Let us mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, and see how peacefully he reposes on his dying pillow, with what chearfulness he bids adieu to his friends, and how he descends to the grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in his season. The day of this great man’s life was not more useful in its progress, than serene and glorious in its close. Without perturbation he read his summons to appear before the Judge of all, and without reluctance he obeyed. After a long and rough voyage he came with a propitious gale within sight of the peaceful harbour; and how fully he enjoyed the prospect, his own language in that happy period will abundantly testify. With application to himself he often repeated the words of Paul to the Hebrews, “Ye have need of patience that after ye have done the will of God, ye may receive the promise.” Not that he was exercised with bodily pain, but, retaining his desire to do good in undiminished force, he was not at times so resigned to his providential disability as he should have been. In such a frame of mind perhaps, he once said, “I wonder why the great God should continue me in life, when I am incapable of performing him any further service.” But now he had finished the work given him to do, he must quietly wait till the Lord of the vineyard shall bestow the promised, the desired reward. With these considerations he would check the encroachments of impatience, “The business of a christian,” said he, “is to bear the will of God, as well as to do it. If I were in health I could only be doing that, and that I may do now. The best thing in obedience is a regard to the will of God, and the way to that is to get our inclinations and aversions as much mortified as we can.” He discoursed much of his dependance upon the atoning sacrifice of Christ; and his trust in God through the Mediator remained unshaken to the last. “I should be glad,” he said, “to read more, yet not in order to be confirmed more in the truth of the christian religion, or in the truth of its promises, for I believe them enough to venture an eternity on them.” How his soul was absorbed in the faith of these promises, and the certainty of their accomplishment, all who visited him during the illness which terminated in his dissolution, could bear testimony.