earthly tendency, the entire demerit of our nature, we receive meekly the declaration, 'We must, through much tribulation, enter the Kingdom of God.' We are conscious that we have incurred the penalty of eternal woe, and whilst we thankfully accept the gift of absolute pardon, through the merits of the Lamb, we rejoice that Jesus is our 'sanctification' also, and feel assured that as mercy and truth have met together in the scheme of our reconciliation to our Maker, they will not be separated even for a moment, until they lead from grace to glory. Oh! how we shall adore this combination then!

"There are peculiar opportunities for improvement in the chamber of sickness. Christian principle is tested, even by a distasteful draught, by submission to the regulations of physician and friends, by continually recurring necessity for self-denial in food, the enjoyment of exercise, and often of intellectual pleasures. Sometimes stern duty tells us we must sleep when we would think; and at others we must be patiently and cheerfully awake, when we would gladly slumber. Is this an ignoble conflict? Surely not. It is worthy of the whole Christian armor. It requires it all, since we may please our Father in Heaven by docility of spirit in little things, and it is by them that character is, in a great measure, formed. What a spiritual tonic I have found in the 11th and 12th verses of the first chapter of Colossians! Think of the company who have gone before us, dear Nellie.

"My letter is already long, but I would gladly have it longer, if it were not late.

* * *

"Ever, with warm and true affection, thy own

"AUNT SUE."

A Missive of Affection, to be read at leisure.

*

"My darling: I have been enabled to give thanks and to pray for you with unusual wingedness of devotion this morning * * and I will indulge the earnest prompting of Christian affection which urges the pencilship of a little note.

It

"The outward man perisheth.' Every physical sensibility is increasingly acute, and I feel that the intensity of natural and spiritual affection is awakened to more vigorous action. 'Blessed be the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,' that my soul reposes. rests in the love of Jesus-in His perfect righteousness, which, notwithstanding all the objections a diluted theology would urge, I fear not to say, is imputed to me.

"I am accepted in the Beloved,' and therefore I do not fear, though I feel myself to be most unworthy of exemption from eternal banishment-most unworthy to behold forever the beauty of the Lord in His Upper Sanctuary.

"My, let us know nothing but Jesus Christ, and Him erucified. We have found Him a precious Saviour-you, in the strength of your manhood, in the sunshine of worldly prosperity-I, amid the almost exhausted energies of a long exhausting constitution both of us in the deep necessities of our intellectual and spiritual aspirations, and in bereavement we could not have borne if He had not been with us.

"We shall always find Him a precious Saviour, for we are enclosed in a covenant 'ordered in all things and sure.' 'Jesus having loved His own, loved them unto the end.' 'I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.'

"We were chosen that we might be 'holy and without blame before Him in love.' Oh that we may ever thus prove our adoption into the family of faith!

"If I go to Heaven before you, as I trust I shall, and perhaps very soon, I will await your coming, and welcome you with joy which will be irradiated by the smile of our Saviour. Our blessed, glorified who has already tuned so many notes of angelic praise, will sound a new vibration-I do not know that it will be louder, but it will be deep and very melodious.

"Press on then in the battle-field of life. Put on the whole armor of God.' Dare, do and suffer; but always rest upon the finished work of Jesus - always repose beneath the shadow of His wings — always pray for grace to understand the doctrines, obey the precepts and plead the promises of the Word of God.

"I will include, in my supplications, the blessings you will require when I shall not be here to pray for you; even those you will need in a dying hour, or rather the hour in which death shall be a passing shadow which the 'bright and morning star' shall chase away for ever.

CHAPTER XXVI.

1854.

Relative Value of the Living and Dying Witness - The Event in Constant Prospect Increasing Debility- The Summer of 1854- Incidents of the Last Weeks of her Life - Final Communion-Closing Scene - Funeral - Address and Sermon.

