infidelity was untrue, because it was wanting in substantial consolations at life's last hour. Yet his objections to true Christianity remained; and it was not till after many long and elaborate processes of argument, conducted by Dr Burnet, then bishop of Rochester, that he was driven, step by step, from the "philosophy and vain deceit" in which the peril of his life had consisted, and brought, as an humble penitent, to receive the doctrines he had heretofore rejected. And, had such a friend been wanting to his last pillow, he would never have apprehended those real consolations which render the change which passed on him one of the most satisfactory instances of death-bed conversion. COUNT STRUENSEE of Denmark, furnishes another illustration of the same remark. In both cases, the death was not in itself the enlightenment; that enlightenment was derived from the body of truth which was then extrinsically brought before the mind, and which, sent home by God's Holy Spirit, was apprehended to the man's salvation. A death-bed is only favourable to such results as it stimulates its subject to read, to inquire, and to judge, or surrounds the pillow with Christian instructors.

The greatest influence of death is, in correcting man's conscious errors. It is thus a rectifier of evils which arise from insincerity. Though the instances of confessed hypocrisy, in dying moments, are comparatively rare, partly owing, without doubt, to the indisposition of friends to record them, they are by no means absent. That notorious impostor, JOANNA SOUTHCOTE, as she drew near her last moments, seemed more than once on the point of confessing how much her followers had been misled, and appears, in deceiving others, to have been self-deceived. My friends," said she, "some of you have known me nearly twenty-five years, and all of you no less than twenty; when you have heard me speak of my prophecies, you have sometimes heard me say that I doubted my inspiration. But, at the same time, you would never let me despair. When I have been alone, it has often appeared delusion; but when the communication was made to me, I did not in the least doubt. Feeling, as I now feel, that my dissolution is drawing near, and that a day or two may terminate my life-it all appears delusion." was by this exertion quite exhausted, and wept bitterly. The assurances of her attendants, however, recovered her spirits, and she died in her guilt.

She

Knox relates, with some circumstances not necessary to be recounted, the last confession made by THOMAS SCOTT, a privy councillor to James V. of Scotland, and a violent enemy of the reformed religion. When the monks began to comfort him, he said "Till now I never believed there was God or devil, heaven or hell. I acted only as a politician, to get money, and for that purpose I joined the bishops' side. All your masses can do me no good." He died the same night.

The following case might be morbid excitement, or the conviction of real hypocrisy. It is cited, in the annals of early Methodism, as the latter. It is certain that Mr Wesley refused to read the burialservice over the grave. PETER DEAN, after having been a preacher for a year in the Norwich circuit, where he married a rich wife, was taken ill and died. When on the verge of eternity, he confessed that, in his profession of religion, he had been influenced by no other motive than the desire to obtain riches. "The Lord," said he, "has given me my desire, and his curse with it; and now I am ruined for ever." From that time," proceeds the account, fused to be comforted, would take neither food nor medicine, abandoned himself to black despair, and seemed resolved to die. For some time before his

"he re

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death, his countenance would suddenly change, and be very horrid to look upon; he himself was conscious of it, and would go to the glass, and would then turn and say to his wife, 'Now, look at me-now will you believe?' In a short time he was confined to his bed, and was visited by several ministers and others (and among the rest by the gentleman to whom the writer is indebted for this awful memoir); but their admonitions and prayers seemed to be fruitless. After this, he one day feigned himself asleep, and Mrs D. and her companion, that he might not be disturbed, left the room. Perceiving that they were gone, he put forth all his strength, and rolled himself on the floor; on hearing the noise, they instantly returned, and, fearful to relate, found him dead."

In cases in which there can be no imputation of actual insincerity, death often prompts to a new and final estimate of the past life, made with a candour and impartiality very different from the views in which the individual has previously indulged. The death-beds of monarchs have furnished many illustrations of this fact. EDWARD III. departed in great compunction. "What for weakness of body, contrition of heart, sobbing for his sins, his voice and speech failed him; and, scarce half-pronouncing the word 'Jesu,' he, with this last word, made an end of his speech, and yielded up the ghost." The deathbeds of WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, ELIZABETH, and LOUIS XIV. of France, were those of gloom and re

morse.

