not so ill as you were in the morning.' 'Very well,' was his reply: Thy will, O Lord, be done!'

"About the middle of the day, fever again came on, and he appeared restless and distressed. He said, 'Some hours this morning passed very comfortably. It was something like godliness: but now my mind is confused, and I cannot fix my thoughts. His breath in the afternoon became short, and his sufferings appeared great; but on my mother's lamenting his distress in breathing, he said, 'It is by no means so great as last night.'—He had frequently said in the preceding week, when we thought him dying, laying his hand on his chest, 'Nothing fails here: I may live weeks as I now am.' But for the last day or two he had perceived a difference in this respect, and often noticed it, saying, 'Here it is the oppression is dreadful! Lord support me! Receive my spirit!'-About four or five o'clock the flush left his face, and he became calm, and again able to resume his constant work of prayer and praise. He, however, spoke little to be understood, but his hands and eyes were continually lifted up to heaven. He occasionally looked round upon us with unutterable tenderness and affection, though sometimes with a mixture of reproach when he witnessed our tears. His countenance expressed what he had said to my mother a day or two before: 'Can any rational being grieve at my departure? If you thought I was going to be miserable, you might mourn; but surely not as it is.' On her reply, that she could not help it, he said, 'Nature will have its first burst of sorrow: but you will soon learn to view the subject in its true light.'

"He seemed about half past six almost disquieted by seeing the bitter distress of a servant who sat by him, and repeatedly shook his head as a sign that she should moderate her grief. As her feelings became ungovernable, she rose to leave the room: which when he perceived, he made an attempt to take his hand out of bed, to give her before she went: but his weakness prevented his succeeding. It was his last effort. He soon after made a sign to Mr. D. to raise his head. Mr. D. took him in his arms; he laid his head on his shoulder, and raised his eyes to heaven; a look of unutterable joy, an expression of glory begun, came over his whole countenance, and in a few minutes, without sigh or struggle, without even a discomposed feature, he sweetly slept in Jesus. We all, even my poor mother, stood by and were comforted. We could hardly conceive it could be

death; and when assured by Mr. D., who still held him in his arms, that the heart had ceased to beat, our first words were praise and thanksgiving to that God, who had delivered him from every fear, from all evil, and received him to his eternal kingdom and glory.-We soon indeed awoke to the sense of our own irreparable loss. To the end of life we must mourn such a wise counsellor, bright example, and fervent intercessor. Yet never can we think of him without blessing and praising God on his behalf, for all he did for him and by him; for having so long preserved to us such a treasure, even till, we humbly trust, we through grace have a blessed hope of all being at length re-united with him in the realms of endless bliss!

"It is not easy to describe the deep grief of his people, when the mournful event was made known in the village and neighborhood. Our friend is gone!' 'We have lost our friend!' were the lamentations of the poor on every side. Even the most stupid and thoughtless of his parishioners were roused to feeling on this occasion. Numbers of the parish and neighborhood came to take a last look, and stood by the corpse overwhelmed with grief,-many of whom had paid little attention to his instructions while living."

Mr. Wilson remarks:-"Upon such a departure no feeling but that of gratitude and joy can arise in the Christian's breast, unless perhaps a momentary regret should cross the mind for the extremity of suffering which our friend was called to endure. But that will soon subside into submission, when we recollect the calmness with which the blessed apostle in our text speaks of his own still more violent death. For the Christian will behold in both, not so much the external circumstances or the personal anguish, as the principle on which they were supported, and the acceptance with which they were crowned. Yes, my brethren, the dissolution of our venerable friend, though not, like the inspired apostle's, a martyrdom for the cause of Christ, in which he poured out his blood as a libation; yet, so far as intense sufferings from the ordinary attacks of disease, and the superadded assaults of Satan, gave him the occasion of testifying his faith and patience, of confirming his fidelity to Christ, of displaying for the instruction and encouragement of the surviving church, a most affecting scene of a dying disciple adhering to his Savior under the bitterest temptations and most oppressive conflicts, and then falling asleep

with peace and resignation; his death was a sacred act, the consummation of his devotedness to God. And his composure, not only in contemplating his departure when near, but in enduring it and supporting it when it arrived, surrounded as it was with circumstances calculated to dismay an ordinary faith, formed a striking exemplification of the Christian fortitude which is so nobly evinced by the blessed apostle in the triumphant passage we have been considering."

