Would my time admit of making further extracts from Scripture, I could fill a multitude of pages with accounts of the loving-kindness and patient forbearance continually exercised by God towards his creatures; but the Bible is in the hands of you all, and I earnestly entreat you to make yourselves acquainted with the salutary and cheering precepts which you will find inculcated in every line of that sacred volume. It abounds in consolations with which the thirsty soul of the weary traveller, who is seeking salvation, may be feasted and refreshed. The careful perusal of this most excellent book is not only granted to us as a privilege, but God enjoins it as a duty: He says, in the Gospel according to St. John[20], “Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” I fear I have already trespassed too long on your patience; but I feel a resistless impulse to give you a brief account of the dying moments of two persons with whom I was acquainted, and from which, beyond all doubt, the most impressive moral lesson may be learned. I select these from a great many similar cases which came under my observation in the course of professional avocation in various parts of the world. These men through life professed sentiments very different from each other; and at the awful hour of dissolution, their feelings were indeed very opposite. They were both snatched away in the prime of life, one being twenty-four, and the other twenty-seven years old. A long and disinterested friendship with the former, induced him to request my attendance professionally; but all human skill was vain: the cold hand of death had seized him. Never, in my life, did I see the cheering effects of a religious life more strongly exemplified than on this occasion. His wife, his mother, and his five sisters, with myself, were present. Observing his female relations in tears, he requested them to come near, and, after a little pause, addressed them in nearly the following words: “Beloved friends, I perceive with regret the anguish of your souls; I say regret, because I had promised myself nothing but tranquillity and happiness, while the partition is breaking down that separates me from my God. I am entering on my last journey, which, so far from being terrible, is inviting and delightful.” A paroxysm of pain here interrupted the interesting account, and for a minute he lay apparently insensible; but opening his eyes again, with a placid smile, he said, “I feel the infirmity of nature, but my sense of pain is lost in my ardent hope of salvation. I have heartily repented of all my sins, and firmly believe, through the benignant mercies of my God, and the redeeming merits of my _blessed Saviour_, I shall in a few minutes be numbered with the chosen of God. O my wife! my mother! my beloved sisters! I beseech you not to mourn my departure. I feel happiness unspeakable opening on my soul, as it bursts from this wretched