From that moment his decline was rapid.  As he lay helplessly upon his couch, and watched the swelling of his feet, and other alarming symptoms, he became very anxious to commence his voyage, and I felt equally anxious to have his wishes gratified.  I still hoped he might recover—­the doctor said the chances of life and death were in his opinion equally balanced—­and then he always loved the sea so dearly!  There was something exhilarating to him in the motion of a vessel, and he spoke with animation of getting free from the almost suffocating atmosphere incident to the hot season, and drinking in the fresh sea breezes He talked but little more, however, than was necessary to indicate his wants, his bodily sufferings being too great to allow of conversation; but several times he looked up to me with a bright smile, and exclaimed as heretofore, “Oh, the love of Christ! the love of Christ!”

I found it difficult to ascertain, from expressions casually dropped, from time to time, his real opinion with regard to his recovery; but I thought there was some reason to doubt whether he was fully aware of his critical situation.  I did not suppose he had any preparation to make at this late hour, and I felt sure that if he should be called ever so unexpectedly, he would not enter the presence of his Maker with a ruffled spirit; but I could not bear to have him go away, without knowing how doubtful it was whether our next meeting would not be in eternity; and perhaps too, in my own distress, I might still have looked for words of encouragement and sympathy, to a source which had never before failed.

It was late in the night, and I had been performing some little sick-room offices, when suddenly he looked up to me, and exclaimed, “This will never do!  You are killing yourself for me, and I will not permit it You must have some one to relieve you.  If I had not been made selfish by suffering, I should have insisted upon it long ago.”

He spoke so like himself—­with the earnestness of health, and in a tone to which my ear had of late been a stranger, that for a moment I felt almost bewildered with sudden hope.  He received my reply to what he had said, with a half-pitying, half-gratified smile, but in the meantime his expression had changed—­the marks of excessive debility were again apparent, and I could not forbear adding, “It is only a little while, you know.”

“Only a little while,” he repeated mournfully; “this separation is a bitter thing, but it does not distress me now as it did—­I am too weak.”  “You have no reason to be distressed,” I answered, “with such glorious prospects before you.  You have often told me it is the one left alone who suffers, not the one who goes to be with Christ.”  He gave me a rapid, questioning glance, then assumed for several moments an attitude of deep thought.  Finally, he slowly unclosed his eyes, and fixing them on me, said in a calm, earnest tone, “I do not believe I am going to die.  I think I know why this illness has been sent upon me—­I needed it—­I feel that it has done me good—­and it is my impression, that I shall now recover, and be a better and more useful man.”