Several attacks of disease in the course of two years, which threatened to be immediately fatal, were, by the aid of skilful medical treatment, happily arrested, but not until their baleful effect had fastened on her feeble body, and each had left her "more a prey for death." And it was a cause of much thankfulness to her friends, that instead of one of those unexpected instant departures, which so frequently occur, and which in her case it was often feared would take place, the approach of death was gradual and mild, so as to involve no pain, and but little surprise. The simplicity of her character appeared through all her last days, especially after she ascertained that her end was not far off. Her words were few, because she studied to utter none but "the words of truth and soberness;" she seemed to feel that there _might be_ a parade even in dying. After a short conversation in her room a day or two before she departed, on the subject of the unprofitableness of our best works, which we found had deeply exercised her mind, she remarked with much emotion, a tear starting to her eye, "I feel the truth of these remarks;" but, after a pause, she said, "I have _tried_ to do my duty as a wife and as a mother; I have _endeavoured_ to conduct the affairs of my family with discretion, and to instruct my children in the best things." She evidently clung to this as an evidence of grace, (and not at all as a cause of acceptance with God,) and as affording some hope for her children, when relied on in view of the promises of Him who says, that if this precious seed is sowed, grace shall insure the crop. Her Sabbath evenings, after the good old way of our puritan fathers, saw her with all her household, over whom she had any authority, gathered around her for the purpose of giving them that instruction which, with the promised blessing, would save them from the paths of sin and folly in this world, and prepare them for enjoying the blessedness of another. And through the distractions of an unsettled life, and the hinderances experienced in a large boarding house, in which several winters were spent with her family, she persevered as far as possible, in the instruction of both children and servants in the week and on the Sabbath, with a determination which both she and her friends thought had shortened her life. In view of this peculiar faithfulness to her domestic duties, we are the more willing to offer an apology for what appeared to some of her friends, an indifference to various extra means; which in these last times have been esteemed needful for the awakening of a slumbering church.