"Did I
tell you of the boy I was asked to see on Sabbath evening, just when I
got myself comfortably seated at home? I went, and was speaking to him
of the freeness and fulness of Jesus, when he gasped a little and
died."

In one of his first visits to the sick, the narrative of the Lord's
singular dealings with one of his parishioners greatly encouraged him
to carry the glad tidings to the distressed under every disadvantage.
Four years before, a young woman had been seized with cholera, and was
deprived of the use of speech for a whole year. The Bible was read to
her, and men of God used to speak and pray with her. At the end of the
year her tongue was loosed, and the first words heard from her lips
were praise and thanksgiving for what the Lord had done for her soul.
It was in her chamber he was now standing, hearing from her own lips
what the Lord had wrought.

On another occasion during the first year of his ministry, he
witnessed the death-bed conversion of a man who, till within a few
days of his end, almost denied that there was a God. This solid
conversion, as he believed it to be, stirred him up to speak with all
hopefulness, as well as earnestness, to the dying.

But it was, above all, to the children of God that his visitations
seemed blessed. His voice, and his very eye, spoke tenderness; for
personal affliction had taught him to feel sympathy with the
sorrowing. Though the following be an extract from a letter, yet it
will be recognised by many as exhibiting his mode of dealing with
God's afflicted ones in his visitations: "There is a sweet word in
Exodus (3:7), which was pointed out to me the other day by a poor
bereaved child of God: 'I know their sorrows.' Study that; it fills
the soul. Another word like it is in Psalm 103:14: 'He knoweth our
frame.' May your own soul, and that of your dear friends, be fed by
these things. A dark hour makes Jesus bright. Another sweet word:
'They knew not that it was Jesus.'"

I find some specimens of his sick visits among his papers, noted down
at a time when his work had not grown upon his hands. "_January 25,
1837_--Visited Mt. M'Bain, a young woman of twenty-four, long ill of
decline. Better or worse these ten years past. Spoke of '_The one
thing needful_' plainly. She sat quiet. _February 14_--Had heard she
was better--found her near dying. Spoke plainly and tenderly to her,
commending Christ. Used many texts. She put out her hand kindly on
leaving. 15th--Sti