Archdeacon Butler, which proves that he felt his end approaching, even
before this crisis.

"Dear and Learned Namesake,--This letter is important, and strictly
confidential. I have given J. Lynes minute and plenary directions for my
funeral. I desire you, if you can, to preach a short, unadorned funeral
sermon. Rann Kennedy is to read the lesson and grave service, though I
could wish you to read the grave service also. Say little of me, but you
are sure to say it _well_."

Dr. Butler complied with his request, and amply made good the opinion
here expressed. He spoke of him like a warm and stedfast friend, but not
like that worst of enemies, an indiscreet one; he did not challenge a
scrutiny by the extravagance of his praise, nor break, by his precious
balms, the head he was most anxious to honour. Dr. Parr's death was
tedious, and his faculties, except at intervals, disturbed. He took
an opportunity, however, afforded him by one of these intervals, of
summoning about his bed his wife, grand-children, and servants;
confessed to them his weaknesses and errors, asked their forgiveness for
any pain he might have caused them by petulance and haste, and professed
"his trust in God, through Christ, for the pardon of his sins." One
expression, which Dr. Johnstone reports him to have used on this
occasion, is extraordinary--that "from the beginning of his life he was
not conscious of having fallen into a crime." Far be it from us to
scrutinize the words of a delirious death-bed--These must have been
uttered (if, indeed, they are accurately given) either in some peculiar
and very limited sense, or else at a moment when a man is no longer
accountable to God for what he utters. The latter was, probably, the
case: for in the same breath in which he declares "his life, even his
early life, to have been pure," he sues for pardon at the hands of his