his face like a flint, and no power on earth could divert him. He bore his long and terrible affliction with a brave heart, supporting it without a murmur, and yet resisting it with all the might of that will which was so predominant a feature in his character. Not that he feared to die. He feared nothing less. Upwards of two years ago, during a brief but threatening attack, he said to a friend who was then on a visit to his seat at Somerleyton, 'I have no dread of dying ; all that Christ has taken from me. And so far as I know myself, when my Saviour calls for me, I shall die as calmly as I pass out of this room into the next.' And the same week he wrote to me in reply to a letter of my own, and said, 'I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him against that day.' He has gone, and he has left a blank everywhere. But if he has left a blank he has also left a heritage better than wealth. He has bequeathed to this town a name which even slander cannot sully, and which envy is compelled to honour. I refer not now to monuments of that name in stone, the Almshouses and the Orphanage, which will proclaim to generations yet unborn the fact that amid the keen and withering selfishness of the world there have been some men who could feel the sorrows of others Nor do I refer to as if they were their own. the Park, which was a noble endeavour to produce and perpetuate, under inhospitable skies and amid more destructive elements than they, the sweeter scenes which nature loves to create in other and more favourable spots. I refer to his name in itself; for the noblest bequest which a man can make in this world is a name without reproach, a name of truth, of honour, of charity, of benevolence, of godliness; and this is the name which is this day bequeathed, not to Halifax only, but to England and the world.” CHAPTER IX. In Homes of Poverty. "ALL is well with me for ever, "I am leaving only shadows, For the true and fair and good; I must not, cannot linger, I would not, though I could." THE I. THOMAS NOAKE. HE poorest homes are often scenes of spiritual triumph and joy. The Lord Jesus enters as readily the abodes of poverty as the mansions of wealth, and ministers as bountifully to the inmates of the one as to those of the other. Frequently therefore the lowliest are found rich in faith, and beds of rags are fields of victory in dying hours. Such was the deathbed of Thomas Noake, whose home was a cellar in one of the poorest streets in Kentish Town. While still a lad he was smitten and carried off by consumption. Being the child of a pious father he was the subject of many prayers, and especially when it was manifest that the hand of death was upon him. The interest that had hitherto been felt in his salvation was now greatly intensified; and the father A A |