IT is with feelings of reverence and awe that we approach the closing scene of Susan Allibone's holy life. As we enter the chamber, so soon to be finally deserted by its suffering occupant, we seem to hear the voice which spake to Moses from the bush: "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." The bush had indeed been burning, yet unconsumed, for many long years, because the great "I am," "the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob," dwelt therein. After contemplating with gratitude and praise to her unseen Sustainer, her "work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ," we are now brought to watch the final struggle of the soul panting to be free.

Such a life as we have been reviewing needed no closing testimony to assure us that it hath issued in the splendors of "eternal day. Unto her, evidently, "to live was Christ;" and no one that knew her could for a moment doubt that "to die was gain;" that a spirit so bathed in heaven's light, even while sojourning below, was now rejoicing in the radiance shed upon the eternal city by the Lamb who is the Light thereof.

Had physical pain and weakness so overpowered the manifestations of spiritual emotion, that not one word of exultation and triumph had marked her parting hours, it would have

been no reason for the shadow of doubt respecting her "abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom." There is a tendency often manifested to reverse the relative importance of the life-conflict and the death-scene, to concentrate attention upon the latter, and lightly regard the former. Whereas death is but the termination of life, the goal at the end of the race. And the manner in which the race has been run is the best and strongest evidence that the crown of righteousness is secured. To "die in the Lord" is the last act of living in the Lord, and "whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." Neither are instances wanting of persons of eminent piety passing away from earth under clouds of darkness, induced it might be by bodily derangement, distressing and painful to witness, and yet not at all weakening the conviction that their change was a blessed one.

In Miss Allibone's case it would have seemed of less moment had there been no remarkable outbreak of joy and hope, just at the time when the silver cord was loosed and the golden bowl broken, because she had so frequently before, in her own opinion and that of her friends, been lying on the verge of eternity. More than once had they assembled around what was supposed to be her death-bed. The prolongation of her existence, from year to year, had been a surprise and marvel. She had accustomed herself to look upon death as near at hand since the first serious attacks of her malady. Hers was in fact a lingering dissolution of twenty years' duration; and during this whole period she was bearing, as it were, a dying testimony to the faithfulness of her covenant God. And this would have filled her friends with confidence and hope, had her actual passage into the eternal world been too sudden or too much oppressed with pain and languor, to have allowed her to speak a word of joyful assurance or affectionate consolation.

But while the absence of a bright, exulting passage through the valley of the shadow of death ought not to have caused a

moment's distress or disappointment, it is cause of exceeding thankfulness that this too was not withheld. The God whom she served so faithfully gave her, at the last, the consciousness of his favorable presence. She felt the power of his sustaining arm, the comfort of his rod and staff. When heart and flesh were failing, He was the strength of her heart. She passed out of the world, as she passed through it, "leaning on her Beloved." The Saviour, who through so many years of suffering had been near and precious to her soul, was stil more sensibly near and precious while taking her to Himself. And thus was she permitted to glorify Him with her parting breath, and to render thanks to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

The oppressive heat of the summer of 1854 greatly prostrated Miss Allibone's remaining strength, and her pain and inability to take sufficient food increased. Her sufferings were endured with undiminished cheerfulness, and she hailed new symptoms of debility with grateful joy as harbingers of the approaching release. Although not unfrequently sinking to the verge of dissolution, she still refused all relief from stimulants of an intoxicating or stupefying character. She made it a matter of conscience to avoid whatever might cloud or disturb her mental faculties, or interfere with the lifting up of her soul to God, preferring, as she said, to depend on supplies of spiritual strength.

During this period she greatly enjoyed occasional devotional meetings in her apartment, conducted by clerical friends. She also completed a task which afforded her much pleasure the arrangement of parallel and illustrative texts upon the 119th Psalm, a work which will prove an interesting and useful little volume. To a friend who visited her, she said that "her happiness was of a more quiet, subdued character than it had sometimes been, but more solid and satisfying than ever." She spoke of "the perfect assurance which she enjoyed of being admitted to the heavenly world, and