appears before it? and all the interests that have filled past years are vanishing forever? O thou, who must survive this second self, Heaven lent for thy support! who was thine all, and whose looks now bid thee a sad adieu! thou wilt not shrink from laying thy hand upon the fainting heart, whose latest pulse, after the death of words, speaks it thine own. Shall we then blame you if you wish your dust might mingle? All-gracious Deity! awaken them together. Or, if but one deserves thy favoring call to number with the elect, let but the other learn these blissful tidings; read them in angel light one fleeting instant, and he will sink resigned back to perpetual gloom. Perhaps I err in this essay to paint the last hours of such a man, who sees the advancing strides of death, and feels that he must part from all he holds most dear. He struggles for a momentary strength, that his last words may serve to instruct his children. 'Fear not,' he says, 'to watch your sire's release, to lose your oldest friend; it is by God's ordinance he goes before you, from a world into which he came the first. He would fain teach you courage, though he weeps to say farewell: he could have wished to stay and aid you longer, by experience to have led you some steps further on the way surrounded by such perils for your youth; but life has no defence against its Giver's mandate. You will proceed alone in a wide world, where I shall be no more. May you abundantly reap all the blessings that Providence has sown there! But never forget that this world is a land through which we only journey to our home. Let us hope to meet again. May our Father accept the sacrifice I tender, in your cause, of all my vows and tears! Cling to religion! Trust its promises! Love it, as the last link betwixt child and parent; betwixt life and death! Draw near me, that I may see you still. The benediction of an humble Christian rest with you all!' He dies! Angels, receive his soul, and leave us here the memory of his deeds, his faith, his chastened hope."[1]