Afterwards, at three different times, being very weak, and her voice low, she was understood to say, Death-bed ;-I am passing away;-Lord take me.

Asking what o'clock it was, and being told about one, she said, Time passes slowly. Feeling increased difficulty of breathing, pain in her stomach, and great oppression at her chest, she said, 'Give patience :' with which, that she was largely endued, those around her could witness. Again she asked the time of the day, and said, 'I love quiet'ness, don't let me be disturbed.' Soon after, finding herself sinking fast, she seemed desirous of taking her last leave of those around her, and said, saluting them with her dying lips, Farewell, farewell. ’

Previously to her departure her conflict of body had some time subsided; and a few minutes before seven in the evening, in the Sixty-fourth year of her age, quietly and sweetly she ceased to breathe.

Here, Reader, pause,

Dwell on the closing scene, and taste the blessedness of the death of those who die in the Lord!

· An Abstract of the Testimony of the Monthly Meeting of Wiltshire.

OUR much beloved friend Sarah Stephenson, a member of this meeting for upwards of thirty years, having been one whose example preached sweet instruction, we desire the remembrance of it may have the same influence, and be a further incitement to follow her, as she followed Christ.

She was intrusted with a gift in the ministry about the twenty-eighth year of her age. In the exercise of this weighty calling she was often engaged, under the persuasive influence of gospel-love to labour with the youth for whose preservation in true symplicity, she felt strong and affectionate solicitude that they might dedicate all to Him who loveth an early sacrifice, of which she was a great example. Her ministry was sound, tending much to raise into dominion the hidden life. For her path was often in the deep; and by such baptisms, she was enabled to minister to the states of the peo

pel in the power and efficacy of the gospel. Leaning on the arm of All-sufficiency, she was made an eminently useful instrument.

To adopt the expressions of a testimony we have received from New York, we can say, 'She was peculiarly qualified to move with propriety in that great work of going 'from house to house: a meek and quiet deportment, a mind clothed with a spirit of love, and affectionate solicitude that all might be gathered within the divine inclo'sure, being conspicuous traits in the cha'racter and conduct of our beloved friend."

With the afflicted, whether in body or mind, who came under her notice, she was a true sympathizer. She frequently said she wished not to out-live this tender sensibility; and she manifested it to the last. Near her close, she said, she had great satisfaction as she passed along, in having imparted of her little to those that had less.

In the sixty-third year of her age, she opened to Friends a prospect which she had long kept secret, of paying a religious visit

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to Friends in America. This undertaking seemed arduous; more especially as her natural strength at that time had much declined; but as she observed, it seemed of no consequence to her where her life might close, so that when the solemn period came, she was but where and what she ought to be.

She was much satisfied with having come to that land, which [among other means] appears by a message, which, a few days before her close, she seemed desirous to be conveyed to Friends in her native land, and [she accordingly] commissioned a friend with the following: I feel a salutation of gospel love flow towards them; and have thankfully to acknowledge that I have met with those among faithful friends here, who have felt as fathers and mothers, brethren and sisters; that I find the Lord's tenderly concerned baptized travailing children, to be the same every where; and, though from my present weak state, it is rather unlikely I shall ever see them again in mutability, I am perfctly satified with being with Friends in this land; and quite easy as to the issue

of this my present indisposition: desiring the Lord's will may be done.

During her illness she said that, though it was desirable to her to go, yet if it were the divine will that she should again be raised up, and introduced to her arduous line of service, she had felt sweet submission to it. But her work was mercifully cut short in righteousness; and the sacrifice of a willing mind accepted by Him who thus manifested his love unto the end.

She breathed her last the 26th of the Fourth Month, 1802, aged sixty-three years, a minister about thirty-six years. Her re

mains were interred in Friends' burial ground in Philadelphia, the 29th of the Fourth Month. As there is cause to believe she answered to the description in the inquiry, "Who is that faithful and good 66 servant, whom the Lord shall make ruler "over his household, to give them their

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portion of meat in due season;" we have

*The reader may remember, she had begun a family-visit, in Pine-Street Meeting, Philadelphia.