"Now I have done with earthly things,
And all to come is boundless bliss;
My eager spirit spreads her wings,
Jesus says, come; I answer, yes.

The last verse is truly eloquent.

"Eternity! transporting sound!
While God exists my heaven remains,
Fullness of joy that knows no bound,

Shall make my soul forget her pains."

DR. JOSEPH PRIESTLY, whose name in the theological and scientific world is too well known to render any special account of his history necessary here, died in Northumberland, Penn. Feb 6, 1804. The account of the death scene we have taken from the memoir of Priestly, by Rev. H. Ware, Jr. It is given in the words of Dr. Priestly's son.

'On Saturday, the 4th, my father got up for about an hour while his bed was made. He said he felt more comfortable in bed than up. He read a good deal, and looked over the first sheet of the third volume of the Notes,' that he might see how we were likely to go on with it; and having examined the Greek and Hebrew quotations, and finding them right, he said that he was satisfied we should finish the work very well. In the course of the day he expressed his gratitude in being permitted to die quietly in his family, without pain, with every convenience and comfort he could wish for. He dwelt upon the peculiarly happy situation in which it had pleased the Divine, Being to place him in life; and the great advantage he had enjoyed in the acquaintance and friendship of some of the best and wisest men in the age in which he lived, and the satisfaction he derived from having led an useful as well as a hapру life.

On Sunday he was much weaker, and only sat up in an arm chair while his bed was made. He desired me to read to him the eleventh chapter of John. I was going on to read to the end of the chapter, but he stopped me at the forty-fifth verse. He dwelt for some time on the advantage he had derived from

reading the scriptures daily, and advised me to do the same; saying, that it would prove to me, as it had done to him, a source of the purest pleasure. He desired me to reach him a pamphlet which was at his bed's head, “Simpson on the Duration of Future Punishment." "It will be a source of satisfaction to you to read that pamphlet," said he, giving it to me; "it contains my sentiments, and a belief in them will be a support to you in the most trying circumstances, as it has been to me. We shall all meet finally; we only require different degrees of discipline, suited to our different tempers, to prepare us for final happiness." Upon Mr. coming into his room, he said, "You see, Sir, I am still living." Mr. observed, he would always live. "Yes," said he, "I believe I shall; and we shall all meet again in another and a better world." He said this with great animation, laying hold on Mr. -'s hand in both of his.

'Before prayers he desired me to reach him three publications, about which he would give me some directions next morning. His weakness would not permit him to do it at that time.

At prayers he had all the children brought to his bed-side as before. After prayers they wished him a good night, and were leaving the room. He desired them to stay, and spoke to them each separately. He exhorted them all to continue to love each other. "And you, little thing," speaking to Eliza, "remember the hymn you learned; Birds in their little nests agree,' &c. I am going to sleep as well as you: for death is only a good, long, sound sleep in the grave, and we shall all meet again." He congratulated us on the dispositions of our children; said it was a satisfaction to see them likely to turn out well; and continued for some time to express his confidence in a happy immortality, and a future state, which would afford us an ample field for the exercise of our faculties.

'On Monday morning, the sixth of February, af

ter having lain perfectly still till four o'clock in the morning, he called to me, but in a fainter tone than usual, to give him some wine and tincture of bark. I asked him how he felt. He answered he had no pain, but appeared fainting away gradually. About an hour after, he asked me for some chicken broth, of which he took a tea-cup full. His pulse was quick, weak, and fluttering-his breathing, though easy, short. About 8 o'clock, he asked me to give him some egg and wine. After this he lay quite still till ten o'clock, when he desired me and Mr. Cooper to bring him the pamphlets we had looked out the evening before. He then dictated as clearly and distinctly as he had ever done in his life, the additions and alterations he wished to have made in each. Mr. Cooper took down the substance of what he said, which, when he had done, I read to him. He said Mr. Cooper had put it in his own language; he wished it to be put in his. I then took a pen and ink to his bed-side. He then repeated over again, nearly word for word, what he had before said; and when I had done, I read it over to him. He said, "That is right; I have now done." About half an hour after, he desired, in a faint voice, that we would move him from the bed on which he lay, to a cot, that he might lie with his lower limbs horizontal, and his head upright. He died in about ten minutes after we had moved him, but breathed his last so easy, that neither myself or my wife, who were both sitting close to him, perceived it at the time. He had put his hand to his face, which prevented our observing it.'

