From a child, he gave evidence of possessing a constitution of peculiar delicacy, which was, therefore, liable to be affected, both mentally and physically, by many causes, which do not operate powerfully on persons of a robust and hardy temperament. They symptoms of a morbid depression, which appeared during the summer of 1826, were only, I apprehend, the harbingers of the fatal attack, by which he was appointed to be removed from this world. I fear it was not discovered in time, that the brain was the origin of his complaints; the intense and unceasing action of the mind, proving too powerful for his delicate bodily frame. In the mysterious arrangements of Providence, it would seem, that whatever arrives very early at perfection, is destined to be soon cut off. Premature growth is generally followed by a premature end. The case of Urquhart is very similar to those of Durant and Kirke White; and the inimitably beautiful lines which Lord Byron applies to the latter, are, I conceive, equally applicable to my young friend. It is singular, that the passage to which I refer, was transcribed by him into a scrap-book, entitled, "Extracts in Poetry, from various authors," only a short time before his death.

How delightful it is to find, that to the very last, he laboured in his Master’s service, and seemed to derive fresh strength from doing the will of God.

To his friend Tate, he wrote the following interesting letter, on the 19th of December:--

"I had a letter from our dear Craik, a few days before I received your last. He talks of being a missionary. Brown and he think of Ireland. I should think them well fitted for debate, especially Henry. I fear some one must be found to supply my place among the number of intending missionaries. You know that I have not been bent from what I thought the course of duty, by the arguments of men; but now God has spoken in a way which I think, (but I am not sure,) is decisive. I have been sickly for some weeks, and it turns out to be inflammation of the liver. I have been taking the usual course of mercurial pills for some days, and the Doctor orders the side to be blistered to-morrow. I wished to write before I am quite laid up, chiefly to request you to tell me all about St. Andrew’s when you return. I hoped to have visited it soon, but the Lord has determined otherwise. Pray for me, that whether death or life be in this cup, the Lord may enable me to drink it with cheerfulness. Remember that I am literally in a land of strangers. Not a single Christian friend to whisper consolation, none to whom I can pour forth the feelings of my soul. Remember me very affectionately to my dear Rentoul, in whom I feel a very peculiar interest. My old companion, William Adam, I expected to have heard from. I have others, in my mind, but I am wearied. My chief pain is in my right arm and side. Do not speak of my illness at St. Andrew’s, as the report might reach home, and I have not yet written."

Whether the means resorted to, were those best suited to his case, I pretend not to say; but while a partial recovery was effected, the disease would seem still to have gone on. To his esteemed friend, Craik, at Exeter, he wrote at different times, the following letter: —

"Why does God leave us so long in a world of sin? Why were his ancient people forty years in travelling through the wilderness? Why are we exposed to so many temptations? It is because he will not only deliver us, but will show us the horror of that state, from which we have been delivered. And the more we know of our own vileness, shall not our praise be the louder, when we join in that glorious anthem, ‘Unto him that loved us?’

"I have been a mourner too. New circumstances have presented new temptations, and the Lord has shown me my utter weakness. Once, I thought my heart could not be viler than I knew it to be; but God has led me, as he did his prophet of old, from one scene of iniquity to another; and when I have thought that now I have seen all, he has opened some secret place within my breast, and showed me ‘greater abominations still.’ Nor am I sure, that I know yet the depths of iniquity that are within me. How easy to pass among men as pious and holy! They compare themselves among themselves. You talk about passing the Rubicon, my dear brother. The river of death is the Rubicon. Not till we have passed it, shall we be completely freed from the world, and from its cares. I say this, because I remember feeling, as I think you do. I thought, did I decidedly give up the hope of worldly honours and comforts, by deciding on the missionary life, I should no more be harassed by the cares, or allured by the vanities of earth. But it is not so. To think much of the Saviour is the only way to be made like him. I like much your plan regarding Ireland. I do think your talents, and also those of our friend Brown, are quite of a cast for it. It has been urged much upon me, but you know well I am not the person for such a scene. You ask me concerning my plans. I have no plan at present. If Colonel Moreland goes to Edinburgh in April, I may probably stay a little longer with him. Some information I got to-day, has distressed me a good deal, as it makes me fear that I shall never be fit for a warm climate. I have been drooping and sickly for some weeks. To-day, the doctor has come from Glasgow, and pronounces my illness an affection of the liver. He thinks there is no inflammation, and that a course of medicine will remove this attack. I am able to go about, though not very fit for study, and, have merely a slight pain, like rheumatism, in my arm and side. Rentoul, Alexander, Duff and Trail, are in St. Andrew’s. From John Adam, I have not heard since I wrote you. My meeting here is confined to young people, thirteen or fourteen attend. There is no village. They come from scattered cottages. Of course, I do not preach, I talk to them. My meeting with them always refreshes and invigorates me. We go, perhaps, to Dysart, at Christmas. I may, perhaps, have an opportunity of visiting St. Andrew’s."

