Postscript

While the proofs of these concluding pages, accompanied by the Preface, are yet retui’ning to the press, the public telegrams announce to all parts of England that their venerated writer is no more. The intelligence will travel to the utmost limits of our language, and be told, at length, in all the tongues in which his heart-stirring thoughts have ever been read, — filling thousands with such sorrow as springs only from the loss of a father. With what solemnity does this event stamp these his last utterances! A life completely filled with labours for the highest welfare of mankind could not surely have been more fitly closed. It seems as if his Lord, with touching kindness, had given him this latest opportunity of bearing testimony to the importance and blessedness of His service.

A bound set of the sheets of this Memoir

vrere sent to him about a month ago, with little hope that he would be able to add to them. But, after glancing over the volume, he was so warmed by the kindred spirit of Knill that he resolved to throw his generous impressions into writing. His continual sufferings greatly increased the difficulty of composition, and, after doing his uttermost, he wrote to say that the result was so unsatisfactory to himself that he could send nothing. But immediately after the despatch of that decision he happily changed his mind, and sent the manuscript, accompanied by an expression of the hope that it would be found so unsuitable as to be returned. It was, however, too much prized to be so treated; and, with a very few alterations, it reached him in print on the day prior to his departure. He at once proceeded to its revision, in the course of which he detected several inaccuracies in the printing, which had escaped other eyes, and inserted two or three qualifying words. This was his last work on earth. He felt that it was; for as soon as it was finished, he wrote to the Editor, with unusual distinctness of penmanmanship, as if every “^ord had been deliberately weighed, a letter — it is presumed his last — of which the following passage is the chief part: —

Edgbaston, 30th Sept., 1859.

“... I think it probable that with these few notes on dear KnilFs life and labours I shall lay down my pen, which has written much: would God it had written better! But while I say this, I am not without hope, yea, I I may add, conviction, that it has, in some measure, written usefully. In some humble degree I have aimed at usefulness, both in my preaching and writing, and God has, to an amount which utterly astonishes and almost overwhelms me, given me what I have sought. It seems a daring and almost presumptuous expression, but with a proper qualification it is a true one — that usefulness is within the reach of us all. The man who intensely desires to be useful, and takes the proper means, will be useful. God will not withhold His grace from such desires and such labours. Oh, my brother, how delightful is it, notwithstanding the humbling and sorrowful conscious-POSTSCRIPT.

ness of defects and sins, to look back upon a life spent for Christ! I thank a sovereign God I am not without some degree of this.’’

In an hour or two after this letter was sealed, the summons came from his Divine Master, and when next morning dawned upon us he was with Him in glorv. May his mantle be found and worn by thousands 1