It was a mild day in early autumn, when the pale messenger came to beckon him away.  He had tasted of the early autumnal fruits, had drank the delicious juice from her purple grape, and watched the early symptoms of decay that were visible in some withering flower or fading leaf, and felt that “passing away” was legibly written on all earthly things.  Once, and once only, he had prayed, “O, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, but thy will be done.”

He failed fast the last few hours of his life, losing all appetite for nourishment, and having more frequent turns of suffocation, and a sister was sent for.  Scarcely had she arrived, when he remarked to his wife that he felt very easy; but as it was time, he would take his medicine.  He took out the quantity upon the point of his knife, and after taking it, lay back upon his pillow, apparently asleep.  He started suddenly, looked wildly up, and told them he was choking to death.  They raised his head, and used their accustomed means to relieve him, but all to no avail.  The death dew stood in large drops upon his forehead, and the film gathered over the sparkling eye and shut out the light of earth forever.  He stretched out one hand and placed it upon the head of his son, who came hurriedly to his bedside, crying out, in piteous accents,

“O, father, father,” and stood sobbing beside him.

This was his only recognition of any one.  But the struggle was soon over, and the spirit had burst the barriers that held it to its clay tenement and passed away to a brighter world.

His sun set at noon; but his memory has left a sweet fragrance behind it, grateful to the surviving friends, who are called upon to follow his pious example.

He was borne to the Cemetery, and buried in a spot, which he had selected a few weeks before, in company with his aged mother, by a long train of weeping friends, for he had been very dear to us, and nature would have her tribute, and it filled our hearts with sadness, when we realized that we should see that loved form on earth no more.  Yet we rejoiced that he had died in the glorious hope of a blessed immortality, and that we could say, in the impressive language of the text that was chosen for his funeral sermon, “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth.”  Sweet be thy sleep, dear brother, during the night of death; but the morning will come—­the glorious morning of the resurrection—­and unlock the portals of the tomb, and the dead shall come forth, the righteous clothed in eternal youth, shall never die, the wicked sinking into the second death that has no end.

Sober autumn perfected his work of decay, and dreary winter spread his snowy shroud over the barren globe, when the aged mother laid down upon the bed of death.  Her infant had passed away, in the very dawn of its existence.  Her son had sunk down, while his meridian sun was shining in its noonday splendor; but she had lived till the winter of life had scattered its snows upon her head, and was now falling, like a shock of corn, fully ripe.  She was ready to be bidden suddenly away, for she was ever watching for the coming of the bridegroom.  Consumption had long been preying upon her form, and paving her way to the tomb; but she could look calmly upon the prospect, and contemplate the struggle of death without shrinking from it.