But the end was to come, as the end must come to blessings and trials alike in this world of ours, and our Father was to be taken from us. "He was a burning and a shining light," and "we were willing for a season to rejoice in his light." But it could be only for a season that the light could shine on earth, then it must beam in Paradise. I know how difficult and delicate a task it is to speak of the closing hours of any life. I know that ordinarily one shrinks from it, and would veil such sacred things from view. But the last hours and the dying testimony of an eminent Christian, and that Christian an aged and distinguished Prelate in the Church, are a part of the Church's heritage. Nay more, it seems to me a sacred duty that I should declare to you the witness of those last hours to which I was allowed in some degree to minister, and the memory of which will go with me while I live. But I shall try to observe such reticence as the case demands, though not, perhaps, what he would have imposed upon me. It pleased God in his mysterious providence that he should pass through great physical suffering before the release was granted. Yet no one ever heard, amid it all, a word of murmur, impatience or complaint. "Not more than I can bear," was the utmost acknowledgment of suffering that ever came from him. It was "the fellowship of suffering," making him perfect in the sufferer. Once when I had spoken to him of the comfort of the sustaining presence of the adorable Redeemer, he said fervently, "Yes, it is sufficient," and then solemnly lifting his hand towards heaven, he added, "and there is nothing else!" The subdued and yet deeply earnest way in which he joined in the office of the last Communion he received on earth, and the fervency of his response, especially in the Confession, made the service, always so solemn and impressive, even more than ordinarily so. At its close, weak as he was, he rose to his feet, and joined, with a voice stronger than it had been before, and filled with deep emotion, in the _Gloria in Excelsis_. Fitting prelude to the eternal anthem which, this day, he sings in Paradise!