"Gentlemen," said the departing DR M'ALL to his medical attendants, "I am no fanatic; rather, I have been too much of a speculatist, and I wish to say this, which I hope you will forgive me for uttering in your presence. I am a great sinner; I have been a great sinner; but my trust is in Jesus Christ, and in what he has done and suffered for sinners. Upon this, as the foundation of my hope, I can confidently rely, now that I am sinking into eternity."| Here, in the last emphatic words of a good man, was an entire renunciation of what he felt might have been the erroneous tendencies of his past course; the needle vibrated away from every other point, to fix, with an untrembling steadiness, upon the polar one of salvation by Christ.

To regard a death-bed aright, we must look upon it as a branch, positively or negatively, of Christian experience; and in each case it appropriately forms a part of what Joseph John Gurney (who learned the phrase from Dr Chalmers) calls "the portable evidence of Christianity." It is not distinct from the evidence of the life, but is its last scene-its closing paragraph-the illustration of the man's opinions in near approach to a future world. It is therefore moral evidence, or the evidence of probability; not demonstrative evidence, or the evidence of certainty. Its main value is, that it is the estimate which a man forms of himself in the most solemn hour of his earthly existence.

Such an estimate, it is very obvious, will be greatly regulated by previous habits of thought and charac ter. To say that circumstances make the man is not true; but it is true that, whilst they impose no necessity how man shall act, they indicate the probability that man will act in a given direction. We constantly meet with instances in which persons die as they have lived, in ignorance of the most important truths. TALMA, the French tragedian, during his dying moments, continually called on the name of Voltaire, as if he knew no higher divinity. NELSON, a name which every British seaman is taught to reverence, died, after being mortally wounded by a musket-ball, amidst demonstrations of the same ignorance. In reading his words, one for a moment

suspects that he was not perfectly collected, especially when his affecting complaint is remembered, "Ŏ victory, victory, how you do distress my poor head!"* But every account represents him as perfectly calm and collected. What were the last words of the man who had renounced his own amiable and unoffending consort, and attached himself to another man's wife, to whom he had just been transmitting his last messages? "Doctor, I have not been a great sinner. Thank God, I have done my duty." Judging the hero by some of his letters, which exhibit his moral delinquencies by the side of the most fervent appeals to God, it is to be feared that he knew no better than he said.

Mournful also was the ignorance of the most vital truths of the gospel apparent in the dying words of WILLIAM PITT. He had, indeed, never been able clearly to apprehend what experimental Christianity meant, and had previously expressed his inability to understand the language of Mr Cecil, the very prince of simple preachers, when taken to Bedford Row Chapel by Mr Wilberforce. On his death-bed he said to the Bishop of Lincoln, "I have, like too many other men, neglected prayer too much to have any ground of hope that it can be efficacious on a death-bed. But I throw myself on the mercy of God through the merits of Christ." Alas! how incomplete the knowledge of Christ which attached no obligation to prayer even at the last hour!

GEORGE BRUMMEL, well known by the name of Beau Brummel, was, in the days of George IV., then Prince of Wales, a votary of fashion, and ultimately its victim. Disgraced at court, and the prey of large pecuniary embarrassments, he retired to France, and died at Caen, in Normandy. Misery, incarceration, and destitution, attended, during his last years, the heartless sinner. We quote the report of his deathbed from an English clergyman, who visited him :"Mr Brummel was in an imbecile state of mind when I arrived at Caen, and remained so till his death, incapable of remembering any occurrence five minutes together, but occasionally recalling some anecdote of days long since passed.. He appeared quite incapable of conversing on religious subjects. I failed in every attempt to lead his mind (if he can be said to have retained any power of mind) to their consideration. I never, in the course of my attendance upon the sick, aged, and dying, came in contact with so painful an exhibition of human vanity, and apparent ignorance and thoughtlessness respecting a future state; for I have before visited persons whose mental powers were equally shattered, but still it was possible to touch some chord connected with religion to which they responded, though, perhaps, weakly and imperfectly. With him there was some response when sounded on worldly subjects; none on religious until a few hours before he died, when, in reply to my repeated entreaties that he would try and pray, he said I do try; but he added something which made me doubt whether he understood me.' Nor was this dreary scene of spiritual vacancy relieved by any thing except that which may be drawn from the following passage:-"I requested him to repeat after me," says the same authority, "the acte de contrition of the Roman ritual, as in our Prayer-books; he immediately consented, and repeated after me, in an earnest manner, that form of prayer." It would appear from his life, that, till his last moments, one serious thought of the future had never dawned upon his mind!

