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One of the most affecting attendants upon a dying bed is that delirium which so frequently is the precursor of dissolution. It is our lot sometimes, even if not amongst the poor, to hear the lips that have instructed others in wisdom utter dark and foolish sayings. Delirium in a dying hour, and perhaps for a lengthened period previous, is not the lot alone of the poor and ignorant. Mrs. T. was delirious, and I was told would not know me, and knew no one. I addressed her, to which she replied, "I don't know you; who are you?" and then looking very hard at me, her countenance underwent a great change; she smiled, and said, "Oh yes! bless you! it's Mr. Vanderkiste ;" and she gave me, considering her feebleness, a very pleasing account of the dependence and faith she was exercising in our Saviour, and the good hope she possessed of being happy in the world to come. So she died.

Jim did not at all like the idea of his mother being buried by the parish, but his poverty prevented him being able to raise the funds needful to bury her. Under such circumstances, some undertakers bury the poor on condition of being paid at the rate of eighteenpence a week;

so he went to one of these tradesmen, and buried his mother, as he termed it, "respectable."

Jim, the "wild Indian," is only an occasional attendant on public worship; but I pray the careful burier of his mother, may be himself buried with Christ in that baptism, from which he shall rise a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.

Death is always a solemn matter-a solemn reminder of sin by which it entered into the world, and of the anger of God against sin-a solemn reminder of disease and suffering, its heralds and accompaniments; but we have cause to joy over this old fortune-teller; "she died hopefully in the Lord," and those who so die are "blessed." She has gone

"Where the hidden wound is healed;

Where the blighted life re-blooms;
Where the smitten heart, the freshness
Of its buoyant youth resumes.

"Where the love that here we lavish
On the withering leaves of time,
Shall have fadeless flowers to fix on,
In an ever spring-bright clime.

"Where we find the joy of loving,
As we never lov'd before;
Loving on, unchilled, unhindered,
Loving once and evermore."

May we not hope

"Sister, we shall meet and rest,

'Mid the holy and the blest."

Upon the subject of religion I have found the grossest ignorance imaginable to prevail amongst the lowest classes. Numbers of persons visited have astonished me to find them ignorant as to who our blessed Saviour was. I recollect being sent for to visit an elderly man who was very ill, and who was a stranger to me, not having resided any length of time where I saw him. According to my rule, where practicable, I catechised him. He knew who made him; and now, said I, my friend, do you know who the Lord Jesus Christ is? "Why, sir," said he, "I have always been given to understand he was the father of our blessed God Almighty!" I varied the question, but found that was really his impression.

I have also been exceedingly tried respecting the extreme ignorance of such persons respecting baptism. I recollect as an instance out of many,

one woman declared to me that before her child was christened it was very sickly, but that through being baptized it had throve amazingly. I might multiply such details, but space can only be made for one more. It is an extract from my journal :---

I was informed by Mrs. M

woman at

that a young

was very ill, for which information I expressed my obligations to her. I make particular request of these people that they will always inform me, immediately when any one is ill. In company with Mrs. M., I visited this young woman; her name is H. She was lying on the floor, having no bedstead, an infant, six weeks old, on one side of her, and another, sixteen months old, on the other. She is only twenty-four years of age. The poor girl appeared to be in a rapid consumption, spitting up large quantities of purulent matter from her lungs. I inquired whether she had been in the habit of attending any place of worship whilst in health; she replied in the affirmative, and stated that whilst residing with her father at No. 7, Eagle Court, she had attended St. John's, Clerkenwell. I afterwards read to her the third chapter of John-one of the chapters in constant

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requisition with me-and then said, "Mrs. H., do you understand what being born again means?" She replied, very sedately, "Why sir, I have always understood that being born again, means being christened, and that unless a child is christened, it cannot go to heaven." Thus, while she thought the passage of Scripture applied to baptism outwardly, she was unaware it applied to an inward renewal. How forcibly does this illustrate the necessity for more pastoral visitation! The amount of ignorance prevailing, would exceed the belief of those who do not spend much of their time in domiciliary visitation. This poor creature died shortly afterwards, and her youngest child also.

On inquiring of the parents upon my district what prayers they have taught their children, I have in general found they were taught none whatever. Some have said, "Oh! I teach them the Our Father' and 'Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.'" The first prayer alluded to is of course the Lord's Prayer-the last is a Romish doggrel for saintly intercession

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"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,

Bless the bed that I lay on!"

The class of persons to whom I have alluded

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