die, it is needless
to dispel that half illusion which seems to be one feature of
consumption--an illusion which is so thin that we feel persuaded the
patient sees through it, while, nevertheless, it serves all the purposes
of hope. To take away that hope where no beneficial end is to be
secured, is cruel. A mistaken, and somewhat morbid, sense of duty to
tell the whole truth, and a conscientious but unenlightened fear of
practising deception, sometimes lead friends to remove, from a sick
person, that power which hope gives in sustaining the sickness, in
prolonging comfort, and in helping the gradual descent into the grave.
When a sick person is resolute and hopeful, it is surprising to see how
many annoyances of sickness are prevented or easily borne, and how life,
and even cheerfulness, may be indefinitely extended. But when hope is
taken away, or, rather, when, instead of looking towards life with that
instinctive love of it which God has implanted, we turn from "the warm
precincts of the cheerful day," and look into the grave, it is affecting
to see how the disease takes advantage of it, and sufferings ensue which
would have been prevented by keeping up even the ambiguous thoughts of
recovery. Sick people have reflections and feelings which exert an
influence upon them beyond our discernment, and which frequently need
not our literal interpretations of symptoms, and our exhortations, to
make them more effectual. But where there is evidently no preparedness
for death, and the patient, we fear, is deceiving himself, no one who
has suitable views of Christian duty will fail to impress him with the
necessity of attending to the things which belong to his peace, even at
considerable risk of abridging life.

Waiting, therefore, for medical discernment to signify when the last
possible effort to lengthen out the days of the sufferer had been made,
one morning I received the intimation that those days would, in all
probability, be but very few. After the physician had left the house,
and I had sought help and strength from God, I lost no time, but took my
place at the dear patient's side, to make the announcement.

God help those on whom he lays such duty. The hour had virtually come in
which father and child must part, and the father was to break that
message to his child. But how could mortal strength endure the effort?

Before I left my room for hers, there came to my mind these words--"But
now, thus saith the Lord tha