"The thought of my dear and ever faithful friend as now standing at the very verge of life, has repeatedly carried me back in memory to the period of our youth, when, more than forty years since, we were brought into habitual society, and the cordial esteem and attachment which have survived, undiminished, through so long a lapse of time, and so much separation. Then we sometimes conjectured—but in vain—what might be the course appointed us to run; and how long; and which might first come to the termination. Now the far greater part of that appointment has been unfolded and accomplished. To me a little stage further remains under the darkness; you, my dear friend, have a clear sight almost to the concluding point. And while I feel the deepest pensiveness in beholding where you stand, with but a step between you and death, I cannot but emphatically congratulate you. I have often felt great complacency in your behalf, in thinking of the course through which Providence has led you,—complacency in regard to the great purpose of life, its improvement, its usefulness, and its discipline and preparation for a better world. You are, I am sure, grateful to the Sovereign Disposer in the review of it. You have had the happiness of faithfully and zealously performing a great and good service, and can rejoice to think that your work is accomplished, with a humble confidence that the Master will say, "Well done, good and faithful servant," while you will gratefully exult in ascribing all to his own sovereign mercy in Jesus Christ.
"But, oh, my dear friend, whither is it that you are going? Where is it that you will be a few short weeks or days hence? I have affecting cause to think and to wonder concerning that unseen world; to desire, were it permitted to mortals, one glimpse of that mysterious economy; to ask innumerable questions to which there is no answer: What is the manner of existence—of employment—of society—of remembrance—of anticipation—of all the surrounding revelations to our departed friends. How striking to think that she[D] so long and so recently with me here, so beloved, but now so totally withdrawn and absent—that she experimentally knows all that I am in vain inquiring!
"And a little while hence, you, my friend, will be an object of the same solemn meditations and wondering inquiries. It is most striking to consider—to realize the idea—that you, to whom I am writing these lines, who continue yet among mortals, who are on this side of the awful and mysterious veil—that you will be in the midst of these grand realities, beholding the marvellous manifestation, amazed and transported at your new and happy condition of existence, while your friends are feeling the pensiveness of your absolute and final absence, and thinking how, but just now as it were, you were with them.
"But we must ourselves follow you to see what it is that the emancipated spirits, who have obtained their triumph over death and all evil through the blood of the Lamb, find awaiting them in that nobler and happier realm of the Great Master's empire; and I hope that your removal will be, to your other friends and to me; a strong additional excitement, under the influence of the Divine Spirit, to apply ourselves with more earnest zeal to the grand business of our high calling.
"It is a delightful thing to be assured on the authority of revelation, of the perfect consciousness, the intensely awakened faculties, and all the capacities and causes of felicity of the faithful in that mysterious separate state and on the same evidence, together with every other rational probability, to be confident of the re-union of those who have loved one another and their Lord on earth. How gloomy, beyond all expression, were a contrary anticipation!
"My friend feels, in this concluding day of his sojourn on earth, the infinite value of that blessed faith which confides alone in the great Sacrifice for all the sole medium of pardon and reconcilement, and the ground of immortal hope. This has always been to you the very vitality of the Christian religion: and it is so—it is emphatically so—to me also.
"I trust you will be mercifully supported,—the heart serene, and, if it may be, the bodily pain mitigated, during the remaining hours, and the still sinking weakness of the mortal frame; and I would wish for you also, and in compassion to the feelings of your attendant relatives, that you may be favoured so far as to have a gentle dismission; but as to this, you will humbly say, 'Thy will be done.'
"I know that I shall partake of your kindest wishes and remembrance in your prayers—the few more prayers you have yet to offer before you go. When I may follow you, and, I earnestly hope, rejoin you in a far better world, must be left to a decision that cannot at the most be very remote; for yesterday completed my sixty-third year. I deplore before God my not having lived more devotedly to the grand purpose; and do fervently desire the aid of the good Spirit, to make whatever of my life may remain much more effectually true to that purpose than all the preceding.
"But you, my friend, have accomplished your business—your Lord's business—on earth. Go, then, willing and delighted, at his call.
"Here I conclude, with an affecting and solemn consciousness that I am speaking to you for the last time in this world. Adieu, then, my ever dear and faithful friend. Adieu—for a while! May I meet you, ere long, where we shall never more say, farewell!