abilities. He passed the four years of the war under such excitement as I have never seen, without intermission, his nerves strung up to a marvellous tension.

The circumstances of his death were ordered in great mercy and kindness, with all the immediate members of his family around him. The last sermon he preached was on the 8th of July, when he said he did not feel like preaching a sermon, but would give his people a "talk." He said he left them every year with more pensiveness. He took for a text "Abide with us," &c., Luke xxiv. 29. If he had known it was to be his last sermon he could not have said more. He said "his work in Pine Street was nearly done." He appealed earnestly to those who had listened to him for thirty years without feeling that his message was worth attention. He asked the Lord Jesus to abide with them if he could not, and said he could not leave them in better hands. He always said he had two requests to make for himself. First-that he might not be laid aside helpless ; and second-that being of the Brainerd stock, which was godly, but sad and pensive, his own father, though a good man, having been left to gloom and despondency, he might escape that fate; and both these requests were granted. He was in his usual health on Tuesday, August 21st, and had walked a mile. He retired to rest calmly, surrounded by his family, and a little after midnight, with a few heavy apoplectic breathings, he passed away. Very much in this way died Chalmers, and about the same time of life, in the early watches of the morning. And who would not thus wish to die?

REV. CHARLES WILLIAMS.

CHARLES WILLIAMS was born in the city of Westminster, on the 18th of July, 1796. His father was a practical engineer, of much ingenuity in his profession. On leaving school, where the boy did well, he entered the shop, and at the lathe and the bench became skilled in all kinds of work in wood, brass, and iron. The family was now residing in the neighbourhood of Surrey Chapel; and the intelligent, curly-headed lad might be seen in a pew in the gallery, on the left of the pulpit, listening with eager interest to the many preachers of renown who proclaimed the truth within those time-honoured walls.

Years passed on, and Charles Williams entered the large bookselling establishment of Messrs. Sharpe and Hailes, Piccadilly-a position very congenial to one who was hereafter to be so conspicuously identified with books and writers. Here he remained for about six years, till he was twenty-two. His thoughts had, however, been for some time directed to another and higher sphere of labour. The early influences and teachings of a pious mother, the ministrations of the Gospel at Surrey Chapel, the companionship of kindred and Christian minds in the Sabbath-school and elsewhere, had long since led him to Christian decision, and had enlisted his sympathies in many forms of Christian activity. He now resolved to devote himself to the ministry of the Word of Life. After some preliminary training at Rothwell, he entered Hoxton Academy.

His college course was not completed when he received an urgent request to become the pastor of the newly-gathered congregation of Independents in their newly-erected and spacious chapel at Newark. With the advice of the College authorities, he accepted the invitation, and in the autumn of 1823, commenced his ministry. The influence of his private character and public ministrations was soon felt. Large congregations of those who were nominally members of the Established Church, became regular hearers at least upon the Sabbath evenings ; and the Word of Life was blessed to many beyond the sphere of those who had

been accustomed to attend a Nonconformist sanctuary. But besides the labours ordinarily devolving upon the Christian pastor, Mr. Williams had to contend with what in those days was the almost overwhelming debt upon the chapel, of £3,500 —a debt to the incurring of which he had been no party, but the burden of which unexpectedly devolved upon him. Unhappily, in the midst of these perplexities, a contested election occurred, arousing the most intense feeling throughout the town, sundering those who had before cheerfully co-operated, and well-nigh wrecking all the hopes of the young pastor. Manfully, however, he encountered these difficulties, and, though the chapel was at one time actually announced for sale by auction, he succeeded in saving it; and when, years afterwards, Mr. Williams exchanged his sphere of labour for another, the liabilities upon the chapel had been reduced to £1,300, and the cause was permanently established in the

town.