"This is Christmas-day, and it is well for me the family have not moved. John Adam has written me lately; he is well, and goes on with his plan of preaching occasionally.

"The other part of this letter was written a considerable time ago; but I thought it better, since I had mentioned my illness, not to send it off till I should see what the issue might be. Decided symptoms of inflammation soon appeared; but I am glad to say, that the Lord has blessed the means employed to remove the disease. At least, we think so at present. You must excuse me for not writing more, as I am excessively weak. I have ate very little, and have been allowed to eat nothing nourishing for some time. Add to this, that I have had a good deal of medicine, and a blister on my side, and you will not wonder that I am much reduced. I can add no more at present, but that I am ever your friend and brother in the strongest bonds."

The last letter he wrote was to his father, though the painful event that so soon followed, was then little anticipated.

This letter was written when he must have been very ill, as he found it necessary to leave Colonel Moreland’s on the second or third of January, with a view to return home. He got as far as Glasgow; and, under the hospitable roof of Mr Ewing, received that kind welcome, which, had invariably been shown him, from the first period of his acquaintance with that excellent family. The following letters, addressed by Mr and Mrs Ewing, to his father, are important, as they show the progress of the complaint, the means which were employed to arrest it, and the deep interest which they took in the amiable sufferer.

His father, it may be supposed, lost no time in proceeding to Glasgow; but before he could reach it, the most melancholy progress had been made by the fatal disease. Other medical aid had been called in, and that which had been supposed to be an affection of the liver, was discovered to be an affection of the brain, on which an effusion had taken place, which accounts for the comatose state into which he had been sinking for some days, till at last it had deprived him of all consciousness, and left no hope of a recovery.

My esteemed friend, Mrs. Ewing, who watched his dying bed with a mother’s anxiety, has furnished me with a full and interesting account of his last days, which, together with the additional information supplied by her valued relative Miss Cathcart, who also acted the part of a tender nurse, the reader I am sure, will be pleased to receive in their own words, although their letters contain a slight repetition in some particulars.

"You will remember first introducing him to my husband, and I have often thought we owed to the fondness of that interview excited in both to each other, the honour God granted us of having him to minister to in his illness and death. He came first to this house when he arrived in Glasgow, and we secured by that, what any other family would have done, that he should always come to us; and so eager were we to have him, that when Mr. and Mrs. Matheson and children were with us, after fixing we should ask a bed for him from our kind neighbour Mrs. Smith, we put up a bed for him in the little dressing-room. I send you the letters of Dr. Chalmers, and Mrs. Moreland, &c., and you know the universal testimony to his worth, and talents, and piety, and engaging manners. If there is anything further you wish on this subject that I can supply, it will give me satisfaction. I cannot but hope the Lord will bless the memoir to many souls. Surely such a bright star has not, in the short space it was seen, reflected all it was lighted up for, of the glory of God."