There are again others who, though being in less ignorance, and placed in positions which might be supposed to be more favourable to the acquisition of truth, have been surrounded by such an atmosphere Letters and Despatches.

of prejudice and partiality, as to have seen nothing fairly-nothing fully. Their mental judgment has become perverted through the influence of long and evil habit. With enough of opportunity to render them fully responsible, they have never seemed to feel that they are responsible. How will such men die? Most probably, by assuming that they are altogether right. We must not be surprised if, in such cases, there shall be no awaking up of conscience-no lightning flash of truth, to make the forgotten start up with terrible distinctness. Where the superficial observer might expect a death-bed of agony, there is no such result; some of the most cruel persecutors have departed from life in the utmost tranquillity. Their conscience, because unregulated, became malignant; but that conscience soothed them at the last. Even HENRY VIII., whose libidinous and tyrannical life might seem to prognosticate departing terrors, died in quiet-a quiet which few around him would venture to disturb by religious admonition, so much did they dread the fangs of that dying viper. It is easy to represent such cases favourably; but the conclusion is as false as it is easy.

It is important also to observe a fact, which belongs to a different class of opinions. Many professing a religion, miscalled in them evangelical, have taken views of it which are absolutely false and dangerous. Religion with such, is not so much a practical truth as a plaintive emotion. Repentance is rather a passion than a principle; a poetical sensibility rather than a hatred of sin. Such men never took a single vigorous grasp of the principles of the gospel. Familiar as are its words, they know nothing of its spirit. What they call an awe of God, has always died before it could be brought into action, and it never regulated the temper, and subdued the life. They saw, to some extent, that diseased members must be cut off, and they bandaged the limb, and sharpened the blade for the operation, but they never could perform it-yet that momentary inclination was their comfort. If they were not saved, they were at least, they thought, very near to salvation. And if death, arousing them once more, shall terminate their career in the midst of similar resolutions, they and those around them will be apt to conclude, that "all is well." Fatal error ! As "repentance" with them never previously represented a great principle, so neither does it now. It is rather sensitiveness than health. Yet how many death-beds, often displayed and much vaunted, have exhibited nothing more! Had the subjects lived, the excitation would have gone off "in air-in thin air;" there is nothing in death to give weight to its inherent worthlessness.

It is here the place to observe also, that such modes of religion as rest unduly on the external and the sensible, are largely calculated to pillow the mind in a false security. It is one of the fatal tendencies of all false teaching, to delude in a dying hour; and the forms and appliances of superstitious religion, especially if daringly administered, are beset with the greatest evils.

The following passage occurs in the Memoirs of BENVENUTO CELLINI, who lived in the sixteenth century, and was one of the greatest artists of his day; he was at the time imprisoned in the castle of St Angelo, at Rome, expecting instant execution. "I continued part of that night in the utmost anxiety of mind, vainly endeavouring to guess for what cause it had pleased God to afflict me, and, not being able to discover, I beat my breast with despair. Though I had sometimes been guilty of man-slaughter" (the writer was notorious for stabbing men on slight causes, in his fits of passion), " yet, as God's

vicar on earth had recalled me from my own country, and confirmed my pardon by his authority, and all that I had done was in the defence of the body which his Divine Majesty had given me, I did not see how, in any sense, I could be thought to deserve death." How fatally has Popery often interposed between the guilty sinner and his God! When we remember that the sacrament of extreme unction is declared by the Council of Trent, "to impart grace to the soul, and to wash out the remains of sin," we can scarcely wonder if, whatever the saving clauses by which the Church of Rome limits its efficiency, it should appear to common minds invested with a power to take away "the sting of death." The practice of a corrupt Church may foster a thousand evils which are not avowed in its creed !

