aise to God and love to man. In her better days, and even after sickness and disease had made great inroads on her constitution, she was ever ready to help and assist her poor neighbours by any means in her power, as you all can testify. Uneducated as this poor widow was, and enjoying none of the advantages which many in this world possess; like the widow in the Gospel, her mite of praise and thanksgiving for God's mercies, has exceeded theirs, who may have, of their abundance, cast into the treasury; because she put in all that she had. Moreover, her voice was raised in thanks and praise, for a gift which, perhaps, would not be duly appreciated by every one, but which to her was above all price; viz.: the peace of God.

It is not for mortal man to look into the heart; but if ever inward peace was possessed by any one, as far as my judgment goes, it was so by her whose character I am now delineating; and that not only in death, but during the whole of her illness. Her death was at last sudden, momentary, attended probably without pain or consciousness; she passed at once from the uneasiness and weakness of an exhausted frame, into a state of existence where, in her case, we are warranted to hope, she would find nothing but light and joy; a freedom from all trials (arising from whatever cause

during her sojourn here) to the enjoyment of everlasting felicity in the bosom of her God and Saviour. Nor would those feelings, though exceeding all that the heart of man can conceive, be quite new to our poor widow. For she had, while on earth, drank of the fountain of life, and was satisfied with it (those who drink thereof, you know, never thirst again); and the consequence to her was, "to rejoice and be glad all the days of her life." Had she not drunk of these waters, her spirit could not have sustained her infirmity, but she must have languished and sunk under natural disease and its long protracted pains.

Sudden death is one of the things we pray to be delivered from, and well may we so pray; for who of us is prepared to meet it, either as regards the things of time or eternity? We ought all to be prepared, and it is to be hoped we endeavour daily to be so; but still it is a rational and justifiable feeling, to wish to have a little time to compose our minds; to collect our scattered thoughts, and turn them more immediately from things of sense to spiritual and holy matters; to gather around us those whom we have loved here, to bid them, not an eternal adieu, but to take leave of them, for a time, while we precede them merely, on the journey to our everlasting home; to

warn them by our experience of the dangers of our earthly course, directing them to those safeguards which a religious and, as far as human infirmity will permit, a holy life can, through the gracious bloodshedding of the Redeemer, alone afford; and to express our dying hopes that a reunion in the world of bliss, and joy unspeakable, may be permitted to us all. For such purposes, time, we know, is not always granted; and not long ago, in this very parish, a case of sudden death occurred, most awfully impressive in its circumstances and character.* I mean that of the poor man struck dead by lightning, and in a single moment brought into judgment with his God. I have often thought since of this remarkable transit from the duties of his station, that of a shepherd tending his flock, and preparing the fold; the instrument for doing it being probably the immediate cause of his death, in attracting the subtile element; I have often contemplated, I say, the surprize, the amazement (it is in vain to seek for words to express what I cannot conceive); but the sudden sight of things immortal, the scenes of another state of existence, all at once brought before him, before a man who, though I hope and trust he had occasionally thought of his great and

* William Mackerell, a shepherd on a farm in the Parish of Sanderstead, was struck dead by lightning on the 14th of June, 1839.

last change, yet certainly had not a moment allowed him to cast a parting glance on this lower world and all its interests; what must have been,

I

say, his sensations on escaping so unexpectedly from his daily labour and toil, to be joined with angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven, whose occupation consists in giving praise to the Most High; or, dreadful thought! to be consigned to the blackness of darkness for ever, where shall be "weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth." It is, in fact, presumption in us to calculate on the fearful alternative, as it certainly is more becoming to hope and believe that, however inscrutable to man, it was (as all His providences must be) a merciful dispensation of that Almighty Being in whose hands are the issues of life and death; let us, therefore, revert again to the manner in which death, almost equally sudden, terminated the life of our poor friend.

She had been for a few days easier and more free from pain than usual, and the evening preceding her departure sent me a kind message to that effect; but on coming down in the morning, she asked for some cordial, and, before it could be procured, was no more; she had ceased to exist in this world, and had entered into her everlasting rest. I saw her remains within an hour of the spirit's having

escaped from its frail tenement; and even then, so soon, that sweet, placid, satisfied look, that expression of countenance (in some cases perhaps deceptive) was come on, which certainly must be consolatory to all mourners who look on it; but here it faithfully indicated the mind of her who from a mortal had become an immortal being.

It is time I should proceed to the more important part of my duty, the explaining and appropriating the words of my text to the use and benefit of those who survive. And perhaps I may be asked, why dwell so long on the history and character of one whose station in life was so humble, her connexions so low, her condition so uninteresting to the world in general, her path of duty confined to a secluded village all the days of her life? Why, you could not enlarge more on the subject, even if it were some royal personage who had finished her earthly career. Be it so. In the first place, I trust a Christian minister, a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus, will never forget that "blessed are the poor in spirit;" blessed also the poor in means, if accompanied by true poverty of spirit. And, "what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Would he not give a corruptible for an incorruptible crown, would he not give the whole world rather than lose his own soul? How