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"I have been induced to suspend the conclusion of our meditations on secret faults, and to direct your attention to the end of the righteous, by an event which has taken place since we last met together; that is, the removal, prematurely, by death, from this assembly to that of the church of the first-born, of one who was long a distinguished ornament of it.

"Her works of genius, piety, and usefulness, are extensively known and justly celebrated, although she, until near her last day, hid from the inquisitive public the name of their authoress. This, however, united to the unvarying Christian spirit and conduct which distinguished her, affords a bright example of the character to which your attention has been directed, that of the perfect and the upright.

"At the beginning of this winter, she began to complain of ill health, but neither she nor her friends had any occasion to suppose that her sickness would be unto death.

"At this time, I accidentally called on the family, and I found her in the midst of it. Her conversation was easy, cheerful, and brilliant, attended with a moral loftiness that exhibited her as a person of a different order from those with whom we usually meet, even when endowed with good sense and piety, for she breathed a spirit, and she spoke a language, and showed the manners of one that belonged to another and better world; and, while her eyes sparkled with benignity, she reminded me of that saying of the Scriptures, when the protomartyr, was about to leave this world, 'All the council saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.'

"Some weeks after this, observing her absent from church, I again called at her dwelling, and was informed, that she was confined to her room, and to bed, and that her friends were deeply impressed with the dread that her illness would terminate fatally; and, on being taken to her, I found her weak, and sick and emaciated, and fully conscious that, the day and hour of her death was at hand, and in which she evidently took pleasure, and rejoiced. On this, as on each of my after visits, she retained the same case, the same cheerfulness, the same elevation of language and manner, the same spiritual loftiness and dignity, to which I have before alluded. She spoke of herself, and her religious experience with much humility, and of her friends with the greatest tenderness and warmest affection. She spoke of the world as one that was not of it; she spoke of the church and its ordinances as her delight; she spoke of the gospel, and its facts, and its doctrines, and its premises, as the only foundation of all her hope, and she spoke of its mysteries with reverence and submission; she spoke of heaven, and glory, and immortality, with a rational, and scriptural, and sound belief, that she was just about to enter into them, with a heart tremblingly alive to every tender and pious feeling.

"During her long illness, although weak and distressed to the extreme, yet no complaint fell from her lips, no tear dropped from her eye, no sigh or groan escaped from her breast. Attend to the injunction of our text -- Mark this perfect, and behold this upright character, for her end was peace.

"Fifty years and more, I have been honoured by being permitted to attend the dying beds of Christians; and many a calm, and many an instructive, and many a peaceful, and many a joyful, and many a dignified, and many a triumphant death, have I seen, but never have I seen one more placid, more edifying, or more glorious than that of Grace Kennedy. Full of faith and the Holy Ghost, nothing silly or frivolous could fall from her, all her words were words of wisdom, and all her actions were great and good. On much better grounds than he did, we may say with Addison, 'Come, see how a Christian can die.' Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like hers!

"In the administration, she said, of the gospel, and in fellowship with you in the ordinances of it in this place, she attained to the grace in which she stood. From this fact, we ought to institute, and to prosecute a most important inquiry -- partakers with her, of the same common means, have we acquired with her the same, degree of religious information, faith, piety and holiness? Or, while she advanced to the character of the perfect, and the upright, have we, with identically the same advantages, gone back, and lost that which we had once gained? What is the cause of this melancholy and alarming circumstance? Say not that to her were given ten talents, and to us but one -- be it so, this will not account for the fact, with our one talent we have made no improvement, we should have made at least one tenth of advance towards her religious acquirements, but we have not; we have gone backward, and not forward. Let us not foolishly and wickedly attempt to cover our sins, for so we cannot prosper; but let us humble ourselves, let us confess and forsake them. The truth is, God be merciful to us, sinners! We slept, when she waked and watched; we welcomed temptation, when she spurned it with indignation; we folded our arms, while she laboured; we hearkened to the syren song of the world, and sense, while she girded her mind, and gave diligence to make her calling and election sure. It is hence we have gone back, miserable creatures as we are! while she went on to perfection. This, when we think of the past, should lead us to remember whence we are fallen to repent, and do our first works. This, when we think of the future, should lead us to be 'steadfast, and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.' -- To mark the perfect, and and -sic- behold the upright, for the end of those is peace."