(To be continued.)

THE WINDOWS.

BY REV. GEORGE DUFFIELD, JUN.

I LOOK'D on the dead, and bethought me
Of a story strange and wild,
That has haunted my wayward fancy
Since e'er I was a child.

Six windows a prisoner counted

As he enter'd his spacious cell;
On the beams of the sunset in-streaming,
He gazed, and he said, "It is well."
He sleeps, and his dreams are of freedom,
Till the clock of the castle strikes one;
'Tis an earthquake! the prison is moving!
He wakes-and a window is gone!
From morning till eve, in his terror,

He ponders this mystery o'er:
'Tis midnight again. Hark! a jarring !

Of the windows there only are FOUR! Now nearer the floor and the ceiling,

And nearer the walls get to be; The door where he enter'd has vanish'd,

That night he counts windows but THREE! The sweat on his brow cold and clammy,

Oozes thick as the new-fallen dew; With fear and with trembling he watches, In vain! there are windows but Two! He lays himself down (not to slumber),

The fatal sound cometh once more; The ponderous walls crush together,

A shriek and his sorrows are o'er!

This story long slept without moral,

Yet one raiseth it now from the past: Though the earth seems at first a large prison, To the coffin we come at the last.

Each year as it closes around us,

Unto death more and more gives control; Oh! his grasp to the body is fearful, Then, what must it be to the soul?

ANECDOTES OF THE PURITANS.

A SUCCESSFUL PREACHER.

RICHARD BLACKERBY, though on account of his nonconformity he did not receive any ecclesiastical pre

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ferment, or undertake a pastoral charge till towards the end of his life, was still instant in season and out of season in preaching the gospel. It is said that more than two thousand persons were converted through his instrumentality. "During his long life he never seemed to lose one moment of time in idleness. As a wise man, he spent all his leisure hours in providing for immortality. He rose early, both winter and summer, and spent the whole day in reading, meditation, prayer, and the instruction of others. His whole deportment was as if God, his holy law, and the day of judgment, were constantly before him."

He was faithful in reproving sin. "His reproofs," said one, 66 were dipt in oil, driven into the heart, and received with all acceptation, because of the overcoming kindness with which they were attended." On a certain occasion, he was in company with several persons of wealth and distinction. When he was alone with one of them, he took occasion to reprove him, with all seriousness and affection, for using profane language at the table. "Had you reproved me at the table," said the man, I would have stabbed you, but now I thank you." When his eldest daughter, to whom he was strongly attached, was taken away by death, he preached her funeral sermon. "He preached as a man who had not lost his God, though he had lost his dearest child." He died in 1648, aged seventy-four years.

PREPARATION OF SERMONS.

THE Rev. Thomas Shepard, who fled from persecution in England in 1635, and settled at Cambridge, Mass., was one of the most effective preachers of his day. He took great pains in his preparation for the pulpit. He used to say, "God will curse that man's labours, who goes idly up and down all the week, and then goes into his study on a Saturday afternoon. God knows that we have not too much time to pray in, and weep in, and get our hearts into a fit frame for the duties of the Sabbath."

When he was lying upon his death-bed, several young ministers called to see him. He addressed them as follows: "Your work is great, and requires great seriousness. For my own part, I never preached a sermon which, in the composing, did not cost me prayers, with strong cries and tears. I never preached a sermon from which I had not first got some good to my own soul. I never went up into the pulpit, but as if I were going to give an account of myself to God."

THE SOLDIER TURNED PREACHER.

