Like Cornelius, he had been a devout man, a man of prayer through life. He believed in the promises of effectual aid from God the Holy Spirit, to carry on the work of grace in his own soul. Nerved with this faith, he waged a ceaseless war against corruptions within, and temptations from without. And while he viewed the promises of assistance from the Holy Spirit, as given not to supersede our own exertions, but to animate them, he simply trusted to Him to become the author of his complete sanctification. And all the blessed fruits of faith were found richly clustering round his character. It was his constant habit, after his return from a journey, to spend some time in his room alone, engaged, no doubt, in holy communing with God. When he prayed in the family, or before his sermon in the pulpit, where he seldom used a form, the rich and fervid unction, the variety and copiousness of his supplications and thanksgivings, seemed to intimate how closely he had been wont to commune in secret with his heavenly Father. The fifty-first Psalm now often supplied the words for many a humble confession of sin, and many an earnest aspiration for larger supplies of the Holy Spirit's sanctifying influences, both in the pulpit and elsewhere. He appears always to have held frequent communion with God in ejaculatory prayer throughout the day. To one whose engagements were so many, and whose interruptions were necessarily so frequent, the practice was no doubt most beneficial. Thus the lamp of God in his soul was always trimmed, and the light went not out as age and infirmities drew on. His friends now remarked his frequent abstraction from the scenes around, while his moving lip and solemn gesture significantly intimated the direction of his mind, and the occupation of his thoughts. His mind became daily more spiritual, and even when in the midst of visitors he seemed often to be absorbed in silent prayer.