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steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord :" forming new Classes and gathering into them the most unlooked-for persons; visiting the sick and poor, a work she ever delightedly continued, her last illness alone bringing these labours to a close.

In the year following that of the death of her husband Mrs. Day removed to York, and in this city spent the rest of her days. It was her intention upon settling in York, to live a comparatively retired life; giving herself up chiefly to reading, and visiting the sick and poor in her immediate neighbourhood. But her zeal, love for souls and lifelong She had not been long in York

Two Classes,
She was,

habit, quickly set that intention aside. before she was as fully immersed in Church work as ever. very much the fruit of her own efforts, soon shared her care. moreover, a Benevolent Society visitor, and the President of the Ladies' Sewing Meeting. To render those gatherings the means of edification as well as Christian work was a matter of much anxiety with her. She sought, by improving conversation and reading, to turn them into means of spiritual benefit.

The office of Class-leader Mrs. Day was well fitted to fill. In addition to rich personal experience of "the deep things of God" she had a close acquaintance with the Word of God, and a spiritual insight into its teaching, and being well read in works tending to build up the soul in holiness, especially Christian biography, she was "throughly furnished" for this work..

No one could listen to her prayers without being impressed with her exalted gift and fervent power. For a Christian of Mrs. Day's mould to give up the offices she had held for so many years in the Church was no small trial: she was, however, too fully resigned to the will of God to hold on with unreasonable tenacity to work she loved so well. When it became apparent that the time had arrived for her to put off the harness she was enabled to acquiesce. And it was a source of great comfort to her when arrangements had been made to fill those offices in the Church which she was thus compelled to surrender. Her sentiment now seemed to be: There remains nothing more for me than, by God's grace, to glorify Him in the patient endurance of any painful discipline He may be pleased to lay upon me. The suffering which awaited her was, we think, much heavier than she had expected. The breaking up of a naturally vigorous constitution was attended with much suffering. But "patience" had "her perfect work." Unbroken confidence in God triumphed amid the wreck of nature. Her worldly affairs had been set in order, and with a "good hope through grace," she calmly looked in the face the event whose solemn shadow had already fallen on her.

In a paper dated August 24th, 1875, she writes:

"I wish to leave a written testimony of God's amazing goodness to me during this my last illness. In the former part of it I had often much holy, solemn, sacred

joy. I seemed to have much intercourse with those I had known and loved. I often felt as if I worshipped with them before the Throne. But O! it was Jesus, the First and the Last, my Lord and my God. Latterly my sufferings have been such as to make me fear my thoughts have been too much occupied about the body in seeking alleviation from pain. And my joy in the Lord was lessened, as a regular thing. Yet from time to time it was great and hallowed. Fearing I might grieve God by not having more power over the feelings of the body, I talked to Jesus about it, and asked Him to help me through His Word. I took up the Bible, thinking perhaps God would answer my prayer, and opened upon that precious chapter in St. John's Gospel beginning with 'Let not your heart be troubled.' As I read it appeared to me as if every letter was large. sacred, hallowed, divine.

And the power that accompanied each sentence was Since that time when Satan would tempt me, I could generally look up and say 'I will not let my heart be troubled, Jesus has told me not.' But during this time not a shade passed over my prospects beyond the grave. I had no doubts or fears for the future. There was always a calm, unruffled peace. And very, very often those lines have come with great sweetness:

and again:

'Angels now are hovering round me,
Unperceived they throng the air;'

'A convoy attends,

A ministering host of invisible friends.'

"Through my religious course I have carried about with me a deep sense of the many, very many, defects in my life. O how all has been blotted and blurred by defects and failures so that I have often exclaimed 'I wonder how God or man bears with me!' I have come for the iniquity of my holy things to be pardoned as I did with the rebellion of my wicked life. Since my illness, I think, these views have deepened. I have no hope nor do I wish for any, but such as the publican and the harlot have. I come with them and lay my whole soul on Christ as they must do. There I rest. There I am safe. Yes, while in Christ as safe as if I were in heaven. O it is a precious, easy, simple way! This is my preparation for dying and living again."

