"What my feelings might be concerning the doctrine which I believe, was I called to contemplate on a _death-bed_, I am as unable to say, as I am what I may think of it a year hence, should I _live_ and be in _health_. But I am satisfied, beyond a doubt, that if I live a year longer, and then find cause to give up my present belief, I shall not feel a consciousness of having professed what I did not _sincerely believe_; and was I called to leave the world and my _writings_ in it, and at the _last hour_ of my _life_ should find I had _erred_, yet I am satisfied that I should _possess_ the _approbation_ of a _good conscience_ in _all_ I have _written_." That Mr. Ballou felt fully prepared to die, there can be not the least doubt, though he did not say so in the exact words that would express this state of mind. He frequently, during the last two or three months of his life, made use of expressions, as relating to current events, in a way that led those about him to see that he was striving, particularly, to have every matter of business, or family arrangement, so completed as not in any way to be contingent upon himself. Then his frequent observations relative to the idea that he was nearly worn out; and in his sermons, too, his often repeating at this time how near he was to the brink of the grave, and that those who heard him might realize the honesty of his reasoning and the sincerity of his doctrine, since, with so short a span of existence left to him, he could not in any instance bring himself to support what he did not most solemnly and religiously believe to be the gospel of Christ, and in full accordance with the word of God; the caution already referred to as given to his wife, and various other simple but expressive tokens that he evinced during the few weeks previous to his decease,--all go fully to show that his mind was made up to die, and that he foresaw, as it were, the approach of his demise, with almost prophetic vision. The philosophy, or sophistry, therefore, as to looking upon death as the inevitable visitant to others, but as something which must miraculously pass him by, did not exist in his mind. He looked upon death as "the messenger of God, commissioned from on high;" and he held himself calmly ready to answer the blessed decree of Heaven.