But the Lord having other thoughts concerning him, in a short time all their great expectations of him in the ministry were frustrated. For by his extreme abstinence, drinking of water, and indefatigable pains, he contracted that sickness, of which he died soon after. His body began to languish, his stomach to refuse all meat, and his constitution to alter. Mr. Dickson laid his condition much to heart (Mr. Bailie being at London) and kept him fifteen days with him; thereafter he went to Houston, and stayed as long there, where the lady and her daughter shewed more love and kindness than can be expressed, and that not only for the care he had of her son, but also for the rare gifts and graces God had bestowed on him. His father having sent for them he returned home.----The first night on his journey, he was with Ralston, and the laird of Ducathall, being there occasionally, attended him all the rest of the way homeward; for not being able to ride two miles together, he behoved to go into a house to rest himself for an hour, such was his weakly condition. After his arrival at home, he put on his clothes every day for fifteen days, and after that lay bedfast for ten weeks until the day of his death, during which time the Lord was very merciful and gracious to him, both in an external and internal way.----For his body by degrees daily languished till he became like a skeleton, and yet his face remained ever pleasant, beautiful and well-coloured, even to his last. The last five or six weeks he lived, there were always three or four waiting on him and sometimes more, yet they never had occasion to weary of him, but were rather refreshed with every day's continuance, by the many wise, sweet and gracious discourses which proceeded out of his mouth. In the time of his sickness the Lord was graciously pleased to guard his mind and heart from the malice of Satan, so that his peace and confidence in God was not much disturbed, or if the Lord was pleased to suffer any little assault, it soon evanished. His feeling and sense was not frequent nor great, but his faith and confidence in God through Jesus Christ was ever strong, which he told his father divers times was more sure and solid than the other. He said, that the Lord before his sickness, had made fast work with him about the matters of his soul, and that before that, he had been under sore exercises of mind, by the sense of his own guiltiness for a long time, before ever he had solid peace and clear confidence, and often said, "Unworthy I and naughty I, am freely beloved of the Lord, and the Lord knows, my soul dearly loves him back again." And that the Lord knew his weakness to encounter with a temptation, and so out of tender compassion thus pitied him.