ingly. One of the most extraordinary instances of such knowledge in modern times, was this. Lady Fanshawe's mother was seized with an illness which was believed to be mortal. She was exceedingly anxious to live, for the sake of superintending the education of her family; and several times, referring to the case of Hezekiah, prayed that her life might be spared, as his was, for fifteen years. She fell into a swoon or trance, which was at first believed to be mortal. On coming to herself she assured her friends that her prayer had been heard; that she should recover; and that her life would be prolonged fifteen, but only fifteen years. And so it was.

PISTUS. And so there are certain marks by which approaching death is supposed to be intimated to the friends of the person about to be taken away. One of the most common is the sudden change of a man's personal character, from lightheartedness to gloom; and more frequently still, from gloom and habitual taciturnity to excessively high and boisterous spirits. Then it is that, according to Scotch belief, a man is said to be "fey;" and in many cases of sudden death, the credence has been strangely verified.

SOPHRON. That change, whether of personal or physical qualities, is a very wonderful thing, if taken as a warning or intimation of the time when there can be no more change. Yet it is a

1 Kornmannus, de Mirac. Mort. iv. 100.

belief as old as the Greek physicians, that sometimes, a few moments before death, the face of the sufferer will assume a likeness to that of some one of his most intimate friends; a thing for which no plausible reason can be given. Other signs there are of approaching death, which at first sight seem to have no connexion with it, but which yet admit of a very satisfactory explanation. Such is the pulling and picking of the bedclothes, so well known to be an unmistakeable sign of dissolution. To an ignorant person this symptom seems quite arbitrary; but it is easily explained, as merely showing that the nervous system is entirely worn out.

EUSEBIA. I think all those dark mysterious glimpses given us of the other state when it borders on this, like the rim of the dark half of the moon that sometimes makes itself visible, are very solemn. That persons, in the act of departing from this world, do become sensible of the presence of spiritual beings, is surely certain. And I often think, what a marvellous moment that must be, when a dying man obtains the first faint consciousness of the existence of a world of spirits.

SOPHRON. Wonderful indeed! And yet perhaps it may be by no forced transition. You go into a room that appears to you perfectly dark; you stay a few moments, and gradually you become sensible to surrounding objects; and finally you see with perfect clearness: and yet at no one moment

are you sensible that you are passing from darkness to light. I will give you another example of the faculties of a sick person being supernaturally developed by the approach of death. A young lady, whose friends I knew, was in the last stage of a consumption. Two of her sisters had been previously carried off by the same disease. She had also a brother in India, who, by the last accounts received, was well in health and successful in business. Two female relatives were sitting by the dying girl, one on either side of the bed, and cach holding one of her pale emaciated hands in their own. Suddenly she raised herself in the bed, and looking towards its foot, exclaimed, her whole face brightening with joy, "Oh, Gertrude and Jane!" (the sisters whom she had lost) " and dear, dear Willie !" (the brother who was in India.) They were the last words she spoke. Shortly afterwards, intelligence arrived from India that the brother in question had also been taken away, and that previously to the death of his sister. Now, to my mind, this is one of the most satisfactory stories of the kind that I ever heard. To be sure, your rationalist may account for it easily enough, by hinting that to a dying person, when the mind is beginning to fail, nothing is more natural than that the appearance of some of those whom he has most loved should present itself. But if you look at it in the other light-if you consider that, à priori, there is no unlikelihood in the thought that the spirits of the departed faith

ful may be allowed to tend the death-beds of departing friends-how simple and how beautiful is the whole!

PISTUS. The nearest approach that man has ever made to the invisible world is probably in those persons who, having been to all appearance drowned, have been recovered on the use of the proper means. by all accounts, after the first short struggle is over, there is perfect consciousness, but no pain. It is said that every action of past life is borne in upon a drowning man's mind with perfect clearness; all rush on his memory together, yet each distinctly; and if there be any suffering, it is entirely the moral pain which may result from that retrospect; for there is no physical anguish. On the contrary, the prevailing sensation is an indescribable calm, accompanied by a pleasant green light, they say, like green fields: the agony begins with the attempt at resuscitation. It is believed that a gentleman, who occupies a distinguished place in scientific literature, and who is said to have been longer under water than any one who has ever been brought back to life, also, in a more remarkable degree than any one else, saw something of those "unspeakable things which it is not lawful for a man to utter." His intention, it is asserted, was to leave some account of them, which should appear as a posthumous work; but his friends, perhaps wisely, dissuaded him from it.

And what is singular is this;

SOPHRON. I have heard the story. And so, in the very instant of violent deaths, the sympathy between soul and body has sometimes been strongly manifested. Charles XII. of Sweden, when struck by a cannon-ball, at the siege of Frederickshall, must have been a dead man at that infinitesimal point of time at which he felt the blow; yet he was observed to clap his hand on his sword. So again, at the execution of Charlotte Corday, for the murder of Marat, when the headsman lifted up the head by its long hair, and gave it a blow, the face is said to have changed colour and to have frowned.

PISTUS. The most curious instance I have heard of a warning of death, occurred in a family who are not altogether unknown in the theological world. A young lady, whom we will call Miss A., was watching what was supposed to be the deathbed of her father. Most of the family were assembled in the house; for the physicians had given it as their opinion that Mr. A. had not long to live; but one brother was at Eton. One night, Miss A. dreamed that she was sitting by her father's side, and that all the family, including this absent brother, were in the room. A figure, exactly like the modern representation of death, a skeleton, with a dart, entered the room. Seeing Mr. A., it grappled with him; he opposed his spiritual antagonist; and a long and fearful struggle ensued. At length Mr. A. seemed to prevail, and to fling his enemy to the ground.