so; I mean Paley's _Horæ Paulinæ_. I may say almost that I know his
_Evidences_ off by heart. Now, will you do me the favour of procuring me
a copy of the other book, in as large type as you can, and as soon as
you can, for," he added with a slight sigh, after a pause, "I have not
much time to lose?" I immediately procured him the book in question; and
about three days afterwards he said to me, "I have read the Horæ
Paulinæ; it is a book of extraordinary merit; I very much wonder that I
never read it before." I asked him if he had read "Butler's Analogy."
"Oh yes, of course, several times, and know it well," he replied, rather
quickly. Life was visibly ebbing fast away during the first week in
December. He grew weaker and weaker almost hourly, and scarcely ever
rose from his sofa, where he always lay in his dressing-gown, except to
go to his bed-room, which adjoined and opened into his sitting-room. He
would even then allow no one to be in his chamber with him during the
might! not even his attentive and attached laundress, or his clerk! I
once very strongly urged upon him to allow the former to sleep in the
chambers. "Either she leaves my chambers at her usual hour," said he,
peremptorily, "or I do." We felt it, however, impossible to allow this;
and, without his being aware of it, his clerk and laundress by turns
continued to spend the night in one of the adjoining rooms. It was well
that such was the case, for he began to get delirious during the nights.
About ten days before his death, a great and marked change came very
suddenly over him: his eyes assumed a strange glazed appearance, and his
voice was altogether altered. His mind, however, continued calm and
collected as ever. He moaned continually, though gently, assuring us,
however, repeatedly that he felt no pain, "but an exhaustion that is
quite inconceivable by _you_." Not many days before his end, he gave us
a signal proof of the integrity of his reasoning faculties. Two of his
friends, I and another, were sitting with him, and he told us, as he
often latterly had, that he heard strange voices in the room. He asked