st on
the Canons, and revel in the XXXIX. Articles. Happy Georgiana!"

At the beginning of 1844 he wrote, "I am tolerably well, but intolerably
old." He complained of "nothing but weakness, and loss of nervous energy."
"I look as strong as a cart-horse, but cannot get round the garden without
resting once or twice," Soon he was back again at St. Paul's, preaching a
sermon on Peace, and rebuking the "excessive proneness to War." "I shall
try the same subject again--a subject utterly untouched by the
clergy."[143] The summer passed in its usual occupations, and on the 28th
of July he preached for the last time in the pulpit of the Cathedral. His
subject was the right use of Sunday; and the sermon was a strong protest
against the increasing secularization of the holy day. The best ways of
employing Sunday, he said, were Worship, Self-Examination, and Preparation
for Death. The sermon ended with some words which indicate the sense of
impending change:--

"I never take leave of any one, for any length of time, without a deep
impression upon my mind of the uncertainty of human life, and the
probability that we may meet no more in this world."[144]

He now left London for Combe Florey. "I dine with the rich in London, and
physic the poor in the country; passing from the sauces of Dives to the
sores of Lazarus." His bodily discomforts increased, but his love of fun
never diminished. He wrote as merrily as ever to Miss Harcourt:--

"Neither of us, dear Georgiana, would consent to survive the ruin of
the Church. You would plunge a poisoned pin into your heart, and I
should swallow the leaf of a sermon dipped in hydro-cyanic acid."

In October, after an alarming attack of breathlessness and giddiness, he
returned to London. In Green Street he was happy in the proximity and skill
of his son-in-law, Dr. Holland, and "a suite of rooms perfectly fitted up
for illness and death." This phrase occurs in the last of his published
letters, dated the 7th of November 1844. It was now pronounced that his
disease was water on the chest, caused by an unsuspected affection of the
heart. He was entirely confined to his bed, perfectly aware of his
condition, and keenly grateful for the kindness and sympathy of friends.
His daughter writes:--

"My father died at peace with himself and with all the world; anxious, to
the last, to promote the comfort and happiness of others. He sent messages
of kindness and forgivenes