64 the heart's-ease. 



before him ; and then he sunk under the fever, and 

 died of it. 



I saw him in his coffin : he was withered and 

 changed by the devastating violence of that malig- 

 nant fever— changed as completely, almost as 

 rapidly, as the flower whose petals are defaced, and 

 marred, and rolled together, never more to expand. 

 Yet amidst all, there lingered an expression belong- 

 ing not to the children of this world. It spoke a 

 conflict, but it also told of a victory, such as man un 

 assisted can never achieve. I knew not until after 

 wards, what words had expressed the dying expe 

 rience of that glorified saint. At the very last, at 

 the threshold of immortality, he had slowly and 

 solemnly uttered them : — ' Mighty power of Christ ! 

 to give a poor sinner the victory even in death !' 



Yes ; though death had laid upon him a hand 

 that might not be resisted, though every mortal 

 energy was prostrated, and icy chains fast wrapped 

 around his suffering body, — though crushed into 

 the dust, and speedily to crumble beneath it, he 

 grasped the victory, he felt it in his grasp ; and 

 the glorious truth which in its height, and length, 

 and depth, and breadth, he had appeared remarkably 

 to realize in his life-time, shed splendour unutterable 

 on his dying hour. — " Nevertheless I live ; yet not 

 I, but Christ liveth in me." 



With D , religion was altogether a sub- 

 stance : nothing shadowy, nothing theoretical or 



