The Ruling Passion Strong in Death.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7664, 26 June 1896, Page 4

The Ruling Passion Strong in Death.

Preaching at Westminster Abbey on moral freedom, which he defined as " the power, external and internal, to be what one ought," and the. influence of circumstance and heredity. Canon Gore told a striking story, which he Baid had come to his ears a few days previously. A hardened professional pickpocket found himself within sight of death, and for the first time in his life had leisure to think. During a somewhat protracted illness the reality of the love of God was vividly borne in upon him, aud he became in the deepest sense converted from darkness to light. He had received the sacrament, and was in articulo mortis, when the priest, who was reading the commendatory prayer by his bedside, heard a hoarse whisper in his ear, " Look out for your watch !" As the clergyman raised his head, the man lay dead with the watch in his hand, " The will," said Canon Gore, "was not strong enough to resist -the habitual instinctive motion of the body, yet was strong enough to protest against its own act with the voice.