sation had made on their minds.-They respected him, and mourned for him.

The last precious memorials of this beloved servant of God, are two short epistles, which he dictated to his fellow laborers, Messrs. King and Temple, and one to his father, a few days before his death.

TO REV. JONAS KING.

"Beyroot, Thursday, October 20, 1825. "My beloved brother King. Little did we think, when we parted, that the first or nearly the first intelligence concerning me, would be the news of my death. Yet, at present, this is likely to be the case. I write you as from my dying bed. The Saviour whom I have so imperfectly served, I trust now grants me his aid; and to his faithful care I commit my immortal spirit. May your life be prolonged, and be_made_abundantly useful. Live a life of prayer. Let your conversation be in heaven. Labor abundantly for Christ. Whatever treatment you meet with, whatever difficulties you encounter, whatever vexations fall to your lot, and from whatever source, possess your soul in patience; yea, let patience have her perfect work. I think of you now in my dying moments, and remember many happy hours we have spent together. And I die in the glorious hope of meeting you where we shall be freed from all sin. Till that happy meeting, dear brother, farewell! P. FISK."

"I have lost a friend, a brother," said Mr. King, "the beloved companion of my studies, and missionary labors in the Holy Land! Very pleasant hast thou been unto me.-Dear Fisk and Parsons! "They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death not long divided.' Now their labors

and trials are ended! They behold the unveiled glories of the Son of God."

"In their death not long divided."-This fact forcibly suggests the closing paragraph of that mutual, solemn covenant* into which they entered when it was settled that they were to labor together, and which is as follows;

"And while we take this covenant upon ourselves, it is with earnest prayer, that in life we may long be united, and in death not far divided."

TO REV. DANIEL TEMPLE, MALTA.

"Beyroot, Thursday, October 20, 1825. "My beloved brother Temple.-On the confines of eternity, as I suppose, I send you a last token of my love, and a last farewell. Viewing myself, as I now do, a dying man, the great and holy cause, in which we are engaged, presents itself to my mind with indescribable importance. We have both had slight disappointments and troubles in our work, but they are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be, as we trust, revealed in us. At this solemn moment, I seem unable to recollect any thing that deserves the name of trial, disappointment, or sacrifice. The history of my life has been a history of mercies, and-of sins! My only hope is in the unmerited mercy of Christ. I trust that, for sixteen or seventeen years, I have found his service pleasant, and him a faithful and gracious Master, though I have been constantly violating his laws, and wandering from his presence.

"I wish you a long and useful life, and much communion with Christ. My kindest love to Mrs. Temple. My prayer is, that you may long live and be happy together; and the Lord grant, that your children may be early sanctified by his grace, and

* See Memoir of Parsons.

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live to occupy the places made vacant in this mission, by the calling of one and another of us to himself.

"Your dying brother, P. FISK."

"When I read this letter," says Mr. Temple, "I felt, as if I had heard the voice of one of the saints made perfect, speaking to me from his happy abode on Mount Zion above. Never in my life did the world seem to retire so far from me, and heaven approach so near. I could not help saying with the greatest emphasis,-Let me die as he died, and let my last end be like his."

The letter which he addressed to his father was accompanied by one from Mr. Goodell, giving some account of the afflictive event.

"God leads us in a way that we know not; but it is a good way, and it is our happiness as Christians to be sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. Whatever we may lose in this world, we cannot lose that which we esteem better than life. Though we may endure much affliction, and pass through many deep waters, yet this is our comfort, "The Lord is with us;'-and this is our triumph, 'All things shall work together for our good.' Whatever tends to familiarize our minds with the hopes of immortality, whatever imparts to things unseen a greater reality than in our view they possessed before, and thus constrains us to extend our acquaintance with the other world, to look beyond this transitory scene for our felicities and our home; can be considered in no other light than desirable. Thus our very losses may enrich us an hundred fold, our privations prove real gains, and the sickness and exit of our friends be, as 'angels sent on errands full of love.'

But why need I offer a word of consolation, or endeavor to prepare your mind to receive the intelligence of what God has done-God, your father, who loves you, who does nothing wantonly, but

always for some wise purpose, some benevolent design? He'll bear it,' said your dear son, our brother, in his last hours. Be not troubled, dear sir, for his end was peace. We sat by his pillow; we wiped away the cold sweat, that again and again gathered upon his brow; we caught the last words that trembled upon his tongue. Jesus was precious to his soul; heaven itself was present; all was peace.

"As the light of day returned on Thursday morning preceding his death, his reason also returned; and viewing himself to be on the confines of eternity, and not expecting even to behold the rising of another sun, he requested me to take pen and paper, and dictated to you the following letter:

Beyroot, October 20, 1825.

"My beloved aged Father.-I compose a few lines for you upon a sick, probably a dying bed. When you gave me up for this Mission, you gave me up for life, and death. You know to whom to look for consolation and support. The same God, who has comforted you so many years, under so many troubles, will comfort you under this. You know his consolations are neither few nor small. I leave these lines as a pledge to you, and my brothers and sisters, my nephews and nieces, that I love you all most dearly, though so long separated from you. I hope all, or nearly all our number, have been enabled to give themselves to Christ, and that we shall meet with our departed mother in heaven."

"Here," says Mr. Goodell, "he was interrupted by company; and did not resume the subject. During the day he remarked, 'Soon, and Christ will love me, for I shall be like him. He will make me such, that he can take delight in me forever, and I shall sin no more.' "

The following tribute of Christian affection is from a letter written by Rev. Mr. Jowett to the Assistant Secretary of the American Board of Missions.

"I can find no words to express my grief and my sympathy, with what I know will be the grief of thousands in America at the tidings of the death of our brother Fisk-my beloved fellow.pilgrim to Jerusalem. But the blow is from the hand of an allwise and all-gracious Father. I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because thou didst it. We have cause to praise him that our brother was spared to be so long useful, and that his dying hours were so edifying. Where one falls, may a hundred others be raised up! Let us lift up the hands that hang down, and the feeble knees, and after having given vent to tears, which we cannot restrain, go on cheerfully in his steps, wearing out (as he said) in the service of Christ, and desiring no rest till the Master calls us, as he has done him, to enter the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem."

The following remarks of Mr. Bird show what progress Mr. Fisk was making in his work, and what some of his last designs were in reference to the mission.

"The breach his death has made in the mission, is one which years will not probably repair. The length of time, which our dear brother had spent in the missionary field, the extensive tours he had taken, the acquaintances and connexions he had formed, and the knowledge he had acquired of the state of men and things in all the Levant, had well qualified him to act as our counsellor and guide, while his personal endowments gave him a weight of character, sensibly felt by the natives. His knowledge of languages, considering his well known active habits, has often been to us a subject of surprise and thanksgiving. All men who could comprehend French, Italian, or Greek, were accessible by his powerful admonitions. In the first mentioned language, he conversed with ease; and, in the two last, performed with perfect fluency, the common public services of a preacher of the Gospel. Even