The following is Miss Cathcart’s letter, to which Mrs. Ewing refers: —

"We have witnessed a very painful and solemn scene, in the death of that dear child of God. Mr. and Mrs. Ewing felt it an honour to administer to his comfort; and it was a privilege to myself attending him, which I trust will benefit my own soul. Much mercy was mixed with the trying dispensation. It was most providential a ticket in the Perth coach could not be had; and when Mr. Urquhart seemed to regret it, Mr. Ewing said there was a Providence in all these things; in which he directly acquiesced. In all his wanderings, not a murmur or complaint was heard. When he was collected and prayed aloud, it was most delightful to hear him pouring out his heart to God in such humble and scriptural language. I wish the self-righteous had heard him declare that if he got where he deserved he would be in hell-fire, and that he had nothing to plead but the mercy of God, through the righteousness of Christ. At times, when unable to speak, he appeared sensible, by the placid smile on his countenance. When Mr. Ewing was praying, and when he mentioned any of the cheering promises in the gospel to believers, Urquhart would say, ‘Yes! yes!’ with great emphasis. At one time when his poor father asked the state of his mind, he replied, ‘in perfect peace, stayed on God,’ and repeated a second time, ‘stayed on God.’ One morning he asked me if his father was up. I asked him if he wished to see him; he replied, ‘Yes.’ When he came he said, ‘John, do you know your father?’ to which he replied, ‘I know my father;’ and then Mr. Urquhart said, ‘I hope you know your Father in heaven, who, I trust, has prepared a mansion for you.’ I think the sweet youth said, ‘I believe there is.’ At another time when nobody was in his sight, I heard him say, ‘Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.’ When alone in his room, but not that he could see me, he said, ‘Who is there?’ I went to his bed-side, and said Miss Cathcart, thinking he might not know my voice; he replied, ‘When did you come here?’ I said I have been with you all the time you have been ill here, and I feed you with what you eat; he said, ‘I am happy to have my friends with me.’ I replied, you have a Friend who sticketh closer than a brother; ‘Yes,’ he added, ‘Jesus Christ is a friend who sticketh closer than a brother; but all the Lord’s people are interested in each other.’ At times when we did not think he knew us, he showed us he did by naming us, or holding out his hand, and expressed anxiety for Mrs. Ewing fatiguing herself, by different times saying, ‘My beloved Mrs. Ewing, lie down beside me.’ The most heart-rending scene I ever witnessed, was on the Tuesday night before his death. Mr. Urquhart came into the room, and at the bed-side gave up in prayer his son to the Lord, when all the yearning of the afflicted parent was expressed, and the submission of the Christian exemplified. Some present thought John sensible and agitated, but I was so much distressed myself that I did not observe. The poor father is much to be pitied, who says he has lost his child, son, friend, counsellor, and comforter. My friend Mrs. Smith’s husband, told me he had never been at a funeral where such a feeling of regret was shown. The sick-nurse and the servants paid him the greatest attention, and many tears they shed for him. He told us how very kind Colonel and Mrs. Moreland had been to him; also that the housekeeper had been quite like a mother to him during his illness."

His death took place on Wednesday, the 10th of January, 1827, when he was only eighteen years and six months old. His career was short, but interesting, useful, and glorious. However mysterious it may appear to us, it was doubtless well with him; and Christ, who was gain to him in life, proved to him gain in death also. His course was calm, holy, and consistent; its termination was peaceful and happy. It was improved by Mr. Ewing, on the following Lord’s day, from Psalm cxvi. 15. "Precious in the sight of the Lord, is the death of his saints." It produced, among many others, the following letter from Dr. Chalmers, to his father:—

"To your Christian mind, there is a far richer consolation than that which is afforded by the report, or the remembrance of his first-rate talents; talents which would have raised him to the highest summits of learning and philosophy, had he not wished to consecrate them all to the service of his Redeemer. Your best, and most precious comforts, under this heavy dispensation, are to be drawn from the consideration of that faith, by which he was actuated; of that grace which animated his heart and adorned his history; of that glory, for the enjoyment of which he was so ripened and prepared; in a word, of that promise, that they who sleep in Jesus, shall meet again in that country, where sorrow and separation are alike unknown.

"Few parents are called to sustain so severe a loss as you have now done; but with few, very few indeed, is the loss tempered by such precious alleviations.

The following lines addressed to him by one of his correspondents, were, indeed, sadly prophetical of the event which so soon after took place. They are simple, and beautifully descriptive of the feelings, not of the writer only, but of his friend, and strikingly applicable to his last closing scene.

2 TIMOTHY iv. 6.

I feel as if I had now filled my allotted task; and that it is better to draw this narrative to a close, than by attempting anything in the shape of character, to deprive the reader of the impression, which the facts themselves, and the concluding scene, are fitted to produce. But I cannot abstain from a few concluding observations.

To me, the undertaking has been one of a very painful, and, at the same time, pleasing nature; partaking as much of the mixed feeling, which the poet describes, as "the joy of grief," as anything which has ever engaged my attention. How much I loved him, I have not ventured, nor will I now venture to express. That he was entitled to it all, and to more than all, I am well convinced. If I felt towards him all the affection of a father, he repayed it with all the tenderness and confidence of a son. I feel as if the world had become, by his death, less an object of interest to me than it was; but I trust I have also been made to feel, in common with many of his devoted friends, that the attractions of a better world have been multiplied and strengthened, by his removal thither.

