Page:Records of the Life of the Rev. John Murray.djvu/242

232 and I shall be received into the city of the living God, with the innumerable company of the apostles, and spirits of just men made perfect, and I shall continue for ever, in the presence of my divine Master."

His family solicited his blessing. "You are blessed," he replied, "you are blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus; and, remember," he added, fixing his dying eyes upon them, "remember, that however tried in this world, there is another, and a better state of things; and that, although pierced in this vale of tears by the arrows of unkindness and ingratitude, there is One who loveth you, with an everlasting love, and who will never leave you nor forsake you."

On Friday morning, September 1st, some expressions gave positive proof of his sanity; but as the day advanced, his derangement was supposed unquestionable, and from this hour, until Saturday evening, a little after sunset, he continued, with few intervals, incoherently repeating the most consolatory passages in the book of God. His right hand was constantly in motion, and when any one approached, whatever might be the question, the answer was ready. "," said the expiring christian, " I am blessed with all spiritual blessings, in Christ Jesus. Nor I alone, ," &c. &c. These God-honouring, man-restoring truths, were audibly articulated, while voice and strength continued; and when speaking only in a whisper, to the listening ear applied to his moving lips, it was ascertained that the same consolatory assurances still dwelt upon his tongue. Was this delirium? or, if it were, was it not a delirium irradiated by the powerful influence of redeeming love? Did not the luminous truths, upon which the noble, the capacious mind, had so long reposed, beam refulgent over the scattering fragments, then dissolving, which had for a term of more than seventy years, embodied the immortal tenant?

Almost immediately after sunset, on Saturday evening, he ceased to speak; his right hand no longer waved, and he continued in the same position, in which the enduring kindness of his faithful assistant had placed him, until six o'clock, Lord's-day morning, September third, one thousand eight hundeed and fifteen; when, without a sigh, or a struggle, or a single distortion of countenance, he expired. His long-imprisoned spirit escaped to the God who gave it.

It did not appear, through the whole of Friday and Saturday, that he suffered the least pain, except when an attempt was made to move him. His breath grew shorter and shorter, like the sweet sleep of a tired infant, until it could no more be distinguished. He departed this life in the seventy-fifth year of his age.