though now actually in " India beyond the Ganges,"

is, and ever must be,

Dear Wynn,

your obliged and affectionate friend,

REGINALD CALCUTTA.

TO MRS. R. HEBER.

Dacca, July 16, 1824.

MY DEAR LOVE,

All I can say to-day is, that the two sur

geons do not think matters worse.

I

have prayed with poor Stowe every day, at his request, since his illness began; indeed, we had always read the Psalms and Lessons together on board our boat. On Sunday, by his own anxious wish he received the Sacrament. He is now quite calm, and resigned to God's will, which must, of itself, be a favourable circumstance for his bodily

restoration.

July 17th.

You must prepare poor Miss Stowe for the worst, if that can be called the worst, which will be to her brother, I hope and believe, a gate of everlasting happiness. He is yet in the full possession of his intellects, and so strong, considering all he has gone through, that I have been persuaded with difficulty to cease to hope. I shall

feel his loss very deeply. I do think, if he lives, with his good talents, good intentions, and the additional motives which a recollection of the approach of death, and gratitude for his deliverance, may give him, he will be a most valueable servant of God in India. Nor is it a trifling circumstance of comfort to me, that, if he lives, I shall think that my nursing, and his unbounded confidence in me, will have been, under God, the chief means of tranquillizing his mind, supporting his strength, and saving him.

God bless you,

REGINALD CALCUTTA.

TO MRS. R. HEBER.

Dacca, July 18, 1824.

DEAR DEAR Wife,

All is over! My poor friend was released a little after twelve last night. The light-headedness which in dysentery, I find, is always a fatal symptom, encreased during the day, though he continued to know me, and to do and take whatever I desired him; between nine and ten, he had a severe return of spasm, after which he sunk into a tranquil doze till he passed off without a groan. I grieve to find by your letter that his sister is set out hither; surely there will yet be time to bring her back again, and spare her some of the horrors

of a journey made in doubtful hope, and a return in solitude and misery.

I greatly regret that any thing in my letters gave encouragement to her to set off. But I have all along clung, even against hope, to the hope of his

recovery.

On the 14th and 15th, he altered much for the worse, and it was on the evening of the latter day that he was first convinced his end was drawing near, and begged me to be with him when the hour came. You will not doubt that I kept my promise, though he was not conscious of my presence. As he was fully sensible of the approach of death, so he was admirably prepared for it. From the very beginning of our journey, we had prayed and read the Scriptures together daily; on the last Sunday which he saw, we had received the Sacrament together; I trust I shall never forget the deep contrition and humility, the earnest prayer, or the earnest faith in the mercies of Christ, with which he commended himself to God. On Thursday he had an aweful mental struggle, but confessed his sins, and cried for mercy to Jesus Christ with a simplicity, contrition, and humility, which I shall never forget, and I trust always be the better for. By degrees his fears became less, his faith stronger, and his hope more lively; and he told me at many different times in the following thirty-six hours, that God's goodness was making the passage more and more easy to him, and that he felt more and more that Christ had died for sinners. When his strength was gradually wearing away, he said, "If

I lose sight of the Cross, though but for a moment, I am ready to despair, but my blessed Lord makes his mercy and his power more and more plain to me." The laudanum, which was given him in the course of Friday night, conjured up some evil dreams, of which he complained a good deal; being very much worn out myself, I had gone to lie down for an hour or two, leaving him asleep, under the care of one of the surgeons. He wakened, however, soon after, and called earnestly for me, and when I came, threw his arms round my neck, and begged me not to leave him. After we had prayed a little together, he said, “My head is sadly confused with this horrid drug, but I now recollect all which you told me, and which I myself experienced yesterday, of God's goodness in his Son. Do not let them give me any more, for it prevents my praying to God as I could wish to do." He spoke very often of his "poor, poor sister," and said, "God who is so good to a sinner like me, will not forget her." He asked, which you will not doubt I promised for us both, that we would be a sister and a brother to her. He said not long before his light-headedness came on, on Saturday morning, "Tell Mrs. Heber that I think of her, and pray for her in this hour." After his hallucination commenced, he rambled very much about our voyage, but whenever I spoke to him it recalled him for the moment, and he listened, and said Amen, to some of the Church prayers for the dying. "It is very strange," he once said, "every thing changes round me. I cannot make out

where I am, or what has happened, but your face I always see near me, and I recollect what you have been saying." The last articulate words he uttered were about his sister. Even in this incoherence, it was comfortable to find that no gloomy ideas intruded, that he kept up some shadow of his hope in God, even when his intellect was mostclouded, and that his last day of life was certainly, on the whole, not a day of suffering. After death his countenance was singularly calm and beautiful, and not like a corpse so much as a statue. I myself closed his eyes.

One lesson has been very deeply imprinted on my heart by these few days. If this man's innocent and useful life (for I have no reason to doubt that the greater part of his life has been both innocent and useful,) offered so many painful recollections, and called forth such deep contrition, when in the hour of death he came to examine every instance of omission or transgression, how careful must we be to improve every hour and every opportunity of grace, and so to remember God while we live, that we may not be afraid to think on him when dying! And above all, how blessed and necessary is the blood of Christ to us all, which was poor Stowe's only and effectual comfort!

God bless you, dear love, in your approaching voyage. How delighted I should be to meet you at Boglipoor.

REGINALD CALCUTTA.