviction of his own weakness and unworthiness, and his constant

12 Tim. iv. 6-8.

need of divine mercy. He had been particularly anxious during the entire period of his ministry to be preserved from dishonouring his holy profession; and now, as life wore away, he became more and more fervent in prayer for grace that he might not say or do any thing, that should lessen the weight of what he had previously taught and written."

What has already appeared in these pages will amply confirm the correctness of these representations. Again, after introducing some sentences from the last sermon which he heard my father preach, Mr. Wilson proceeds: "Thus did this holy man continue to speak and act in the near view of death. In the mean time he remitted nothing of his accustomed labours. It is but a short time since he wrote to one of his children, I believe I never worked more hours daily in my study than I now do.' Increasing deafness indeed precluded him almost entirely from conversation. His spirits also failed him more and more, and he would sometimes burst into tears, whilst he assured his affectionate family that he had no assignable cause of distress whatever. But, his judgment and habits of close thought seemed to remain unimpaired still. His last discourse was delivered on Sunday, March 4th, from the words of the apostle Paul, He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? In the evening of the same day he expounded as usual to several of his parishioners assembled in his rectory, from the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican. He entered with much animation into both these subjects; and in the evening he applied to himself in

a very affecting manner the prayer of the penitent publican, God be merciful to me a sinner. In this striking manner did he close his public testimony to the faith which he had kept during his whole preceding ministry."

Very cordially also do I concur in the following additional remarks with which Mr. W. prefaces the part of his subject to which we are approaching:.

"Before I proceed to give some particulars of his most instructive and affecting departure, I must observe that I lay no stress on them as to the evidence of his state before God. It is the tenour of the life, not that of the few morbid and suffering scenes which precede dissolution, that fixes the character. We are not authorized by scripture to place any de pendence on the last periods of sinking nature, through which the Christian may be called to pass to his eternal reward. The deaths of the saints described in the inspired volume are, without excep tion, the concluding scenes of long and consistent previous devotedness to the service of God. Such are those of Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David. That of Stephen is the only narrative of this kind in the New Testament, which regards the article of death at all; and the circumstances in which he was placed, as the first martyr of the Christian church, may well account for the exception. The great apostle of the gentiles, and the other inspired founders of the new dispensation, are exhibited to us in the holiness of their lives, in the calmness of their approach towards death, in the deliberate judgment they form of their past labours, in their exhortations to others to supply their vacant posts of duty, in their triumphant anti

cipations of their future reward; but not in the actual moments of their final conflict. It would therefore have been no subject of surprise, if the last days of our lamented friend had been wholly clouded by the natural operations of disease. We should then have drawn the veil entirely over them, as in the case of many of the eminent servants of Christ, in every age. But, though no importance is to be attached to these hours of fainting mortality, with reference to the acceptance and final triumph of the dying Christian, yet, where it pleases God to afford one of his departing servants, as in the instance before us, such a measure of faith and self-possession as to close a holy and most consistent life, with a testimony which sealed, amidst the pains of acute disease, and in the most impressive manner, all his doctrines and instructions, during forty-five preceding years, we are called on, as I think, to record with gratitude the divine benefit, and to use it with humility for the confirmation of our own faith and joy. bronq stup

These remarks premised, I proceed to lay before the reader the best account in my power of the deeply affecting scene; which I shall do chiefly in the words of letters written, and memorandums made on the spot. This, I trust, will be to the reader, who feels himself sufficiently interested in the event to excuse the minuteness of the narration, the most satisfactory plan that I can adopt. 1 of kordon Sunday, March 4, was, as has been already stated, that terminated my father's public ministraAlmost immediately afterwards he seems to have suffered a degree of indisposition; but not such

the

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tions.