In 1833, he became the pastor of the Church at Endless-street, Salisbury; and subsequently accepted the office of editor in the Religious Tract Society. For this position he had peculiar qualifications. Already, by means of his pen, he had become well known as an instructive and interesting writer, especially for the young; and now he found an ample sphere for his labours. In addition to manifold editorial duties, he became, during his twelve years' connection with that Society, the author of no fewer than seventy-seven distinct publications.

In the year 1850, he removed to St. John's Wood, and afterwards to Sibbertoft, in Northamptonshire; continuing, wherever he went, his ministerial and literary labours. While residing at Sibbertoft, he established regular service upon the Sabbath evening in "his own hired house;" and he obtained the assistance of the students of the Institute at Nottingham to aid him in this work.

"The Committee rejoice," says the Report just submitted, "that Mr. Williams was permitted to see the work he had established at Sibbertoft prosper abundantly. His sympathies and counsels were of invaluable assistance to the students who first entered upon this mission. The fruits of his labours were largely the fruit of his own, for he had sown and watered the good seed. But his delight in their success was unmeasured. His fervent prayers for them, and his lively interest in the great object of the Institute-the mission to the poorhave left a sacred impression upon the minds of tutors and students, which enhance memories of personal friendship and of yet nearer relationship." His last illness was brief. Some premonitory symptoms had, months before, threatened him; but he was in comparatively vigorous health when, returning from a week-evening service he had been conducting at Endless-street, Salisbury -the chapel of which he had been the minister thirty years before-he said to a friend, This east wind has caught me at last." Inflammation of the lungs set in. Hope and fear alternated from day to day in the minds of those who watched at his bedside; but though his mind remained clear and calm, the strength of life was ebbing. Three days before he died, he sat up in bed to select some manuscripts for publication in the "Christian's Penny Magazine," and he freely offered his comments on their respective characteristics. His Christian faith was as unclouded as his intellect. On the Wednesday night before he died, he said to one of his sons, "If I should pass away to-night, I know that, though absent-exiled (he interposed)-exiled from the body, I shall be present with the Lord." On the night of the 16th of June, 1866, a life of nearly half a century of public Christian service, and of more than that of stainless Christian consistency, drew to its close.

MATAMOROS, THE SPANISH CONFESSOR.

MATAMOROS, whose doings and sufferings under the intolerance of the Spanish Government a few years ago acquired so wide-world an attention, has recently died at the early age of thirty-two. Those who knew and loved him have not hesitated to ascribe his death to the persecutions he received at the commencement of his career. For some time he had been engaged at Lausanne in preparing for the ministry, but illness compelled him to spend last winter in the south of France. Madame Bridel, wife of M. le Pasteur Bridel, at Lausanne, has written an account of the closing scene, a few extracts from which may not be uninteresting. After an absence of some months Matamoros returned to Lausanne last May, He was cordially welcomed by many friends, and received as an inmate of the family of Monsieur le Pasteur Bridel. The long journey from Pau had greatly fatigued him, but the state of his health excited no alarm.

It was his great desire to be ordained to the ministry in the Free Church of the Canton de Vaud; and M. Bridel, after serious consideration, agreed to his request, and proposed that the ordination service should take place in October, before his return to Pau. He felt that although Matamoros had not gone through the usual preparation, God himself had prepared him by suffering and persecution. Towards the end of May, Matamoros addressed the Synod of the Free Church held at Morges, and pleaded the cause of the evangelization of Spain with great fervour and dignity, gaining the hearts of many for the work which so entirely filled his own. He was very much interested in the young Spaniards studying at Lausanne, and spent a good deal of time with them, holding meetings with them for prayer and the study of the holy Scriptures.

In the month of July the friends of Matamoros became seriously alarmed in respect to his failing health. A consultation of medical men took place, when all agreed that his life was in imminent danger, and that death might occur at any moment. His devoted and faithful friend, Mr. Greene, was at Lausanne when the consultation took place, and at once informed him of the doctors' opinion. The tidings took him by surprise, and at first were not submissively received. He felt his work on earth unfinished, and hoped it might be the will of the Lord to spare him yet a little longer.

