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Walk then, brethren, in the Spirit. bitual dependance on this divine Agent. The Christian profession is a great and an awful thing--to fail in it will be dreadful, yea, intolerable misery. To fail here is to fail for eternity, to miscarry in the greatest and most solemn transaction in which we can ever be engaged. And fail we must, if the Spirit of God do not help us. We may not become immoral, or infidels, or heretical, or profane; but we shall lie down and die in worldly-mindedness; we shall perish in apparent respectability and comfort; we shall sink to the bottomless pit, amidst ease, and wealth, and all that is pleasant in this world; we shall go down to the regions of eternal night from the very midst of the church, if we have not the Spirit of God. Be this, then, our supreme, our habitual, our ever-quickening, moving solicitude, to obtain the Spirit of God. There is no other way to live, but by the Spirit; no other way to walk, but by the Spirit; this is the principle of holy vitality in our profession, which will render it like a tree verdant in its leaf, and abundant in its fruit; but without which, it will be a fruitless vine, withered in its foliage, scathed in its branches and its trunk, and fit for nothing but to be cut down, and cast into the fire.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE DYING PROFESSOR.

"It is appointed unto all men once to die:" There is no exemption, even for believers, from this decree. They are delivered from the sting of death, but not from its stroke;still, in one sense, they conquer, like their divine Lord, in being conquered. "If ever Christianity," says Mr. HALL,

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appears in its power, it is when it erects its trophies on the томв; when it takes up its votaries where the world leaves them, and fills the breast with immortal hopes in dying moments." Christ triumphed for his saints, by his own death, and he is continually renewing the victory in them, amidst all the sufferings and decay of their own dissolution. This is beautifully illustrated in the subject of the present chapter; in which we are to contemplate the Christian's termination of her profession on earth, and see her finishing her course with joy. I shall not exhibit to my readers an ideal scene, but lay before them one of those glorious and blissful realities, which are continually occurring in the dying chamber of believers, that border-land which connects the regions of earth and heaven, and where the darkest scenes of the one are frequently irradiated by the reflected glory of

the other.

Mrs. P. had been a member of the church under my pastoral oversight about ten years, and was one of many, who

never cost her pastor's heart a sigh, till he lost her. Lovely in person, gentle and affectionate in her disposition, she added a lustre to her consistency as a Christian, by all that usually interests us in the general character. Tried much, and often, in the furnace of affliction, her faith, more precious than gold that perisheth, was found unto the praise and honour, and glory of Jesus Christ. At length her last sickness came on in the form of a lingering consumption. It found her the happy wife of an affectionate and devoted husband, and the fond mother of a son of the age of twelve years, and two daughters, one ten, and the other eight. Possessing such ties to life, she was called to submit, amidst trying circumstances, to the stroke of death. Her profession, always like a clear and steady light, now shone forth with a beauty, that made her departure resemble a glorious sun-set, after a cloudless day. Amidst the alternations usually produced by the flattering illusions of her disorder, she was never elated by hope, nor depressed by fear, but smiled on her physician, whether he spoke of recovery or death. However languishing with weakness, or racked by pain, or harrassed by coughing, she was instantly roused and made happy by one word of death or Christ. Such was the charm of these themes, that I have frequently seen her countenance change in a moment, by their potency, from an expression of great suffering to a smile that looked like a ray of the excellent glory, falling on her previously dim and languid eye. Instead, however, of speaking of her, or attempting to describe her, I will let her speak for herself. As I was about to leave home for a few days, and supposing that her end was not remote, I requested her husband to take minutes of any remarks that might drop from her lips, in order that I might be in possession of her last testimony to the truths of the gospel, and the power of religion.-The following diary, extending

only through ten days, is but a specimen of what occurred almost uninterruptedly for many months.

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Tell Mr. JAMES," she said one day, "that the fear and sting of death are both taken away-the fear, because Christ died for sinners :-the sting, because he fulfilled and magnified the law." And in reply to a remark that death was hard work, "No," she said, "sweet death! that opens heaven and shuts out earth."

AUGUST 4.-This morning she awoke exceedingly happy, and said, "What a mercy it is to have a Father in heaven. I wake every morning more happy, with more love to God, and more deadness to the world. O, my happy midnight hours! The things I most dreaded, I find most mercy in. I cannot say much, but I wish, when I can say a few words only, to utter the praises of that God who is so good to

me.'

At another time she said, "My bliss is too great to be endured on earth, and it's too pure for it.-Oh! seek God earnestly with all the heart, and then he will comfort you on a death-bed, in the same way he now comforts me. Confess to him all your sins, make no reserve, and remember not to put off the confession of little sins, for they will only harden the heart, and delay will make the confession more difficult at last."

AUGUST 6." I have been unspeakably happy," she said, "to-night. Oh! seek God with all your heart; seek him while he may be found, call upon him while he is near."

On having her pillows adjusted and made easy, her uplifted hands and eyes spoke more than words could do, her feelings of gratitude and thankfulness; "How can I sufficiently honour and adore God, for all his mercies towards me. I feel my heart almost ready to burst, and my whole soul swallowed up in gratitude and love to him: surely, surely, heaven is begun below!"

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SUNDAY MORNING, AUGUST 7.--She observed, Satan has been tempting me in the night, by a sense of past sins, but I have been enabled to beat him off, by praying for faith, and looking steadily at the cross. This life is as St. Paul describes it, a constant fight; I have found it to be so, but the idea that it is so near a close is to me exquisite. You will (addressing me) find it so yourself, but watch and pray, and you will ultimately triumph. Sin is mixed with every thing here, and remember, whatever comes between the soul and God, as a cloud to dim the lustre of his glory, is sin. I was much struck with this idea about eighteen years ago, in attending the theatre, at the particular request of a friend, for I found when I retired to bed, I could not pray, which convinced me of the sinfulness of the theatre, and I never went again."

This morning she joined the whole family in singing, "When I can read my title clear," &c.-She did so in a peculiarly animated manner, but with so trembling and feeble a voice, that it was pleasure mixed with pain, and the circumstance will never be forgotten.

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During the day, such was her patience and resignation, that in allusion to her sufferings she said, I think I could bear a little more, if God thought fit to lay it upon me; and looking upon her poor skeleton fingers, added, "I like to see them;" and then with an apparent smile of triumph said, "You know you cannot keep me here much longer, I shall soon be gone."

AUGUST 8.-This last night has been to her a sleepless, restless one; she appears almost worn out, and to be much engaged in prayer, for waiting patience: she said, "what an unspeakable mercy it is, that I've not a doubt or a fear! but pray for me, that I may so continue to the end, for many a good Christian is permitted to be much harrassed by the enemy at the last; I have been much distressed to-night

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