4.  And then, pray often to God for a clear mind between Him and you, and for a quick, warm, and heaven-hungry heart at the last.  And take a promise from those who watch beside your bed that they will not drug and stupefy you even though you should ask for it.  Whatever your pain, and it is all in God’s hand, make up your mind, if it be possible, to bear it.  It cannot be greater than the pain of the cross, and your Saviour would not touch their drugs, however well-intended.  He determined to face the swelling of Jordan and to enter His Father’s house with an unclouded mind.  Try your very uttermost to do the same.  I cannot believe that the thief even would have let the gall so much as touch his lips after Christ had said to him, “To-day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise!” Well, if your mind was ever clear and keen, let it be at its clearest and its keenest at the last.  Let your mind and your heart be full of repentance, and faith, and love, and hope, and all such saying graces, and let them all be at their fullest and brightest exercise, at that moment.  Be on the very tip-toe of expectation as the end draws near.  Another pang, another gasp, one more unutterable sinking of heart and flesh as if you were going down into the dreadful pit—­and then the abundant entrance, and the beatific vision!  What wilt thou do then?  What wilt thou say then?  Hast thou thy salutation and thy song ready?  And what will it be?

FOOTNOTES

{1} Delivered November 27th, 1892.

{2} January 1st, 1893.