l away terrified, shaken, and humbled,
like himself.

[30] James i. 15, 16. It is plain that "do not err" should have
been in verse 15th.

I would fain say a few words on my father's last illness, or rather on
what led to it, and I wish you and others in the ministry would take to
heart, as matter of immediate religious duty, much of what I am going to
say. My father was a seven months' child, and lay, I believe, for a
fortnight in black wool, undressed, doing little but breathe and sleep,
not capable of being fed. He continued all his life slight in make, and
not robust in health, though lively, and capable of great single
efforts. His attendance upon his mother must have saddened his body as
well as his mind, and made him willing and able to endure, in spite of
his keen and ardent spirit, the sedentary life he in the main led. He
was always a very small eater, and nice in his tastes, easily put off
from his food by any notion. He therefore started on the full work of
life with a finer and more delicate mechanism than a man's ought to be,
indeed, in these respects he was much liker a woman; and being very soon
"placed," he had little travelling, and little of that tossing about the
world, which in the transition from youth to manhood, hardens the frame
as well as supples it. Though delicate, he was almost never ill. I do
not remember, till near the close of his life, his ever being in bed a
day.

From his nervous system, and his brain predominating steadily over the
rest of his body, he was habitually excessive in his professional work.
As to quantity, as to quality, as to manner and expression, he flung
away his life without stint every Sabbath-day, his sermons being
laboriously prepared, loudly mandated, and at great expense of body and
mind, and then delivered with the utmost vehemence and rapidity. He was
quite unconscious of the state he worked himself into, and of the loud
piercing voice in which he often spoke. This I frequently warned him
about, as being, I knew, injurious to himself, and often painful to his
hearers, and his answer always was, that he was utterly unaware of it;
and thus it continued to the close, and very sad it was to me who knew
the peril, and saw the coming end, to listen to his noble, rich,
persuasive, imperative appeals, and to know that the surplus of power,
if retained, would, by God's blessing, retain him, while the effect on
his people would, I am sure, not have lost, bu