I was despatched one cold morning on the pony for Mr. Blythe, a neighbouring clergyman and friend, to pay my father a visit. We rode together from his manse to Eccleshall; and, on his arrival, he remained alone with my father, engaged in those hallowed communings betwixt a dying man and his spiritual comforter which it is unseemly and sacrilegious in any case to disclose to mortal eyes. After a considerable space thus spent, the whole family, including the servants, were, by my father's directions, summoned to the side of his couch, in the Red Room, where he reposed. When all were assembled, he intimated, with composure and resignation, that he was conscious of the near approach of death, and addressed a few sentences of admonition and affection to them all; and, having done so, he requested Mr. Blythe to unite with his household in prayer and praise--requesting that the last hymn in the beautiful collection of sacred lyrics attached to our national psalmody, might be sung. My father's pulpit psalm-book was brought to Mr. Blythe. It is now before me, and I transcribe, from its page, with a vivid recollection of the scene now referred to, one of the solemn stanzas of that touching anthem:-- "The hour of my departure's come, I hear the voice that calls me home; At last, O Lord! let troubles cease, And let thy servant die in peace!" Mr. Blythe breathed, rather than sung the hymn, in the notes of Luther's hundredth psalm; and he did it with the accompaniment of tremulous and broken accents from all around the couch. The tears of unutterable sorrow were shed by all, save my mother, whose grief could not find a vent in tears. The voice of psalms was quenched amid the sobs which burst from every heart; and, during the singing of the last portion of it, the pious man who guided these orisons, sympathized so deeply in the passion of lamentation which encompassed him, that his accents were scarcely audible. The overpowering scene was closed by a brief and pathetic prayer to the Most High, that to His dying servant he would "stretch out His everlasting arms," and "to the friendless prove a friend."