Finally, on board the sinking _London_, the greatest attention was paid to a preached gospel. A preacher is not unfrequently heard enforcing his appeals to the undecided by the solemn words, “I speak as a dying man to dying men.” In Mr. Draper’s case the words were literally true, and they had all the pathos and hold of last words that might at any moment be stopped by the overwhelming flood: and how the passengers listened! How important seemed every word then with either heaven or hell coming nearer and nearer with every inch of water rising in the engine-room! Ah! could those on land, and out of the reach, as they think, of such a calamity as shipwreck, but feel, that slowly yet surely up to them is advancing the hour in which all earthly interests will be as nothing, and the concerns of the soul all important, how would they now value the privilege of a preached gospel, and every instrumentality by which they can learn more of themselves and of spiritual things! A little while, and the last hour of every one who reads these lines will have come, and will be felt to be the last. How wilt thou meet it, reader? It has been said, that in that last hour, no matter how aged the dying one, the memory awakes to its keenest power, and there passes before the mind a vivid diorama of all life’s doings. Events and circumstances seemingly long buried, suddenly leap into life, and it well nigh startles one to listen to the remembrances that come and go through the fast-darkening chambers of the brain. Slowly dying on the pillow before us, lies one whose head is silent with age, and the grey dawn of an eternal morning is stealing over his features; but glancing brightly through the haze of death, there come to him visions of his long, long past; of the home of his childhood, of the bride of his youth, of the events of his riper age and manhood, until in a single hour he seems to live all his life over again. Oh! it will be sad to remember, in such an hour, a neglected Bible, a throne of grace despised, and a gospel of mercy refused. It will be sad to remember, that even such a calamity as the wreck of the _London_ produced no serious impression, and no turning of the head towards heaven. If the things which the sinking passengers remembered during the storm are remembered by you now,--if their deep importance is laid to heart by all whose feelings have been touched by the disaster,--then, terrible though it has been, it will not have occurred in vain. It will have come in mercy to those who, in circumstances of fancied security, are not prepared to die. To such the voice of the sinking minister crying, even from the drowning wave, “Prepare to meet your God,” will not have come in vain. THE END. [Illustration] APPENDIX.