I waited below for about ten minutes, when Mrs. Lewis invited me to go up and join them in prayer. The regular season for the administration of the ordinance here will be the first Sabbath in July, but as Mr. Lewis will not probably live so long, it was concluded to have the service privately administered to him next Sabbath afternoon. Mrs. Lewis invited me to be present with the Doctor, which I promised to do, and left accompanied by Mr. Munroe, whose house lay in the same direction.
Mrs. Munroe has been absent ever since my arrival in Crawford, on a visit to her father's. I told her husband, I anticipated much pleasure in her acquaintance.
He says, he is under great obligation to the Doctor, for informing him of such cases as the one we had just witnessed. He is still so much of a stranger in the place, he has not found out who are the members of his parish. He enlarged particularly upon the great aid it was to a clergyman, as well as upon the great advantage it was to the town, to have a pious physician. He said it was often the case when physicians were otherwise, that they were unwilling to have a pastor visit their patients, vainly imagining that they might frighten and injure them. Here he said, he everywhere met with evidence of the Doctor's faithfulness to the souls as well as to the bodies of those to whom he was called.
This exactly accords with my own observation. I thank God that he has made my dear Frank an instrument of good.
As we were approaching Mr. Munroe's house, he said, "I have been much surprised to hear that our neighbor Mr. Benson intends to leave his people, and to go to Europe. He said nothing to me upon the subject," he added, "when I met him on Sabbath morning. I should have supposed that he would have wished to spend the last Sabbath among his own people. There is some mystery about it."
I made no reply; and after a pause, he inquired "Is he out of health?"
"He certainly appeared so the day he preached," I replied. I did my best to appear unembarrassed, but cannot say that I entirely succeeded. He looked intently at me for a moment, but said no more.
When I left him, he added, he should not be surprised if Mr. Lewis did not live until the Sabbath, but he thought him prepared to die.