ly forgotten:
debts he had thought paid; petitions he had thought answered; promises he
had thought fulfilled; till he calls young Carlton, his son, to his
bedside, and tells him things that break both men's hearts to say and to
hear; and commits to his son and heir sad duties that should never have
been due; debts, promises, obligations, reparations, such that, to
remember them, is a terrible experience on an old man's deathbed. But
what mercy that he was not carried off, and his drawer unopened!

Now, speaking of taking ship, when we are preparing for a voyage, and a
visit to another country and another city, we 'read up,' as we say,
before we set sail. Before we start for Rome we read our Tacitus and our
Horace, our Gibbon and our Merivale. If it is Florence we take down
Vasari and Dante, Lord Lindsay and Mrs. Jamieson, and so on. Now, if
Eternity holds for us a new world, with cities and peoples that are all
new to us, should we not prepare ourselves for them also? Have you,
then, laid in a library for your old age, when, like old Carlton, you
will be lying waiting at the water-side? What books do you read when you
wish to put on the mind of a man who intends to die well? 'Read to me
where I first cast my anchor,' said John Knox, when dying, to his weeping
wife. Does your wife know where you first cast your anchor? Does she
know already what to read to you when you are preparing for the last
voyage?

And then, having prepared for, and practised dying well, play the man and
perform it well when the day comes. 'Die as your father died,' says
Rutherford to Kennedy. Now, that is too much to ask of any man, because
old Hugh Kennedy's deathbed was what it was by the special grace of God.
You cannot command any man to die in rapture. But Rutherford does not
mean that, as he is careful to explain. He means, as he says, 'die
believing.' It will be your last act as a believer, therefore do it
well. You have been practising faith all your days; show that practice
makes perfection at the end. As Rutherford said to George Gillespie when
he was on his deathbed, 'Hand over all your bills, paid and unpaid, to
your surety. Give him the keys of the drawer, and let him clear it out
for himself after you are gone.' And then, with the ruling passion
strong in death, he added, 'Die not on sanctification but on
justification, die not on inherent but on imputed righteousness.' And
then, to come to the very last act of a