To within a few hours of the end, Mr. Moody shared with his family the conviction that he was improving... After a rather restless night, he fell into a quiet sleep for over an hour, from which he awoke in a sinking condition. During the earlier hours of the night, Mr. Fitt, his son-in-law, had been by his bedside, and he said he seemed to rest and sleep a greater part of the time. At three in the morning, the elder son took the place as watcher in the sick-chamber, and for several hours Mr. Moody was very restless and unable to sleep. About six o'clock he quieted down and soon fell into a natural sleep from which he awoke in about an hour. Suddenly he was heard speaking in slow and measured words. He was saying, "Earth recedes; Heaven opens before me."

The first impulse was to try to arouse him from what appeared to be a dream. "No, this is no dream, Will", he replied. "It is beautiful. It is like a trance. If this is death, it is sweet. There is no valley here. God is calling me, and I must go".

..... Mr. Moody continued to talk quietly and seemed to speak from another world his last message to the loved ones he was leaving. "I have always been an ambitious man", he said, "ambitious to leave no wealth or possessions but to leave lots of work for you to do..."

.... Then it seemed as though he saw beyond the veil for he exclaimed: "This is my triumph; this is my coronation day! I have been looking forward to it for years!"

Then his face lit up, and he said in a voice of joyful rapture: "Dwight! Irene!-I see the children's faces", referring to the two little grandchildren God had taken from his life in the past year...

Turning to his wife he exclaimed. "Mama, you have been a good wife to me!" And with that, he became unconscious. For a time it seemed that he had passed on into the unseen world, but slowly he revived under the effect of heart stimulants and suddenly raising himself on his elbow exclaimed: "What does all this mean? What are you all doing here?"

He was told that he had not been well. Immediately it all seemed to be clear to him, and he said, "This is a strange thing. I have been beyond the gates of death and to the very portals of Heaven, and here I am back again. It is very strange....."

To the plea of his daughter that he should not leave them, he said: "I'm not going to throw my life away. I'll stay as long as I can, but if my time is come, I'm ready".....

Another sinking turn came, and from it he awoke in the presence of Him whom he loved and served so long and devotedly. It was not like death, for he "fell on sleep" quietly and peacefully. Of his awaking consciousness beyond the thin veil which separates the seen from the unseen, we may not know just now; but of the welcome in that City for which at times he felt such a strange homesickness, we may be sure...

During his earthly pilgrimage, it had not been given him to sing the sweet and joyful melodies that filled his soul, but at that Christmas tide he joined in Heaven's glorious anthems of praise to Him whose love had been a consuming fire and whom he had served with such devotion when on earth.