came, and after a few days she was cut down like a flower.  She was a woman of a lovely character, devoted to the service of her divine Master like the Marys of old, and was a type of the tens of thousands of the Church’s faithful daughters throughout the land.  As she has left a holy example of missionary zeal and labour, so her good works follow her.  The other life of which we speak is also an eminent example of love for God’s Church, of faithfulness and good works.  John I. Thompson, one of the most esteemed citizens of Troy, N.Y., though hardly in a condition physically to make the long journey to San Francisco, yet felt it his duty to be in his seat in the Convention.  So he counted not his life dear unto himself, but with that sense of duty and spirit of self-sacrifice which always had characterised him he was found in his place at the opening and organising of the Convention, in Trinity Church, and answered the roll call.  Exposures by the way had made inroads on his health and gradually he lost his strength until death finally claimed him on the evening of Wednesday, October the 16th.  The next day the Convention passed the following resolution:  “Resolved, That the members of this Convention have heard, with deep regret, of the death of Mr. John I. Thompson, a lay deputy of the diocese of Albany, and they hereby express their warm and tender sympathy for his family in their sore bereavement.”  But what a deathbed was his!  What a testimony to the power of a living faith in Christ!  He died as he had lived, a truly Christian man, illustrating the power of that Gospel which the General Convention is pledged to propagate and defend.  With him, in the Palace Hotel, were those whom he loved best of all, his devoted wife, who had accompanied him, and his faithful son, who had hastened from the distant East to the chamber of sickness; with him too betimes the Bishop of Albany, whose tender words and loving ministrations were an unspeakable comfort to him; with him also his beloved Rector, Dr. Edgar A. Enos, of his dear St. Paul’s Church, to break for him the bread of life and press the cup of salvation to his lips, and pray for him as he walked through the valley of the shadow of death, and to commend his departing soul to God.  He knew he was going away from earthly scenes, and with faith and hope, he leaned on the arms of his Lord.  Trained from his childhood in the ways of the divine life, and having walked like the holy men of old in the paths of righteousness, he had no fear as his feet touched the Dark River.  He was ready to launch his soul’s bark on the ocean of eternity.  Methinks I see his purified spirit passing out through the Golden Gate yonder, but to sail over a sea more calm than the Pacific.  It is eventide now, but “at evening time it shall be light;” and the light of God’s eternal city is shed across his pathway as the Divine Pilot guides him through the Golden Gate of Paradise to the harbour of peace!

CHAPTER XII