tion-and, with his wonted calmness and deliberation, he spoke to the following purpose: 'I have long known my disease to be a dangerous one, and now I perceive the danger to be very great; but I am resigned. I have daily hesitated to make you acquainted with my real state, lest I should add to the sufferings which I have already brought upon you. But, as we all must die, I think it unhappy, when a man is approaching death, that either he or his friends should fear to make it the subject of conversation. To meditate and speak upon death, is a part of our duty even in the days of health. You have often led me to this serious duty in seasons that are past, and it becomes us not to shrink from it now. I see nothing in this state worth living for. The whole world is replete with vanity, and I esteem it happy to be removed out of it at an early period of life. Much of my time has been spent in the study of one or two languages, to which we are apt to attach a high degree of importance.' Then, turning a pleasant look upon his mother, he added: 'But, in heaven, that labour will be known no more; for there, as Bunyan observes, they all speak the language of Canaan. Human studies and pursuits are generally of a trifling kind, and not such as we are likely to cultivate and perfect in the future world. When I look back upon my past life, I see nothing in it but what is sinful; and it seems almost incredible to me, that a dying man should ever speak of himself as a harmless and innocent creature ; though I have heard that this is sometimes the case,

If such a case is really possible, it must surely be one of the most discouraging that can fall under the notice of a pious minister. I know myself to be a sinner; and I have not been, even to you, what you have reason to expect.' Till this moment, he preserved his characteristic serenity; but now his tears flowed apace, his bursting sobs could be no longer suppressed, and his feeble frame was shaken with the tenderest emotions. This part of the scene was too distressing to be either endured or described; and it was happy that his mother could so far prevail, by her affectionate entreaties, as to assuage the anguish of our hearts. In a short time he wiped away the last tears he was ever to shed; and assuming his former composure, he thus resumed his discourse: My complaint has been of long continuance, but I have reason to be thankful that it has not subjected me to acute pain; for, under a state of bodily torture, it must be difficult to preserve the mind from distraction. I owe it to the goodness of God, that I have been permitted the free use of my thoughts through the whole of my sickness; and I rejoice especially in this, that they have been directed to subjects of inestimable worth. When I first took up Alleine's Alarm, I feared to find upon myself all the marks of the unconverted; but, though I was once under the dominion of some of the sins which are there enumerated, Alleine has taught me both the need and advantage of a Saviour, and I am now freed from their bondage.' Some hours after this most affecting conversation, we engaged

for the last time in an act of family worship. Never, before, was the sacred exercise accompanied among us with so much solemnity and fervour; and though it could not be performed without a struggle, yet our supplications and our praises ascended together. The volume of truth was lying before me, and, as I turned over its sacred pages, my attention was powerfully called to a portion of the Revelation of St. John. I perused in silence the seventh chapter of that mysterious book; and finding it particularly adapted to my present feelings, I repeated the concluding part of it to my listening companions :'These are they who came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.' This sublime passage produced upon our spirits a sort of electric effect, while it offered to us the last delightful prospect in which we were allowed to participate below. We closed the book, and gazed upon each other in a holy ecstasy; successively attempting to express what could not possibly be uttered. Heaven itself lay open before us.

66

Shortly after he had retired to rest, he was

heard to cough, and his distressed mother went im

mediately down to visit him. absence she appeared again,

After a few minutes' inviting me to follow her. Her voice was scarcely audible; yet it sounded like the midnight cry in the Gospel, 'Behold the Bridegroom cometh!' and I hasted to embrace my Joshua before he should go forth to meet his Lord. I found him patiently sinking under the last efforts of his disease, with a countenance full of tranquillity and sweetness. My approach produced in him a slight emotion; but he had gone too far to return. Not able to endure the thought that our intercourse was wholly at an end, I joined my face to his, softly inquiring by what means I might yet administer to his comfort. He understood my feelings, and sought to repress them; replying with a gentle request that I would cease to speak. After hanging over him for a few minutes in unutterable distress, I involuntarily repeated my question-when, in a tone of tender affection, he returned me the same answer: 'Please not to speak.' He had already opened a communication with the interior world, and had fully surrendered himself into the hands of his invisible attendants; and, in these circumstances, he was unwilling to be recalled or interrupted by any importunities from without. We received his request as a sacred charge, and, binding ourselves to silence, we knelt about his bed in a state of trembling expectation. A short and solemn pause succeeded, when, after a few soft groans, without the slightest change of posture, he peacefully breathed out his soul into the bosom of

his Father and our Father, his God and our God. At this awful moment, all the opposition of our will to the Divine proceedings was totally subdued; we sunk under an overwhelming sense of His supremacy, whose judgments are unsearchable, and whose ways are past finding out; the mountains flowed down at his presence, and we laid our hand upon our mouth before him.' We wished at once to be permitted to follow our beloved,' where mortality is swallowed up of life." "

MEMOIR OF DR. THOMAS SCOTT'S ELDEST

DAUGHTER.

THIS brief account of infant piety does not very properly come under the head of Maternal Influence, as the father appears most prominent in the sketch. Still, its intrinsic excellence, and the encouragement it holds out to mothers, to seek the early conversion of their children, are sufficient to justify its insertion. Doubtless the child had a precocious intellect. Few give evidence of piety at quite so early an age. But thousands might be found, like the young Samuel, devoting the sweet dawn of life to their Creator, were they assiduously trained in the way they should go.

"I have just mentioned the death of my eldest daughter," says Dr. Scott, "aged four years and a half; and I shall here subjoin a few more particulars respecting her :

"At the age of three years and a half, she had a most extraordinary and distressing illness; so that