before she was seized with her last sickness, had a vision in which her ancestor, Felix, one of the bishops. of Rome, invited her to a glorious habitation. It was said that Bishop Hall punctually foretold the very night of his death.

More often, sayings have dropped from good men, as they unconsciously drew near to sickness or sudden death, which seemed as if a higher mind had gently led their thoughts to themes that beseemed a pilgrim almost in sight of Jerusalem. In private recollection, such examples will occur to many, and they are frequently noted in the sketches of the lives and deaths of Christians. It may be through the operation of some of the more subtle elements in our corporeal system, suggesting rather to feeling than to thought the approach of change, and the nearness of that incorporeal world which sometimes seems to touch us through our nervous constitution. Or it may be through some actual intimation from invisible ministers of good, as a guardian conducting a child to the home which he had left in infancy, might prepare his mind, without informing him, as he drew towards the end of the journey. However it be, the fact is sufficiently frequent to have been often noted, and is too readily explained to permit the charge of superstition. Doctor Arnold died very suddenly; but the last words of his last lecture, on the preceding day, were a blessed anticipation of waking in the likeness of Christ; and the last entry in his diary, before he lay down to the sleep from which he only awoke to die, was of a solemn review of his whole life, and a sober, pious contemplation of the future. "And then," he wrote, "what is to follow this life?" The last recorded conversations of Bishop Heber, before his sudden transition, were on the highest

and most enrapturing themes, the riches of the Gospel, the duty of bearing it to the heathen. Doctor Milnor, a few hours before his not less sudden removal, was congratulated upon his healthful appearance, but said that he had that within which admonished him to be always ready. President Burr, on New-Year's Day, preached on the text, "Thus saith the Lord, This year thou shalt die," and died in the same year; and, when this fact was mentioned to his successor, President Davies, he said that it ought not to be viewed as premonitory, but as very remarkable; and, on the NewYear's Day a few weeks before his own death, preached on the same text, and thus, as he said in his sickness, undesignedly preached his own funeral sermon.

Good men have been permitted, consciously or unconsciously, to choose the place and occasion of their end. In other instances, remarkable correspondences have appeared, which seemed to have a signification and to speak a special appointment. Meletius died during the Council of Constantinople, which had been called for the express purpose of healing the schism in the Church of Antioch, where he presided as one of the rival prelates. So Buonaventura, too, died during the Council of Lyons, at which few, were equally eminent. Proterius, Bishop of Alexandria, was massacred on Good Friday in the church where he was at prayers. St. Francis of Paula died also on Good Friday; Conrad Pellicanus on Easter-Day; and Bede on Ascension-Day, just as he had finished the last verse of his version of St. John. St. Benedict was carried into the church, and there died, after receiving the eucharist. St. Columba died there during the office of matins. St. Oswald passed his last night there, then washed the feet of several poor men, and expired. So died

there, before the altar, Fructuosus of Braga, after a night on that spot. Pope Celestine the Fifth, a simple hermit, whom others, for their own ends, had placed in the papal chair, and presently displaced, expired while he was engaged in saying his office; and one of the best of the Popes, Leo the Ninth, on the day before he died, delivered a discourse on the resurrection, at the very spot which he had chosen for his burial. Thurstan, Archbishop of York, an iron man in an iron age, celebrated the vigils in commemoration of the dead in Christ, chanted, himself, the dies iræ, sank upon the pavement, and in the presence of his monks breathed his last. In the earlier times of the Anglo-Saxon church, Cedwalla, a devout prince, set out for Rome, whence Christianity had come to his people. It was his wish to receive baptism there, and the wish was granted; but he lived but a week after his baptism. Aldhelm, on a journey of duty, sickened, was removed into a church, and there commended his soul to God, and died. Nicholas Ferrar died in an ecstasy of devotion, at the very hour of the night at which he had been accustomed for many years to rise for midnight worship. The pious Countess of Warwick, who had often wished to die praying, died praying. Bishop Jewel, who had wished to die preaching, was on a preaching journey through his diocese, when he was smitten with a rapid disease, and returned no more. The heavenly Archbishop Leighton had expressed a wish that he might die on a journey and at an inn, and it was granted.

It is not rash to believe that He, without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground, should order the fall of His servants with a tender care even for the fulfilment of their wishes, where no higher end would thus be

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counteracted. No such special adaptation can commonly be expected to be visible. The same experience which discloses a few examples that arrest our notice, includes multitudes that show no peculiarity of circumstance and no striking significance of arrangement. But those few may be designed to remind men, from time to time, of the perpetual guidance of a Providence in whose sight the death of His saints is precious. That we may know the direction of footsteps, it is enough to see them at intervals, even though far between.

XLVIII.

Removal of the Fear of Death.

"For this poor form

That vests me round, I give it to destruction,
As gladly as the storm-beat traveller,

Who, having reached his destined place of shelter
Drops at the door his mantle's cumbrous weight."

BAILLIE.

IT may be stated as an almost universal experience of the pious, that death, as it draws nearer, loses much of that awful solemnity which it wore at a greater distance. In part, this is the effect of a natural law, which governs our passage through all, or almost all, the events of our earthly being. Everywhere, near ness and familiarity prepare the mind to encounter the evils which it dreaded. Some are found far less than their appearance; for others, corresponding resources develop themselves at the shock. Man, as he approaches the change of worlds, meets only what his Creator has given him an inward capacity to bear, unless he dies in his sins, and so encounters that which is more than mere death. But when the sting is actually taken away, when death is really but

a path that must be trod

If man would ever pass to God,"

it is not wonderful that the fear also should go by like a mist which the morning sun must dissipate, because it is only the growth of night. Through life, it is often permitted to remain; and the younger we are, and the