To be snatched away without a warning, to come in a
moment from the seductions of this World to the presence of
Eternity-- his most ordinary actions, the most casual remarks,
served to keep him in remembrance of that dreadful possibility.
When one of his little boys clapped his hands at the thought of
the approaching holidays, the Doctor gently checked him, and
repeated the story of his own early childhood; how his own father
had made him read aloud a sermon on the text 'Boast not thyself
of tomorrow"; and how, within the week, his father was dead. On
the title page of his MS. volume of sermons, he was always
careful to write the date of its commencement, leaving a blank
for that of its completion. One of his children asked him the
meaning of this. 'It is one of the most solemn things I do,' he
replied, 'to write the beginning of that sentence, and think that
I may perhaps not live to finish it.'
It was noticed that in the spring of 1842 such thoughts seemed to
be even more frequently in his mind than usual. He was only in
his forty-seventh year, but he dwelt darkly on the fragility of
human existence. Towards the end of May, he began to keep a
diary--a private memorandum of his intimate communings with the
Almighty. Here, evening after evening, in the traditional
language of religious devotion, he humbled himself before God,
prayed for strength and purity, and threw himself upon the mercy
of the Most High.
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