Afraid to trust myself in describing his character and attainments, lest my personal feelings might be supposed to have too powerfully influenced my judgment, I have interspersed the opinions and testimonies of others, with my own statements, and the papers of the deceased. These testimonies I have not nearly exhausted; nor is it possible for me to convey an adequate idea of the extent to which he was beloved and admired by all who knew him. The sweetness of his natural disposition, and the bewitching simplicity of his manners; the soundness of his judgment, and the fertility of his imagination; the ardor of his pursuit of science and literature, with the variety and accuracy of his attainments, rendered him one of the most extraordinary individuals of his years. When with these, are combined his extensive knowledge of the mystery of redemption, and of the sacred volume; his simplicity of aim, with the fixed and intense ardor of his zeal; his love to the souls of others, which made him ready to lay his learning, his talents, his genius, and his life, at the foot of the cross, and to abandon the country where he might have shone and triumphed, for scenes of foreign labour and suffering; the eminent spirituality of his mind, the consistency of deportment, and maturity of character and experience, at which he arrived, I need scarcely add, he presented an uncommonly rare assemblage of natural, acquired, and Christian excellencies. Of the truth of this representation, every reader has now been furnished with the means of judging for himself; and I safely leave with him the conclusion to be drawn.

His Christian character is that on which the mind now reposes, with the greatest satisfaction. As it regards his other attainments, "literature has failed, tongues have ceased," and "knowledge has vanished away." What he was as a linguist, and a mathematician, might have been of importance, had he lived; what he was as a believer in Jesus, is the only thing of importance to him now. He has attained to the perfect state, and experiences a high degree of that felicity, which he could so well describe, and which he so earnestly panted to enjoy.

"If I might be allowed," says a correspondent, to whom one of his last letters was addressed, "to say anything, from the acquaintance I had with him—and there was scarce a day, last winter, in which I was not some time with him—I would say of him, as his biographer said of Henry Martyn, ‘A more perfect Christian character I never knew.’ Like Martyn, indeed, it might be said of him, ‘His symmetry in the Christian stature, was as surprising as its height.’ I never saw a finer example of ‘a living sacrifice;’ he seemed, indeed, to reckon himself not his own, but bought with a price, and, as such, he was entirely devoted to the glory of God. Nor did he care what perils, or sufferings, he underwent, if so be that that object might be promoted. In this cause, even death did not appal him. I remember well, when he thought of China as a scene of missionary labour; and when he was told that the government positively prohibited the missionaries from preaching in that country, he said, he should conceive it his duty to transgress this prohibition; and if his death was the consequence, let it be so; the blood of a missionary sometimes advanced the cause, as much as his long life and labours. Think of such devotion in a youth of eighteen, whose rare talents and unquestioned Christian character, gave him the fairest prospect of usefulness and comfort in his native land, while they would have infallibly secured to him the admiration and affection of all who knew him. He was eminently spiritually-minded. No one ever felt more the burden of indwelling sin, and never did captive exile long more earnestly to be loosed, than he did for deliverance from its taint and its power. Hence he dwelt much on the holiness of heaven. It was the theme, he has often assured me, of his refreshing meditation, when his mind was depressed, as he looked forward to the perils, and sufferings, and privations, which he might be called to undergo in this world. I remember one day, while I was with him, his telling me, that while reading the Scriptures that morning, on this his favourite subject, his mind was so wrapt in contemplation, that he forgot, for the moment, where he was; till, when his consciousness returned, on looking into his own heart, polluted with sin, and then into the world around him, ‘lying in the wicked one,’ he burst into tears. He was possessed of much tenderness of spiritual feeling, and was most vividly impressed by every Scripture truth which he received. In one respect, much of the same mind dwelt in him, which was in Christ Jesus: he felt much for his brethren of mankind, and his heart bled for the condition of those who were not in Christ; yet was he possessed with the keenest indignation at iniquity, and every exhibition of it provoked his holy abhorrence. His was a character most exquisitely formed for Christian friendship. Possessed naturally of the most amiable dispositions, they were rendered still more so by the Spirit of God which dwelt in him. In his friends, he encouraged the most unbounded confidence; and his was a heart, into which, when distressed or disgusted, they could unbosom every thought which grieved them, and find a balsam for every wound. I speak not this at random. I know it from sweet experience."

