30. ZUNIGER.

ZUNIGER, a learned professor of medicine at Basle, approached his end with holy longings and pantings after death: "I rejoice, yea, my spirit leaps within me for joy, that now the time at last is come, when I shall see the glorious God face to face; whose glory I have had some glances of here, in the search of natural things; whom I have worshipped, whom I have by faith longed after, and after whom my soul has panted."

31. LIEUT. DANIEL MURRAY.

THE following account of the exit of this good man is from the pen of a friend and associate:

When I arrived at the residence of our late friend, Mr. Daniel Murray, I found him apparently dying. He had arranged all his affairs, talked in the most cheerful, consoling manner to his family and friends, and sent messages of affectionate regard to those who were absent. He received me with great animation, and a smile that showed he was filled with 'all joy and peace.' He expressed his thankfulness at my visit, spoke of his many and great comforts, the perfect peace and happiness he felt, and the sure hope which enabled him to welcome death, that he might be with his Saviour. He declared that it was to him alone he looked with this confident hope; that he was himself unworthy, and trusted entirely to the merits of his Redeemer. Hours were passed in conversations like these.

"Upwards of thirty years ago he made profession of religion. From that time to his death, during a retired

and domestic life, he was known as a warm, consistent Christian. All this you know. But I knew him long before this. At eight or nine years of age, he being a year older, we became intimate, and were brought up together almost in the same family. We continued thus until he entered the navy, I think in the year 1798; and ever since we have been much together, and always on terms of the closest friendship.

From my earliest recollections of him, his character and conduct were so remarkable, that he seemed to me without a fault. No temptations ever seemed to surprise him. No allurement or persuasion led him from his course. I remember well how strong his influence was over me, and how it was always used for my good. But I ascribed to natural causes altogether the peculiarity and excellence of his character, and did not see how religion could change him, who seemed already as perfect as a human being could be. This was not only my thought; all who knew him well thus estimated him.

"I remember being present at a conversation on the subject of religion between the late John Randolph and Commodore Decatur, who had known Mr. Murray while in the navy. The latter was expressing his difficulties about the universal sinfulness of man's nature. It surprised him that the very best people in the world should always speak of themselves as sinners. He mentioned his own mother as an instance; and then, turning to me, said, 'There, too, is our friend Murray; you know what a man he is; who ever saw anything wrong in him? Is it not absurd to think of such a man as a sinner? And yet he accounts himself such.'

"I shall never forget Mr. Randolph's reply to this. He rose from his sofa, walked towards Decatur, stood before him, and in his emphatic manner said to this effect: I well know how dark and unintelligible this subject appears to you, and why it is so. But I trust a

time will come when you will know and feel it to be all true-true of all, true of yourself; when you will be selfarraigned and self-condemned; found guilty of sin-not of the sin of cowardice, falsehood, or any mean and dishonourable act, but at least of this, that you have had conferred upon you great and innumerable favours, and have requited your Benefactor with ingratitude. This will be guilt enough to humble you, and you will feel and own that you are a sinner.'

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The difficulties, however, that I had felt from this appreciation of his early character, were all cleared up at the death-bed of my friend. On my first seeing him he said, 'You witness my most comfortable and happy state. I cannot describe it to you. Now, I owe it all to you, though I never told you, and you never knew it.' Shortly after this, when we were alone, he called to me and said: 'Now I will tell you what I never told you or any one. When we first met, and you were a little boy, your good mother had taught you a hymn, which you used to repeat aloud every night on getting into bed. That hymn made a remarkable and deep impression on me, which was never effaced. Without your knowing it, I got it by heart from hearing you repeat it; and from that time to this, I have never gone to my rest at night without repeating to myself that hymn and praying. This had a most salutary effect upon me all my life. When at sea, I never, under any circumstances, omitted it; and under the influence produced by it, I remember that when I was once for a short time in command of a small brig we had captured from the French in the Mediterranean, one of the first orders I gave was for the regular meeting of all hands for reading and prayer, which was well received, and had a good effect.' He then repeated it to me, and I took a pencil and wrote it down. I had forgotten every word of it.

Here then I saw the true source of all that had so

charmed and surprised me in his life. What I had attributed to the impulse of a gentle and noble nature, were the 'fruits of the Spirit;' and the excellence that shone forth in his conduct and character was 'the beauty of holiness.' This he acknowledged with all thankfulness, and with the deepest humility; speaking of it as an infinite and undeserved mercy, which he had not improved as he ought. It now seems strange to me that I had never discovered this; but I was walking in darkness, and therefore perceived not the light by which he was directed.

"Surely God has here shown us some of the doings of his wonder-working hand. A pious mother teaches her child a hymn. It makes no impression upon his heart, and is soon effaced from his memory. But its work is done, and its fruits appear in the heart and life of another.

"Shall she complain that the seed has been blown away from the soil over which she so carefully cast it, to take root in another? No. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are God's ways higher than our ways, and his thoughts than our thoughts.' 'Who will say unto him, What doest thou?' That seed, thus blown away, produced its rich fruits, and they were then brought back to the spot which her prayers had desired they should bless. Her wayward child had forgotten her instructions, but they had made for him a friend, whose influence, and counsel, and example restrained and strengthened him in the dangerous paths of youth, whose life had taught him how to live, and whose death hath now taught him how to die.

"Well may he bless God, for this 'his servant departed this life in faith and fear,' and ask 'his grace so to follow his good example, that with him he may be a partaker of the heavenly kingdom.""

32. COL. DAVID MACK.

COL. DAVID MACK closed a long and eventful life in the early part of 1845, he being in the ninety-fifth year of his age. He was of Puritan descent; "the blood of the Pilgrims ran in his veins, and the love of the Pilgrims' God burned in his heart."

He attended constantly on Divine worship. He was not afraid of the snow and vapour, the stormy wind, rain, or distance; and obstacles which would keep at home two-thirds of a congregation of common Christians in the prime of life, were no impediment to him at fourscore years and ten, a period when even "the grasshopper is a burden." But "love knows no burden," and hence it was easy for him to go to the house of the Lord, for he "loved the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob."

He lived till satisfied with long life. When his pastor asked him, near its close, if his life seemed short, he did not say, like Jacob, "Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been," but he said, "When I look at my life, taken as a whole, it seems short, like a handbreadth before me; but when I look at the gradual and astonishing changes which have taken place, and when I trace them from the commencement to the great result, and when I look at my posterity, my children's children, I almost feel that I have lived forever!"

Though his hearing was yet perfect, and his eye scarcely dim, and his natural force not much abated, he did not wish to live longer; his days were full, his work was done, he chose to depart: "and he was not, for God took him."

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Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."