At a later date she wrote:

"My end draweth nigh; I think I have got into the valley. But it is all light, resplendently light. For the Lamb Who is the light of heaven is with me and illuminates the valley. My soul is full of victory through the blood of the Lamb.”

Not only had she no fear of death, but exquisite joy in the thought of it. Throughout the whole of her last affliction, with scarcely an interval, her triumph was complete. Reclining on the bosom of Jesus waiting, waiting," was one of her sayings. But the rapturous feeling with which she sometimes gave expression to her joy defies expression. On one occasion she said, "I could never have imagined it possible to have such an experience as I have. It is all glory, glory. The gates of the City are wide open. And the glory is shining upon me night and day. My joy is exquisite-almost more than I can bear.", And while thanksgiving was being offered to God Who had thus brought her into the land where the sun never sets, she uttered a Hallelujah! that thrilled the soul. To her son, the Rev. Edward Day, she said:

"It is open vision day and night. I have such views of the glory of heaven and of the saints in bliss as I never expected to have on earth. The ecstasy of feeling is

sometimes more than I can bear-I pray to Jesus that the vision may not be with drawn while for a space I turn from it: and it is not; I find it there when I look again. He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think'! What meaning is now to me in the words 'Faith is the substance of things hoped for.' It is beyond anything I experienced before. I have always hoped for' these things, and 'believed in' them; but faith is now making them so real to me,-so substantial,—I seem really to hold them. I am grasping them. The light that is streaming now upon my spirit from the immediate presence of God you cannot imagine: no one can, who has not felt it."

Once she called on all present to help her in shouting her Saviour's praise; and cried "Help, help ye bright angelic spirits, etc.!" On its being remarked, to a young member of her Class, in her presence, "See what religion can do," Mrs. Day in her eager, quick way said, "Yes, my dear girl; but nothing short of full consecration will do. All-everything -must be given up for Jesus."

Anxious to be useful even in death, she had her two Classes brought into her dying-chamber, that she might say "Farewell" to them and remind them of the necessity of living near to God. She took her final leave of them amid many tears on their part. To her daughter she remarked “It is no trifle to die, I can assure you. Whatever else you do, live close to God." And to a friend who had said she would try to follow her as shehad followed Christ, she replied, "Praise God! that is all I want. I shall be satisfied if I can only get any one to live nearer to God. He will help you. Farewell! live near to God and all will be well.”

And yet notwithstanding "the abundance of the revelations" thus afforded, her self-abasement remained profound. Amongst many such expressions of humility she said, "All that Christ enabled me to do for Him appears as nothing. I feel as if when I get to heaven I should be ashamed to appear under the eyes of the great 'cloud of witnesses,'-except clothed in the righteousness of Christ." When mention was made to her of her labours among the poor, who would sadly miss her, she said "It was Jesus Who put it into my heart and gave me the means. I feel greatly honoured to have been allowed to do anything for Him. I cannot tell you what humbling views I have of my own character. I dare not look at myself: I look straight to the blood." In the same spirit she spoke to a dear friend of the keen realisation she had of her unfaithfulness, saying,

"The sight of it for a time was overwhelming. I saw nothing but poverty of service; all looked worthless and miserable. But I have been telling Jesus about it -that I did wish to do His will though I failed to. And He showed me so sweetly that His blood covers it completely, and that my poor service is accepted of Him.” During the early part of her illness she seemed to have much communion with departed friends. At a later stage of her affliction she said she saw "no man any more save Jesus only." And when her weakness became excessive, her exultant joy subsided into quiet rest in Christ. She

intimated to her son that though her joy had been changed into peace, she had no doubt, adding "she would rather die than doubt." "This part of the valley," she remarked, "is somewhat darker than I expected; but all is well. They thought I was going to heaven as in a chariot of fire; but it was not so to be. Christ wanted that witness for Him in the midst of exultant joy. Now he wants me to witness for Him in suffering and patience. I am glad it is ordered so." While suffering and weakness seemed to render ecstatic joy impossible, she had deep, solid peace. The preparation for her removal was complete; her children well cared-for, her Church-work done, her love perfected, her hope fully assured; there remained nothing but passively to submit to the process by which her Heavenly Father was bringing the house of her pilgrimage to desolation. The thought of seeing "the King in His beauty" absorbed her. She was only afraid her longing to die might offend God:

"Let it not my Lord displease,

That I would die to be His guest,"

was her language.-"It is all right; I am in His hands." She endeavoured to repress within due bounds the eager desire she had to exchange mortality for life.

