One morning when we were in the stand, waiting a few minutes for the audience to assemble and become composed, we saw once more the venerable form of Samuel Rogers, making his way up the aisle. We could scarcely restrain our emotions when we saw the old saint, bringing before our mind in visible form what has been our lifetime idea of one of the old prophets. We met him in the aisle, when he spoke out with the tears tracing down his noble face: “Bro. Ben, I am in the land of the _dead_ and _dying_, but shall soon be in the land of the _living_.” We could give utterance to no words. Peter said, in the mountain of transfiguration: “It is good for us to be here.” So it was to us on this occasion. More than forty years had elapsed since we first saw him, and he appeared to us _old_ then. He is now in his eighty-sixth year. He sees to read without glasses by holding the print close to his eyes, and hears better than when we saw him last. He converses with readiness and ease, and his voice is remarkably good. His plain and striking comparisons are as ready as ever. He styles a dry and prosing exhortation, after a good sermon, “snow in August.” He tells a preacher, trying to be learned and profound in his preaching, that he “puts the fodder too _high up_ in the rack—the sheep can’t reach it.” The main trouble is that there is no “fodder” there. He says: “We used to have _men_ and _women_, but now we have _ladies_ and _gentlemen_.” He says he still _eats his dinner_ and _supper_ and lets the rest of them _dine_ and _take tea_. When at home he spends many hours alone, and some of the friends inquired whether he did not get lonesome. “No,” said he, “I never get lonesome. I talk to the Lord and he talks to me. I talk to him in my prayers, and he talks to me in the Bible.” This is keeping good company, and a glorious way to keep from getting lonesome. He reads up and keeps fully posted in all that is transpiring among us, and is fully alive to all the dangers now threatening the cause—the insidious steps now tending to undermine and overthrow all we have done. Still, like Paul, none of these things move him. He is firm as the everlasting hills. He has settled convictions and purposes, and can not be turned away from them. He can see, as Solomon says, that “one sinner destroyeth much good,” but adheres to another saying of much importance from the same source: “Fret not thyself because of evil-doers.” The Lord is with him and he is as happy as he can be, full of love and good-will to God and man. Thanks be to God for the faith of Christ that has the power to bear up the spirit, to console and comfort him in extreme old age, and opens to his view, now that he is about to let go this world, “a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens;” and now that he is about to surrender up this life, that opens to his view a life that never ends. Blessed be the Lord who is pleased thus to deal tenderly and kindly with him in his near approach to another world.