have said more about his views and his feelings, and could have sent you from his deathbed such a message, as he would have liked to send. But it is doubtless best that he was not permitted to say more-and I fear, that if his few simple words will not move you, you would not be moved, though he were to rise from the dead.

On the Sabbath, the scarlet spots (from which the fever is named) began to appear. During this and the two following days, his fever was extremely high, and distress very great. Wednesday, the fever appeared to abate a little, and his parents were cheered with the hope that his greatest danger was now past. Alas! how delusive. That very

night he was attacked by the croup, and before the third day he was taken from them.

After the croup had set in, his distress was greatly increased. The physician who attended him, and who, during his last days, was almost constantly with him, said that his sickness was distressing beyond anything that he had ever witnessed. He compared it to a

rope put round the neck, and drawn as tight as it could be drawn without producing instant death. His breathing was so difficult, that you could hear him breathe in another corner of the house. He could now say but very little, and this only in a whisper, with great exertion, and frequent interruptions. To increase his suffering, his strength continued to the last, so that only two or three hours before his death, in his distress for breath, he sprang upon his feet in the bed.

Conceive, if you can, of such sickness and suffering as this; and then ask yourselves, how you could bear it. And yet all this Addison bore, bore patiently, bore cheerfully. He was happy through all this pain.

His physician told me that he had been by the bedside of many, but he had never seen anything which would compare with this-so much suffering, and so much cheerfulness. His medicines were some of them very unpleasant, and yet he never made the least objection to taking any of them. He was never heard to complain. The nearest

approach he made to it,' his father says, 'was Wednesday evening-the evening he was attacked by the croup. In extreme distress for breath, he sprang upon his knees in the bed. I could see that the muscles of the neck were violently strained by his exertions to regain his breath. After he had regained it, he looked at me very earnestly, and said, "Pa', what shall I do?" None of my readers, I am sure, will consider this as the language of complaint. They will look upon the statement as a proof of the caution of the father, and not of the impatience of the son.

His father often asked him, 'Do you feel happy, Addison, notwithstanding all your distress? The reply was always with a smile, 'Yes, Sir.'

His cheerfulness in view of death was equally striking. He saw, in the king of terrors,' a friend who would carry him to his Saviour. When his father saw that his disorder had become alarming, he asked him, if he felt willing to die. The question was new. Addison thought a while, and then calmly

answered, 'I feel willing to die, or willing to live.' To repeated questions of the same kind from both his parents, he always gave a similar answer, often adding as God would have it.' In no case do they remember his expressing any wish of his own. He had many ties to bind him to life, yet he was willing to break from them all to be with his Saviour; his pains were severe, yet he was willing to bear them, if it were the will of his Heavenly Father. He seemed to have received some portion of the spirit of Jesus : "Not my will, but thine be done."

Is not that religion worth seeking, which can give such support as this? Come, and go with me to his bed-side, and let us see how a Christian can die. There he lies upon the bed. A few days since, he was as strong as you are, as active as you are, and had as much reason to expect a long life. But now death has marked him for his own. Shall we talk with him? But ah! we have come almost too late. Had we come a few days sooner, he might have conversed with us in

his usual tones. words, and those only in a whisper. But what a calm there is upon his countenance. He even smiles in his pain. Yes! for he is going home.

Now he can say but a few

But lightly as he bore his own suffering, he showed a deep feeling for the distress of others. He often endeavored to comfort his weeping friends.

'At one time, seeing me weep,' said his mother, he asked me,

6

cry?"

"Why, Ma', do you cry

Because you suffer so much,' I answered.

"That's nothing-I must die sometime, if not now-I may as well die now. Ma', you will die too."

He tried to console his mother by the thought that she would follow him, and that they would soon meet, never to part. His parents and sisters remember many such conversations.

Sometimes by a playfulness of manner he would attempt to beguile their grief. I will mention an instance.