I cannot conclude the memoir of my beloved friend, without once more soliciting the attention of the reader to the prominent feature of his religion and of his religious character, — his devoted zeal to the glory of Christ in combination with the salvation of men. It is obvious, that, to diffuse the knowledge of the gospel in the world, constituted his life and happiness. The subject pervades all his papers, runs through all his letters, and at length, entirely engrossed his thoughts. In his case, it was nothing assumed or professed, but something growing out of the very principles of his faith, and constituting a chief element in his religion. He had no conception of Christianity, apart from the love of extending it. That which constituted its glory, in his eyes, was its perfect adaptation to the wants and wretchedness of men; and the more he knew the evil, and the better he became acquainted with the remedy, the more powerfully he felt the obligation to preach the gospel to every creature.

His devotedness, therefore, was not so much an act of obedience to a law, as the operation of the great principle of the new economy, and of the new nature, LOVE — grateful love to God, and compassionate love to men. Hence the calmness and rationality, as well as the ardour of his mind, in reference to this great subject. He did not regard himself as making an unreasonable sacrifice, though to certain consequences he was acutely sensible; or as called to a work of a peculiar and unprecedented nature; but merely as discharging a common obligation, and engaging in a service which ought, in one way or other, to be attended to by every disciple of Jesus. He felt that much had been forgiven him, he therefore loved much. As he grew in spirituality of mind, he grew not only in deadness to the world, but in indifference to those literary and scientific pursuits in which he was so well qualified to excel, and in his admiration of the superior excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord. He despised them, not because he was ignorant of them, or because they were beyond his reach; but after he had subdued the difficulties of the ascent, and had their loftiest summits full in view! Even then, he did not disregard them as worthless, but as less worthy than another and a higher object. While the laurels, which he had so honourably won, were yet fresh and unwithered on his brow, he laid them at the foot of the cross, and with high Christian magnanimity declared, "that what things were gain to him, those he counted loss for Christ."

When I speak of his indifference to the pursuits of philosophy, I mean not to say that he neglected the cultivation of his mind, or that he turned aside from any of the paths of learning and science which he was capable of exploring. I only mean to say that he pursued them no longer for their own sake, for the gratification which they afforded, or for the earthly rewards which they might have secured. They became subordinate, in his mind, to an ulterior object. In as far as they might fit him for more eminent usefulness, he considered them important, and studied them with diligence and unconquerable determination.

To the ardour of his spirit in the acquisition of the qualifications which he felt to be necessary for the service of Christ, and the intense working of his mind in regard to that service itself, I have no doubt he fell a sacrifice. Many an individual has been a martyr for Christ, who has not expired on a gibbet, or suffered at the stake. Zeal for the glory and the house of God is a consuming principle. It burnt up the Saviour himself, and it has brought to a speedy termination the career of many a disciple. Such, I feel assured, was the case of John Urquhart. His feelings became morbid; but this was the result of weakness of body, rather than of any improper or undue exercise of the mind. The sensibilities of his nature were indeed refined and excited by his Christian principles, till they became too powerful for the bodily structure on which they operated. But this reflects no discredit on Christianity. It only illustrates the weakness of man, and the disproportion of his powers to the magnitude and the lofty enterprise of the gospel. Granting that it killed the individual, it only follows, that the event is mysterious, not that a loss has been sustained. That the reward of the sufferer is secured, we have the best reason for believing; and that gain, rather than damage, may arise to the cause of the Saviour, eternity will enable us to discover.

Did the present state terminate the being and the bliss of man, we might well be discouraged by the occurrence of such early deaths, from cultivating our intellectual faculties. The uncertainty of enjoying them for any length of time is so great, that the labour of the cultivation might seem disproportioned to the result. But if all intellectual and moral worth shall find place and scope in the eternal world, the case is very different. No mental attainment can be lost. The language and the literature, and the science of heaven may be different from all that we have known on earth; but the capacity which grasped the word and the works of God in this world, and which was improved by the influence which is from above, will operate in proportion to its strength and its spirituality on the things of eternity.