64 THE heart's-ease. 



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

 died of it. 



I saw him in liis 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, nevermore 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 tlie 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 suflfering body, — though crushed into 

 the dust, and speedily to crumble bei»eath 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 