She had a presentiment that much suffering awaited her at the last. The words, she said, came to her like a voice, "I will show thee what great things thou shalt suffer for My Name's sake." But she added, “All is right if He be glorified." The process of dissolution, owing to her constitutional strength, was slow. One afternoon she was heard saying in a whisper, "I am coming, I am coming!" Her attendant hearing her say, during the night, "I sink, I sink," offered her something to take, which she refused, saying, faintly,

"I sink in blissful dreams away
And visions of eternal day;"

-the last words heard from those lips which had said so much for the glory of God and the highest welfare of His creatures. She fell into a state of apparent unconsciousness, which continued until the afternoon of October 16th, 1875, when she entered upon immortality.

J. HUGHES.

CONSPICUOUS MODERATION:

THE METHODIST QUARTERLY TICKET FOR DECEMBER, 1876. "Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.”—

PHILIPPIANS iv. 5.

"IT is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing." That class of character in which indifference, whether affected or real, is the leading feature, finds no countenance in the Word of God. Even in busi

ness the Christian must show himself "not slothful;" while as to the concerns of his own soul and of the Church, he must maintain continual fervency of spirit. The noblest manifestations of the Christian life have ever been liable to the charge of enthusiasm. And inevitably so; for thus applied, enthusiasm is but another name for overmastering earnestness. The term itself, however, partly from this very use of it, has almost acquired respectability; once it stood in close kinship with fanaticism, now it is employed more frequently in praise than in reproach. Something of its ancient ill-fame may yet cling to it, but it is rapidly achieving the position of a recognised virtue. Witness the phrase "Enthusiasm of humanity,” which, according to a certain popular theologian, tells the secret of all philanthropy, yea of the "pitying tenderness Divine" of our Lord Himself. Intense earnestness is acknowledged to be a mighty power, commendable or blameworthy only according to the object whereon it is set, and the means whereby it seeks to attain it. He who must" be instant in season, out of season," who counts "all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus" his "Lord," who counteth not his "life dear unto" himself, will assuredly tempt men incapable of estimating the force of his motives to call him an enthusiast. Nevertheless, such an active, self-sacrificing servant of God, is but carrying his principles to their legitimate, their necessary issues, is simply responding to the imperative claims of his Lord.

Of this enthusiasm St. Paul affords a striking example, and he strove strenuously to produce it in others. Yet in our ticket-verse we hear him counselling "moderation" of both temper and behaviour. He could not design to diminish the eager, persevering energy wherewith the Christian presses "toward the mark for the prize" of his "high calling," nor his anxiety for the extension of the Church of Christ and the salvation of individual souls. As little could he who taught "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good," desire carelessness about the truth in Jesus. Had such an interpretation of his words been reported to him, he would have replied indignantly "God forbid !" The original adjective was commonly used of the man who, in enforcing his rights, regarded rather the spirit than the letter of the law, who indeed demanded less than the law allowed him. The epithet might have been applied to Hugh Miller's uncle, who in charging for his work, first estimated it at what he considered a proper price, and then diminished the sum slightly, lest he should have been too favourable to himself. In 1 Timothy iii. 3, the word is translated "patient," and is followed by the description, "not a brawler," ie., not contentious. The general significance of the word is sufficiently clear, its shades of meaning would vary with the matters about which the quality is exercised.

With regard to the Christian's purely personal relations with his fellowmen, the quality would be gentleness or forbearance. Ordinarily it would