490 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. doing much and long. What was the word I spoke last? I recall that word, my doings. Alas ! they have been poor and small, and lean doings ; and I will be the man who will cast the first stone at them." Mr. Elliot often told his friends that he should shortly go to heaven, and that he would carry much good news with him. He said, he would carry tidings to the old founders of New England, who were gone to glory, that church-workwas still carried on in the country : that the number of churches was continually increasing : and that the churches were still as large as ever by the daily addition of thosewho should be saved. As the hour of his departure approached, the coming of the Lord Jesus was the principal subject of his serious con- templation. While he was thus retreating from the world, he used to say, " Come, Lord, I have been a great while ready for thy coming." He said to his friends, " Pray, pray, pray ;" and, before his departure, he said to Mr:Walter,his successor, " Brother, thou art welcome to my very soul. Retire to thy study to pray for me, and give me leave to be gone." He then exclaimed,welcomejoy, and so departed, in the year 1690, and in the eighty-sixth of his age. He had six children, all apparently converted to God, four of whom were preachers of the gospel. Mr. Elliot was remarkable for resignation in all circum- stances to the will of God. Having been one day out to sea in a boat, the boat was overset by a larger vessel, when he immediately sunk, without the most distant expectation of rising any more. In this situation he was perfectly collective and resigned to his heavenly Father's will. He could say within himself, " The will of the Lord be done." His life, however, was spared. But the following circumstance, as closely connected with if, was rather remarkable. Many profane persons were exceedingly enraged against him for labouring among the Indians ; and one of this description hearing of his narrow escape, anxiously and profanely wished he had been drowned. But within a few days that very man was drowned in the very place where Mr. Elliot found deliverance. He possessed the happy talent of raising profitable obser- vations from common occurrences, with such a mixture of pleasantry and gravity, as rendered his company exceedingly desirable. Being once on a visit at the house of a merchant, and finding only books of business on the table, and all his books of devotion on the shelf, he thus addressed him : " Sir," said he, " here is earth on. the table, and heaven on the shelf;
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