* * * *

"Saturday, 28th.

"My weakness increases--I have written this at many intervals. My
body faints, but in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. Oh
Stanley! if pain is trying, if death is awful to him who knows in
whom he has trusted; how is pain endured, how is death encountered
by those who have no such support?"

* * * * *

"Tuesday the 31st.

"I am better to-day. If I experience little of that rapture which
some require, as the sign of their acceptance, I yet have a good
hope through grace. Nay, there are moments when I rejoice with joy
unspeakable. I would not produce this joy as any certain criterion
of my safety, because from the nature of my disease, there are also
moments when my spirits sink, and this might equally furnish
arguments against my state, to those who decide by frames and
feelings. I think my faith as sound, my pardon as sure, when these
privileges are withdrawn, as when I enjoy them."

* * * * *

"Friday, 3d April.

"Stanley: my departure is at hand. My eternal redemption draweth
nigh. My hope is full of immortality. This is my comfort--not that
my sins are few or small, but that they are, I humbly trust,
pardoned, through him who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Faithful is HE that has promised, and HIS promises are not too
great to be made good--for Omniscience is my promiser, and I have
Omnipotence itself for my security. Adieu!"

* * * * *

On the cover was written, in Mr. Stanley's hand, "He died three days
after!"

* * * * *

It is impossible to describe the mingled and conflicting emotions of my
soul, while I perused this letter. Gratitude that I had possessed such a
father; sorrow, that I had lost him; transport, in anticipating an event
which had been his earnest wish for almost twenty years; regret, that he
was not permitted to witness it; devout joy, that he was in a state so
superior to even _my_ sense of happiness; a strong feeling of the
uncertainty and brevity of _all_ happiness; a solemn resolution that I
would never act unworthy of such a father; a fervent prayer that I might
be enabled to keep that resolution: all these emotions so agitated and
divided my whole mind, as to render me unfit for a