REV. JOHN MURRAY, of Boston, Ms., so well known as the strong and successful defender of the gospel of unlimited grace, departed this life cheered in his last hours, during the intervals of returning reason, by the hopes of heaven and immortal blessedness; and with the full assurance that all Adam's race shall see and rejoice in the salvation of God.

The following extracts including the death scene, are taken from chapter 8th of the Life of Murray.'

Mr. Murray was fond of calling himself the Lord's prisoner; and he would add, I am, by consequence, a prisoner of hope. During his confinement many respectable gentlemen, clergymen in Boston, visited him. One or two repeated their visits, and they apparently regarded the now white-haired servant of God with kindness and respect.. One clergyman questioned him respecting his then present views, wishing to ascertain if his faith were still in exercise, if he were willing to depart, "O yes, yes, yes," exclaimed the long-illumined Christian, "the glorious manifestations of divine love still brighten upon me. Right precious to my soul are the promises, the OATH OF JEHOVAH; and, sir, so far from shrinking from my approaching change, my only struggle is for patience to abide, until the time appointed for my emancipation. I would cultivate a humble, child-like resignation; but hope deferred, doth indeed too often make the heart sick."

Another gentleman congratulated him on his apparent convalescence. "Oh! sir," he returned, "the voice of gladness suits not my present feelings; it is, as if, when I believed, I was voyaging to my native shores, where health, happiness, and peace awaited me, borne onwards by gales the most propitious, and supposing myself almost in the moment of obtaining the long desired haven, when suddenly driven back by some adverse circumstance, instead of being soothed by condolence, I am pierced to the soul by the discordant sounds of felicitations." Yet, we repeat, the revered teacher was in general astonishingly patient, resigned, and even cheerful. He was frequently heard to say, that he had experienced, in the course of his confinement, more of the abundant goodness of his God, than through the whole of his preceding life; and those, most conversant with him, could not forbear observing, that the protracted period which would in prospect have risen to the eye

with a most melancholy, if not terrific aspect, taken as a whole, exhibited the saint more equal, calm, and dignified, than any other six years of his exist

ence.

A respectable gentleman, not of his persuasion, but candid and benign, remarked, that his character was elevated to no common height; that his uncomplaining endurance of suffering, and the unwavering steadfastness of his faith, had stamped his testimony with the seal of integrity, and gave that confirmation to his confidence in his own views of sacred writ, which could not fail of rejoicing the hearts of his adherents.

"The chamber of adversity was occasionally illumined by the presence of a few fast friends; and ONE sympathizing, kind-hearted, affectionate brother was so uniform in his appearance, with the close of every week, that we might almost have designated the day, and the hour of the evening, by his approaches. Nor was the demise of his teacher the period of his kindness; his countenance, his aid, his commisseration, his society, were still loaned to the solitary, the bereaved family. Dear faithful man! May the rich blessings of Almighty God rest upon thee and thine, until thou hast finished thy mortal career, and mayest thou, in the regions of blessedness, renew, with thy beloved teacher, that friendship which, while tenanted in clay, thou hast so well known to appreciate.

To three other gentlemen, devoted adherents to the lamented deceased, warm acknowledgments are, also, most righteously due. Their kind, and still continued attentions, are gratifying proof of their attachment to him, who was so dear to them, and gratitude hath, with mournful alacrity, reared her altars in the bosoms of the widow and the fatherless.

'Some strange occurrences were noted, which filled the heart of the venerable man of God with sorrow, unutterable sorrow. Every thing seemed to point homeward to the sky, and upon Lord's day morning, August twenty-seventh, one thousand eight hundred