Writing the next day to one of his most valued friends in Holland, he said:— "The doctors think I must soon die. The college of Pau unopened, other things on which my heart is set uncompleted; but I trust God will bless His own work, and realize our dearest wishes. There is no one indispensable for Him, not even those servants who would so gladly shed for Him their heart's blood."

His sufferings were very great from pain, weakness, and depression. At first he could drive to the house of Pasteur Bridel in the environs of Lausanne nearly every day, and enjoy the pure air and repose in that sheltered spot which had been to him as a home; but on the 19th of July he paid his last visit to these his dearest friends, and was then too weak to leave the carriage. That night he felt sinking, and impressed with the idea it might be his last on earth, he desired that the young Spaniards might be assembled round his bed. He addressed to them loving and earnest exhortations, and concluded by offering a fervent prayer; after which the students sang a Spanish hymn-" El cielo es del alma la patria mejor "—"Heaven the better country of the soul."

Next morning he unexpectedly rallied a little, and for some time hopes of his recovery were entertained; but these soon passed away. He was removed to a house about half a mile from the town, which a Swiss lady most kindly gave up to

him, as soon as she heard the doctors advised fresher air and a more quiet situation. Madame Bridel having kept away a day or two from fear of fatiguing him, he wrote a letter to her, in which he said :-"I am very weak, yet the doctors pronounce me better. Let that be as it may, my God is All in All to me. At my first struggle with the agonies of death I wished to live, but now I desire nothing but the accomplishment of God's holy will. The last few days I have been much occupied with certain matters relating to the work, but now I have resigned all into the hands of Him who entrusted it to me. He knows best how to employ His own instruments. I love life, but in this solemn hour I only desire it, if it should be His will to grant it me. If I am soon to leave this world, adieu, my noble mother! Never doubt that your maternal care for me, and still more for my work for Christ, has been richly blessed by the Lord. Your example has been always good for me; your counsels have often been a light to my path. May God bless you for ever. My dear Saviour is awaiting me. He becomes to me every moment more and more my friend, my love, the centre of all my aspirations."

On the 31st of July, Matamoros was fully aware that his last hour was come, and his young Spanish friends were sent for. When they were assembled, he begged them to sing a Spanish and a French hymn, in which he tried to join with his dying voice. In feeble, broken accents, he then exhorted them to keep close to Christ—very close, and never to lose sight of eternity. In the morning he had remarked—“On the journey from earth to heaven it is well to pass by Golgotha." When he had finished his few words of exhortation to his young friends he fell asleep, and in this world he never awoke again.

The burial of Matamoros was very solemn. According to the custom of the Swiss Church an address was given to the friends of the departed assembled in the Maison Belvédère, before the funeral. M. Le Pasteur Bridel, of the Free Church, gave his testimony to the faith, devoted activity, and Christian death of Matamoros, and subsequently at the grave gave a rapid sketch of the principal events of his life. Born at Malaga, 1834; brought to the knowledge of Christ at Gibraltar, 1859; imprisoned for the Gospel, 1860. He remained three years in captivity, during which time his zeal won many souls to Christ; but his health, hitherto robust, received a shock from which it never recovered. He was condemned in May, 1863, to the galleys, but the sentence was commuted into exile. After a succession of journeys and visits to England, Gibraltar, and Bayonne, he arrived at Lausanne, May, 1864, to study theology. M. Bridel then alluded to the great blessings God had vouchsafed to the labours of His servant, and rapidly surveyed the progress in the evangelization of Spain which he himself had been permitted to see accomplished in three short years of unwearied activity, broken up as they had been by illness and weakness.

"CALL NO MAN HAPPY BEFORE HIS DEATH."

THIS old-world saying is founded on the many and unexpected vicissitudes to which life is exposed. Call not the crowned monarch happybefore he dies his crown may be

trampled in the dust. Call not the rich man happy-before he dies his wealth may pass away like a vapour, Call not the companion of princes happy-before he dies he may be