Yet who was prepared for the severe, the complicated trial which we are now summoned to sustain? Who could have anticipated that the comparatively young, the vigorous, the active Beddome, would have been so speedily and so suddenly called to go the way of all the earth? Notwithstanding his occasional physical infirmities, we seemed to forget that he was mortal; so completely was he identified with our interests, so necessary did he appear to our welfare, that we never calculated that he could die! Even after his medical attendants had repeatedly announced the impossibility of his recovery, many of you could not surrender the hope, that God would yet spare him, for the sake of his family and the church. But, alas! the stroke has come suddenly and irresistibly. We have buried our brother; we have heard the lamentations of all classes at his death; we are now paying our last public token of respect to his universally admitted worth; and yet, his removal appears like a dream.
This day three weeks he came for a few minutes in the morning to witness the ordinance of baptism, but was too much indisposed to render his usual assistance. We conjectured, during that and the three following days, that he was suffering from a severe cold; but on the Thursday it was manifest that a formidable disease had taken full possession of his frame. During the whole of Thursday night he was very delirious, and so continued, under the influence of the fever which preyed upon his vitals, with scarcely an intermission, until death released him from his sufferings on the following Thursday morning; when, at half-past one, his spirit departed to be with Christ. From the moment he was thought to be dangerously ill, he had no opportunity of making statements respecting his spiritual prospects. Such statements, however, were unnecessary to our sure and certain hope of his salvation. He had previously witnessed a good profession. His character had already been stamped for a happy immortality; and pleasing as might have been his dying testimony to the religion of the cross, it is not to be forgotten, that while he was called to forego the delight of giving, and we of receiving, such a testimony, he was spared the pang of separation from his beloved partner, and four interesting babes, for whose welfare he felt all the tender solicitude which the husband and the father could feel.