The funeral took place on the Monday following, April 23. It was our intention to act strictly according to his own directions, by making it as plain and private as possible. But, as the hour approached, numbers of those who had enjoyed his acquaintance, with many others who "esteemed him highly in love for his work's sake,"-some of them coming from a very considerable distance,-began to collect around the church and the parsonage-house. On the prccession leaving the garden-gate, it was attended by sixteen clergymen; while thirty or forty respectable females, in full mourning, stood ready, in double line, to join it as it passed towards the church. That little building was more crowded, probably, than on any former occasion; and a large number of persons collected round the windows, unable to enter for want of room. In the absence of the Rev. J. H. Barber, (the present rector,) who had been disappointed of arriving in time, the funeral service was read by the Rev. S. B. Mathews, curate of Stone. The Rev. John Hill, viceprincipal of St. Edmund's Hall, Oxford, addressed the congregation, previously to the interment, from the words of dying Jacob, "I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord!” and the very appropriate hymn was sung, beginning,

"In vain my fancy strives to paint
The moment after death," &c.

Mr. Wilson's funeral sermon was preached on the Friday following. It was our intention, and very much our wish, that it should have been delivered from the same pulpit, whence the venerated servant of Christ, who gave occasion to it, had, for eighteen years, "declared the whole counsel of God:" but it was foreseen that the little church at Aston would be utterly inadequate to receive the numbers who would desire to be present. The neighboring church of Haddenham therefore, which had been kindly offered, was thankfully, though, at the same time, somewhat reluctantly accepted for the service. The event shewed the necessity

of making the exchange, for even that large building was not sufficient to accommodate the crowds who assembled. The appearance of the congregation, in which a large proportion of all ranks had provided themselves with mourning, evinced how highly my dear father was esteemed in the neighborhood, though his infirmities and engagements had conspired for a long time past to confine him within the limits of his own village.

Before I proceed to other documents, I will lay before the reader a few short extracts of letters from different members of the family, shewing the view which they took of the whole scene, in proportion as they were enabled to look back upon it more deliberately, and with greater composure.

April 20. "We feel that we have had a grand and most edifying Christian spectacle proposed to us: far more striking and instructive than if all had been smooth."

April 25. "It was a great fear of my dear father's, that his death-bed scene should depress any of us, particularly myself. How much otherwise has been the effect! I do confess that the contemplation of the whole, in all its connexions, produces such an effect, that I cannot feel depressed at present."(The letter in reply to which this was written, brought some painful intelligence.)—"After seeing fears so disappointed, (if I may use the expression,) and prayers so answered, cannot but indulge hope."

May 29 "When I dare to recal past scenes, I hope I do it with much praise and thankfulness, mingled with my sorrow and I really do think, that even the most painful part of your beloved father's experience affords matter rather of gratitude than of grief. As I observed before, it reminded me of a fine sun-set, heightened by the dark and gloomy clouds tinted with gold; and I certainly think the scene afforded more to warn, excite, and interest us, than a more serene and unclouded one would have done. Some of our best feelings were, I trust, drawn out on this most melancholy and affecting occa-. sion, and our hearts still more than before united in tender affection."

June 2. "I remain in a very debilitated state. . . . My mind too, after all its over-excitement at Aston, has sunk almost into what the doctors call a collapsed state; and it seems sometimes as torpid as its companion. I do not, however, mean by this to say, that the effects of what I have so lately witnessed and experienced have entirely

subsided. I would not thus undervalue the goodness of God; who, by means of the bereavement we have lately sustained, and all its attendant circumstances, has done me, I would fain hope, permanent good.-I often look back with joy and gratitude to our delightful meeting,-for delightful certainly it was, though mingled with such exquisite pain. Surely it was a foretaste of that time, when, I humbly trust, we shall all be reunited in the realms of eternal bliss!You ask for my now calmer reflections: but I cannot yet think calmly on what has passed. My heart overflows with a strange mixture of feelings, whenever my thoughts turn that way. Those of a joyful nature, however, predominate. The amazing goodness of God to me and mine -our past happiness-our future prospects-at times quite overpower my mind, and I seem almost lost in 'wonder, love, and praise.'-But I am afraid of yielding to these happy emotions, lest they should not rest on a secure foundation, as regards myself: and yet, perhaps, a merciful God bestows them, as a cordial to support me under my depressing maladies; and ought I to turn away from the cup of consolation which he so graciously puts into my hand, unworthy as I am of the least of his mercies?-Many things which passed have led me to a more constant and careful perusal of the Bible than formerly: and most richly have I been rewarded by such views of the wondrous things of God's law, as I never before enjoyed."

August 2. "Whenever I contemplate his close, I seem to derive from it a deeper conviction of the importance and excellence of religion, and of the vast hold it had upon his mind."

I shall only now detain the reader from the memorandums which were made of what fell from my father's lips during his illness, while I submit some extracts and remarks on that degree of darkness and depression, which was intermingled with sensations of a different kind in his experience at this time.

In a letter, dated February 21, before the commencement of my father's illness, the Rev. W. Richardson, of York, had remarked generally, referring to him, "Deep thinkers, and highly gifted persons, are seldom favored with such joy and peace in believing as are experienced by common minds. Men must always pay the penalty annexed to preeminence above their fellows."