32. COL. DAVID MACK.

COL. DAVID MACK closed a long and eventful life in the early part of 1845, he being in the ninety-fifth year of his age. He was of Puritan descent; "the blood of the Pilgrims ran in his veins, and the love of the Pilgrims' God burned in his heart."

He attended constantly on Divine worship. He was not afraid of the snow and vapour, the stormy wind, rain, or distance; and obstacles which would keep at home two-thirds of a congregation of common Christians in the prime of life, were no impediment to him at fourscore years and ten, a period when even "the grasshopper is a burden." But "love knows no burden," and hence it was easy for him to go to the house of the Lord, for he "loved the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob."

He lived till satisfied with long life. When his pastor asked him, near its close, if his life seemed short, he did not say, like Jacob, "Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been," but he said, "When I look at my life, taken as a whole, it seems short, like a handbreadth before me; but when I look at the gradual and astonishing changes which have taken place, and when I trace them from the commencement to the great result, and when I look at my posterity, my children's children, I almost feel that I have lived forever!"

Though his hearing was yet perfect, and his eye scarcely dim, and his natural force not much abated, he did not wish to live longer; his days were full, his work was done, he chose to depart: "and he was not, for God took him."

"Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."

33. DR. T. W. COWGILL.

DR. COWGILL was born in Mason county, Ky., in 1811. His parents were devotedly pious. They gave most diligent attention to his early moral culture, and were so happy as to realize very soon the fruit of their labours. At the age of thirteen he embraced religion, and united with the Methodist Episcopal Church.

During his sickness he frequently referred to his early training, with strong expressions of gratitude to God that he was the child of pious parents.

Upon attaining to manhood he commenced the study of medicine, attended lectures in Cincinnati in the winter of 1834, and immediately afterward commenced the practice in Greencastle, Ia., the seat of the Indiana Asbury University.

In the prosecution of his profession he proved himself to be a man of real medical science and skill. Perhaps few physicians were ever more eminently successful. He succeeded in gathering around him, in a very short time, many and most devoted friends, who were charmed with his social qualities, impressed with his piety, and exercised the largest confidence in his skill as a physician. Few men have exhibited a more thorough devotion to their profession than Dr. Cowgill.

In the fall of 1846, he had attained to such professional eminence, as to direct attention to him as a proper person to fill one of the chairs in the Indiana Central Medical College-a department of the Indiana Asbury University. When the board of Trustees met, he was elected to the chair of the Theory and Practice of Medicine-a post which he was never to fill. His health became more and more precarious. One fatal symptom after another developed itself; travel, which he tried, had

no effect to arrest the disease; and during the succeeding summer he resigned his professorship. This, perhaps, was one of the most trying circumstances of his life. His soul was wedded to medical science. The post which had been assigned him was one precisely suited to his tastes and inclinations; and when his own knowledge of the human system revealed the fact that he should not be able to fill his chair, it was a disappointment which nothing but the grace of God could enable him to meet with equanimity.

He was a keen observer of men and things. He possessed more than ordinary powers of intellect, a very ready apprehension-a something approaching almost to instinctive perception, by which he grasped readily even the most abstruse subjects, and mastered them with surprising facility.

But it was as a Christian, a follower of Christ, that his character shone with peculiar lustre. He seemed to live under the conviction that God and the Church had a full claim on all his powers; and this conviction deepened as he advanced in years, and increased to maturity. In his sphere he was an illustration of the sentiment of inspiration, "Whether we live, we live unto the Lord; whether we die, we die unto the Lord; whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's."

On Thursday evening prior to his death, while some of his friends were engaged in vocal prayer around his bed, he received a most remarkable outpouring of the Spirit. Using his own language, it was "limitless, unbounded, unspeakable joy-it was full redemption." It was then he received the evidence of entire sanctification. To those who were with him it seemed as though the room had been filled with the glory of God, and they were strongly reminded of the scene of the Pentecost. His voice, from being weak and hollow, became so

strong and full that it might have been heard distinctly some distance outside of the house. For more than twenty minutes he poured forth such a tide of eloquent thought, he gave such clear and expressive statements of his enjoyments, of his relations to God as a redeemed. sinner, and of the plan of human salvation, as astonished those who were most intimately acquainted with him. And then, when he had exhausted all the power of language, he would urgently entreat those who were with him to aid him in giving embodiment to the feelings of rapture and praise which he in vain struggled to express.

"I have been," said he, "able to look upon death before with composure; but never before could I look clear through the dark and gloomy vault, quite up into heaven. O, such a fulness, such an infinity of joy!"

One coming in, said, "You have comfort." He replied, "That word will not do; it is glory. Here it is; the soul immortal, the body mortal; the soul all-powerful to think, to reason, and enjoy, the body all weakness and pain; the body pinioned to the bed, the soul soaring away, scarce willing to stay longer with its frail companion. All the bliss of being seems to be concentrated upon this hour." And when, afterward, he referred to the same blessing, he said, “As I had a few things yet to accomplish, I had to persuade my ravished soul to linger a little longer with my body."

On Friday morning the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was, by his request, administered to him, and his infant child baptized. It was a scene of great joy and religious triumph. From that moment he seemed to be almost entirely severed from the world, and waiting in joyful expectancy the summons of his Master.

His mind seemed to gain new strength, his conceptions to become more vivid, and his ability to express the bright visions of his soul to greatly increase, as he

drew near to the gates of death. When speaking of the redemption of Christ, and of his desire to understand more of the plan of human redemption, he said, "Eternity is an endless series of cycles, developing the great ends of God's redeeming mercy in time. Religion is a stream of life, and joy, and salvation, poured along with the current of human existence."

"How do you feel?" said he, in a voice of tenderness, to his companion.

After a momentary struggle with feeling she replied, indicating Christian firmness and resignation. She then repeated his question, "How do you feel?"

He answered, "As you have often done, when, late in the evening, you have sung to your babe, hushing it to repose with your evening lullaby, and desiring yourself to sink away into the same sweet sleep."

Turning to his wife, who had lingered, like a guardian angel, through all his sickness, around his bed, and who, though exhausted with watching and labour, still administered to his wants, he said, with a countenance beaming with inexpressible affection, "Here is my wife; she has been-" and he paused; "she has been-what shall I say? The Saviour gave her to me, and for eighteen months she has pinioned herself down to my room to watch over me, to anticipate my slightest wants, and to minister to all my necessities. God will reward her."

He laboured for some time, during Sunday and Monday, under a nervous fever; but, when it was possible to fix his thoughts at all upon the subject of religion, his mind became entirely clear and composed.

The closing scene was on Tuesday. As he drew near to the final struggle, the fever gave way, and his mind. became entirely and uninterruptedly clear. When his respiration had become difficult, and his voice husky in death, as we sung,