fixed on Him, and cleanse me from all sin. I would wish to keep a watch over my tongue, as to vehement speaking and censuring of others. … I would desire to remember my latter end to which I am approaching. … May God keep me in the hour of death, through Jesus Christ; and preserve me from every fear, as well as from presumption." On June 2nd he wrote, "Again the day is over and I am going to rest. O Lord, preserve me this night, and strengthen me to bear whatever Thou Shalt see fit to lay on me, whether pain, sickness, danger, or distress." On Sunday, June 5th, the reading of the newspaper aroused "painful and solemn" reflections.—"So much of sin and so much of suffering in the world, as are there displayed, and no one seems able to remedy either. And then the thought of my own private life, so full of comforts, is very startling." He was puzzled; but he concluded with a prayer: "May I be kept humble and zealous, and may God give me grace to labour in my generation for the good of my brethren, and for His Glory!"
The end of the term was approaching, and to all appearance the Doctor was in excellent spirits. On June 11th after a hard day's work, he spent the evening with a friend in the discussion of various topics upon which he often touched in his conversation—the comparison of the art of medicine in barbarous and civilised ages, the philological importance of provincial vocabularies, and the threatening prospect of the moral condition of the United States. Left alone, he turned to his Diary. "The day after to-morrow," he wrote, "is my birthday, if I am permitted to live to see it—my forty-seventh birthday since my birth. How large a portion of my life on earth is already passed! And then—what is to follow this life? How visibly my outward work seems contracting and softening away into the gentler employments of old age. In one sense, how nearly can I now say, 'Vixi.' And I thank God that,
