04 
MEMOIR OF 
and affectionate friend, Mr Ray, was with hi my 
and speaks in strong, though merely general, 
terms, of his “ patience and submission to the 
Divine will, which did eminently appear in the 
time of his sickness, when he professed himself 
contented to leave the world if it pleased God to 
have it so, though then in the height of his 
strength and parts, and in the hot pursuit of use- 
ful studies and designs, and in such circumstances 
as to his concerns in this world as rendered some 
continuance of life very desirable to him, and 
would have tempted a man of ordinary vertue to 
express some anger at the sentence and expecta- 
tion of death.” * 
The following prayer, composed by Mr Ray 
on the occasion, and which, frern its language, 
seems to have been offered in the midst of Mr 
Willughby’s assembled family, breathes sentiments 
appropriate to the Christian and the friend. It 
is copied from Dr Derham’s Life of Ray. 
“ O Lord ! Thou hast been pleased to make a 
sad breach among us, to deprive us of our most 
dear friend and relation, — a person that was to 
some of us as the very light of our eyes, the joy 
of our hearts, the greatest outward comfort of our 
lives. Give us a sanctified use of this heavy 
affliction ; and when our hearts are moved and 
affected with a sense of our loss, give us to con- 
sider our sins, and to spend some part of our 
tears in lamenting them. Give us to consider 
the vanity and uncertainty of our lives, and the- 
* Ray’s Preface., 
