Mackintosh, when in the full strength and vigour of his intellect, was a prejudiced judge of the truth of Christianity, or that he was at all likely to die a hypocrite; and I happen to have before me, among other obituary notices of distinguished men to the same effect, the following account of his last moments, from a memoir of him by his daughter.

DEATH SCENE OF SIR J. MACKINTOSH.

"On Saturday a great change took place; he became very silent, and had the appearance of one listening; the intelligence of his countenance did not diminish, it only changed its character; a look of peace and dignity was mingled with it, such as I had never witnessed in that dear face before. Whenever a word from the Scriptures was repeated to him, he always manifested that he heard it; and I especially observed that at every mention of the name of Jesus Christ, if his eyes were closed, he always opened them, and looked at the person who had spoken. I said to him at one time, 'Jesus Christ loves you;' he answered slowly, and pausing between each word, 'Jesus Christ-love-the same thing.' He uttered these last words with a most sweet smile. After a long silence he said, 'I believe'-We said in a voice of inquiry in God?' He answered-In Jesus.' He spoke but once more after this. Upon our asking him how he felt, he said he was 'happy.' From that time to Wednesday morning, at a quarter before six, when he breathed his last, we waited upon him and watched beside him, but he took no more notice of us, and, judg

ing from his unruffled brow, his calm, though increasingly serious and solemn countenance, he willingly yielded up his spirit into the hands of Him whom he had proved to be indeed a most faithful Creator."

But it is not only in the hour of death, but when dangers of any kind gather around us, that religion fortifies the soul. For as the alarmed sinner is ever ready to fly to Christ for succour, when the fear of death comes upon him; so the test of true religion is that mental constancy which affords support in all circumstances, enabling men to die calmly, or to acknowledge, with thankfulness of heart, the protecting hand of Providence if they escape death. We have a most interesting proof of this in Lord Duncan's account of his state of feeling before and after his celebrated action with De Winter, off the Hague, October, 1797; an account which will be read with additional pleasure by all who are capable of recognising, in such examples, the real source of England's greatness.

"He went," he said, "upon deck about six o'clock, having had as sound a night's rest as he had ever enjoyed in the whole course of his life. The morning was brilliant, with a brisk gale; and he never remembered to have experienced so exhilarating a sensation as the sight of the two fleets afforded him. He said, however, that the calls of duty were too onerous to allow him to have any thought about himself; his whole mind was absorbed in observing and meeting the occasion by orders; all other feelings were lost in the necessity of action. The night after the battle he never closed his

eyes; his thoughts were still tossing in the turmoil through which

he had passed; but the most constant reflection was a profound thankfulness to God for the event of the engagement. All this was said in so perfectly natural a tone, and with a manner so simple, that its truth was impressed at once, together with veneration for a man who could regard thus humbly an event in which so much human life had been sacrificed, so much personal honour and so much national glory and advantage attained."*

Without presuming to attempt to make selections from the numberless interesting scenes and presages in the Crimean tragedy, with which our periodicals abound, and from which the historian and moralist, in all ages to come, will gather examples, I cannot refrain from enriching my feeble records with the following letter, in which the strongest fortitude is blended with the most amiable and instructive piety—the soldier of Christ, with the soldier and servant of an earthly sovereign :

"Before Sebastopol, June 17th, 9 P.M. "My own beloved Wife and dearly beloved Children,— At one o'clock to-morrow morning I head the 57th to storm the Redan. It is, as I feel, an awfully perilous moment to me, but I place myself in the hands of our gracious God, without whose will a sparrow cannot fall to the ground. I place my whole trust in Him. Should I fall in the performance of my duty, I fully rely in the precious blood of our Saviour, shed for sinners, that I may be saved through Him. Pardon and forgive me,

*New Monthly Magazine, July, 1836.

my beloved ones, for anything I may have said or done to cause you one moment's unhappiness. Unto God I commend my body and soul, which are His; and should it be His will that I fall in the performance of my duty, in the defence of my Queen and country, I most humbly say, 'Thy will be done.' God bless and protect you; and my last prayer will be, that He, of His infinite goodness, may preserve me to you. God ever bless you, my beloved Eliza, and my dearest children; and, if we must not meet again in this world, may we all meet in the mansion of our Heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ. God bless and protect you; and ever believe me your affectionate husband and loving father,

"THOMAS SHADFORTH."*

When death, therefore, is drawn as the King of Terrors, the rent ties of kindred and friends are not to be disregarded; yet it is chiefly with reference to another world that this King of Terrors is so fearfully prominent. The truth of this every experienced physician knows; and it is likewise his peculiar privilege to know, that there is not only a healing balm for the body in the medicines which a bounteous nature supplies, but that recovery from sickness often brings with it such abundance of comfort, and capacity for moral and religious influences, as uninterrupted health might never have experienced.

Now that I am writing on the subject of death and its attendant attributes, it is impossible not to make some

* Colonel Shadforth was killed the following morning. He was intensely beloved by the men under his command. The Queen immediately settled a pension of 2007. a-year on his widow.

reference to that inimitable composition of St. Paul's, which forms so conspicuous a portion of the burial service of our Church. When the Apostle says, "If the dead rise not, let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die,”—it is necessary to weigh well the full import of his argument. He does not mean it to be inferred that, even with reference to this life, excess in eating and drinking is not calculated to entail pain and misery on its devotees; but what he mainly wishes to inculcate is, that the doctrine of a resurrection to eternal life is of such transcendent importance, that it ought to govern all our conduct; no other consideration, either of pleasure or pain, being worth a thought when put into competition with an eternity of happiness or misery. The entire object of St. Paul's piercing irony is to guard us from evil communication, and especially from those solicitations to sensual indulgence which are founded on the supposition that there is no future state.

It is, in fact, the reflecting Christian only that can form a just notion either of the value of life, or of the fear of death. The generality of mankind, albeit nominally Christians, live regardless of the sanctions of religion, and, in the scale of morality, fall far below the cultivated heathen. The cultivated heathen moralist could discourse with gravity of Tartarus, and the Styx; and, whilst whirling in a vortex of unbelief, could qualify his Epicureanism by the philosophy of Plato and the Academics. He hoped, at all events, to restrain the angry passions of the vulgar, by imposing on them the terrors of a gross superstition to which he himself conformed in mere self-defence.