Thus he continued most generally engaged, while the delirium lasted, either in prayer or in preaching to his people, and always apparently in happy frame, till the morning of Saturday the 25th.  On that morning, while his kind medical attendant, Dr. Gibson, stood by, he lifted up his hands as if in the attitude of pronouncing the blessing, and then sank down.  Not a groan or a sigh, but only a quiver of the lip, and his soul was at rest.

As he was subject to frequent sickness, it was not till within some days of his death that serious alarm was generally felt, and hence the stroke came with awful suddenness upon us all.  That same afternoon, while preparing for Sabbath duties, the tidings reached me.  I hastened down, though scarce knowing why I went.  His people were that evening met together in the church, and such a scene of sorrow has not often been witnessed in Scotland.  It was like the weeping for King Josiah.  Hundreds were there; the lower part of the church was full:  and none among them seemed able to contain their sorrow.  Every heart seemed bursting with grief, so that the weeping and the cries could be heard afar off.  The Lord had most severely wounded the people whom He had before so peculiarly favored; and now, by this awful stroke of his hand, was fixing deeper in their souls all that his servant had spoken in the days of his peculiar ministry.

Wherever the news of his departure came, every Christian countenance was darkened with sadness.  Perhaps, never was the death of one, whose whole occupation had been preaching the everlasting gospel, more felt by all the saints of God in Scotland.  Not a few also of our Presbyterian brethren in Ireland felt the blow to the very heart.  He himself used to say, “Live so as to be missed;” and none that saw the tears that were shed over his death would have doubted that his own life had been what he recommended to others.  He had not completed more than twenty-nine years when God took him.

On the day of his burial, business was quite suspended in the parish.  The streets, and every window, from the house to the grave, were crowded with those who felt that a prince in Israel had fallen; and many a careless man felt a secret awe creep over his hardened soul as he cast his eye on the solemn spectacle.

His tomb may be seen on the pathway at the north-west corner of St. Peter’s burying-ground.  He has gone to the “mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense, till the day break and the shadows flee away.”  His work was finished!  His heavenly Father had not another plant for him to water, nor another vine for him to train; and the Saviour who so loved him was waiting to greet him with his own welcome:  “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”