JOHN GIFFORD was a major in the king's army during the civil wars. He was concerned in an insurrection in his native country, on account of which he was arrested, and, in company with eleven others, was condemned to death. The night before the day appointed for his execution, his sister came to visit him. She found the sentinel who kept the door of the prison fast asleep, and his companions in a state of intoxication. She urged and assisted him to make his escape. He went into the fields and crept into a ditch, where he remained for several days, when he succeeded in getting to London. He led a very dis

solute life, being guilty of drunkenness, profanity, gambling, and other immoralities. One night he happened to take up a book written by Rev. Mr Bolton, and an arrow was fastened in his conscience. He was brought under deeper conviction, and in about a month was led to indulge a hope that his sins were pardoned.

He then proposed to join himself to the people of God whom he had persecuted, but, for some time, they were suspicious of his sincerity. After a sufficient trial, they embraced him as a disciple and a brother, and he began to preach among them. Erelong he formed a church, of which he became the pastor. It was the church of which the celebrated John Bunyan was afterwards the minister.

A CHURCH WITHOUT A BIBLE.

WHEN Rev. Robert Harris, who was afterwards president of Trinity College, Oxford, preached his first sermon at Campden, there was no Bible in the church, and it was with much difficulty that he found one to carry with him into the pulpit. The vicar of the parish had a Bible, but it had not been seen for many months. It was found at length, and taken to the church.

Mr Harris was settled at Hanwell, where God so blessed his labours that there was but one prayerless family in the place.

In the time of the civil wars he had some soldiers quartered upon him. They were very profane, so that he could not forbear preaching from the text, "Above all things, my brethren, swear not at all." They were so angry with him, that they swore they would shoot him if he preached on that subject again. He preached from the same text the next Sabbath. One of the soldiers present prepared his musket as though he meant to shoot, but Mr Harris went on without fear, and was brought to the end of his discourse without molestation.

He used to say, "A preacher hath three books to study, the Bible, himself, and his people." Also, the humblest preachers convert the greatest number of souls."

When he was near the close of life, he was asked how he felt; he said, "In no great pain, I praise God, only weary of my useless life. If God hath no more work for me to do, I would be glad to be in heaven, where I shall serve him without distraction."

HENRY BURTON.

HENRY BURTON was the author of several books against Popery and the corruptions of the Church, and in consequence fell under the displeasure of Archbishop Laud. He was arrested and imprisoned, and prosecuted in the Star Chamber, for writing and publishing seditious, schismatical, and libellous books against the hierarchy, and to the scandal of the government. He was condemned to pay a fine of five thousand pounds, to stand in the pillory at Westminster, to have his ears cut off, and to suffer perpetual imprisonment. Previous to the execution of this cruel sentence, his parishioners sent a petition in his behalf to the king. It was presented by two of their number, who were committed to prison for their audacity!

When the above-mentioned sentence was passed, Laud made a speech to the court, in which he returned them his "hearty thanks" for what they had done.

When Mr Burton was brought to the pillory, he said, "Shall I be ashamed of a pillory for Christ, who was not ashamed of a cross for me? I was never in such a pulpit before. Little do you know what fruit God is able to produce from this dry tree. Through these holes [referring to the pillory] God can bring light to his Church. I bless God who hath accounted me worthy of these sufferings. I bless God I am full of comfort. The truth which I have preached, I am ready to seal with my own blood, and this is my crown, both here and here

after."

When he was taken out of the pillory, he was brought upon the scaffold, and his ears cut off in a most barbarous manner. While the blood was streaming, he manifested great composure, and said, "Be content: blessed be God, it is well."

In a few days he was sent to Lancaster Castle, to suffer" perpetual imprisonment, and not to be allowed any use of pen, ink, or paper." As he passed out of the city, about one hundred thousand persons assembled to witness his departure. Large sums of money were thrown to his wife as she passed along in a coach. This manifestation of popular favour enraged the archbishop. He caused Burton to be removed from Lancaster Castle to the Isle of Guernsey, and to be shut up in a low, narrow, dark room, and allowed no person to see or speak to him. voted that he receive six thousand pounds for damIn 1640 the parliament set him at liberty, and ages received. This sum was never paid. The people of London gave him a triumphal entrance on his return to the city. He established a congregation, and continued in the faithful exercise of his ministry till his death, which took place in 1647. He was then sixty-eight years of age.