’When once he had satisfied himself, by minute inquiries from Dr. Macrae, of the true state of the case, after one deep, earnest, heartfelt regret that he should thus suddenly be parted from those nearest and dearest, to whom his life was of such inestimable importance, and that he should be removed just as he had prepared himself to benefit the people committed to his charge, he steadily set his face heavenward.  He was startled, he was awed; he felt it “hard, hard, to believe that his life was condemned;” but there was no looking backward.  Of the officers of his staff he took an affectionate leave on that day.  “It is well,” he said to one of them, “that I should die in harness.”  And thenceforth he saw no one habitually, except Dr. Macrae, who combined with his medical skill the tenderness and devotion at once of a friend and of a pastor; his attached secretary, Mr. Thurlow, who had rendered him the most faithful services, not only through the period of his Indian Vice-royalty, but during his last mission to China; and Her who had shared his every thought, and whose courageous spirit now rose above the weakness of the fragile frame, equal to the greatness of the calamity, and worthy of him to whom, by night and day, she constantly ministered.

’On the following day, the clergyman whom he had ordered to be summoned, and for whose arrival he waited with much anxiety, reached Dhurmsala, and administered the Holy Communion to himself and those with him.  “We are now entering on a New Communion,” he had said that morning, “the Living and the Dead,” and his spirit then appeared to master pain and weakness, and to sustain him in a holy calm during the ceremony, and for a few hours afterwards.  “It is a comfort,” he whispered, “to have laid aside all the cares of this world, and put myself in the hands of God;” and he was able to listen at intervals to favourite passages from the New Testament.  That evening closed in with an aggravation of suffering.  It was the evening of the seventeenth anniversary of his wedding-day.

’On the following morning, Lady Elgin, with his approval, rode up to the cemetery at Dhurmsala to select a spot for his grave; and he gently expressed pleasure when told of the quiet and beautiful aspect of the spot chosen, with the glorious view of the snowy range towering above, and the wide prospect of hill and plain below.

’The days and nights of the fortnight which followed were a painful alternation of severe suffering and rare intervals of comparative tranquillity.  They were soothed by the never-failing devotion of those that were always at hand to read to him or to receive his remarks.  He often asked to hear chosen chapters from the Book of Isaiah (as the 40th and 55th), sometimes murmuring over to himself any striking verses that they contained, and at other times repeating by heart favourite Psalms.  At times he delighted to hear his little girl, who had been the constant companion of his travels, repeat some of Keble’s hymns, especially those on the festivals of St. John the Evangelist and of the Holy Innocents.