It has been my privilege to see, in this child, an example of true preparation for death, which begins before the expectation of dying brings the least discredit, or breath of suspicion, upon our motives in attending to the subject of religion.  Preparation for death consists in justification by faith, extending its influence into the whole character, to bring us under the rule of Christ.  The fruit of this is friendship with God, the confidence of love, knowing whom we have believed, with the persuasion of our having committed to him an infinite trust, and that he will keep it with covenant faithfulness.  So when death comes and knocks at the door, it is true the heart beats quicker, as it is apt to do whoever knocks there; for, to give up one’s hold on life, to turn and look eternal things full in the face, to think of meeting God, and of having your endless condition fixed, summons the whole of natural and acquired fortitude; and only they who have an unseen arm to lean upon at such a time, endure in that trial.  Then past experience comes in with her powerful aid:  “I have fought a good fight;” “the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps;” “remember, O Lord, how I have walked before thee.”  Thus there is something to make you feel that your justification, by free grace, has the evidence afforded by its fruits; and the preparation to die may be likened to that of which the Saviour speaks when he says, “He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit.”  I have seen it, have watched it, have studied it, in the dying scenes of this child.  Hers was not the experience of the sinner, pulled suddenly from the waves by a hand which he had for a long time, nay, always, spurned; but her dying was an arrival at the end of a voyage, the coming home of a good child to long-expecting hearts and arms.  We said one to another around her dying bed,—­yes, we had composure to say, as we watched that parting scene, that fading cloud, that sinking gale, that dying wave, that shutting eye of day,—­“Think of such a poor, helpless, dying creature, if, in the sense intended by those words, she should ’fall into the hands of the living God.’” And we glorified God in her.  Never did I see and feel more deeply, by contrast, the folly of trusting to a death-bed repentance, to repair the errors of a wasted life.  It is a deliberate attempt at fraud upon the Most High; it is folly; for the risk is fearful, and could we obtain salvation, how mercenarily!—­and what a memorial would it be in heaven of loss, instead of being “a crown of righteousness!” They who are all their lifetime ignorant, being unfortunately deprived of opportunity for religious instruction, may with wonder and joy accept the surprising news of pardon, through Christ, on a dying bed, and soar to the same heights with apostles in their praises of redeeming love.  But if we hear of salvation by Christ all our life long, and know our duty, but prefer the pleasures of sin for a season, and think