Tuesday 22nd, towards evening, he was attacked with a bilious fever. Until the afternoon, he was as usual. He had been in town in the morning on business and, around noon, I spent an hour or two in his company as usual. I found him as free and cheerful as ever. But as night came on, he took sick and his pain became gradually worse through to the end. He suffered tranquilly and submissively, albeit realising that he would never again come down. And when alone he was heard praying "O Lord, thou hast supported me in affliction many times, support me now". On one of these days, he said to his beloved partner, the one he was about to leave to the care of a kind providence, that he wished that there should be nothing written on his gravestone but his name, his age, his time of death, together with that short passage relating to his always favourite theme, the resurrection, And I will raise him up at the last day. It can be said of Mr Thomas, as has been said of the learned Dr Knapp, of Halle, that he requested, with that genuine modesty for which he was always distinguished, that there should be nothing said in the public notices of his death to his honour and that it shouold only be witnessed of him that he lived by faith in the words I know that my Redeemer lives.
Monday 28th, between four and five O'Clock in the afternoon, his happy soul departed in peace and entered into the eternal presence where there is fullness of joy and pleasure forevermore. The following Monday, that is the fifth of December, was a solemn day. A large number of friends, besides those who had been invited, met before the house to testify their love and attachment to the departed. The procession was formed two and two, and foremosr was the "old vicar", who, though a clergyman, entered the Baptist Chapel, attended the service, and was seen, an old man of 85, at the grave of his departed friend. They were real friends and had spent nearly half a century together in the same town. I have never before attended a funeral where there was to be witnessed so much real grief. Everything seemed to testify to the high esteem that Micah Thomas knew. By his death a loss was sustained that could not easily be repaired. He died in the 75th year og his age, the 56th year of his ministry and the 47th of his pastorate in the town of Abergavenny. His memory is fragrant.
Three verses follow to end the article.
