LAST WORDS OF DYING SINNERS.
“Millions of money for one minute of time !” exclaimed a dying lady of rank, of beauty, and of power ; but not a minute was to be found for her in the world of time. She had spent her years in the pursuit of pleasure and never had one moment to spare for the great concerns of the world to come.
“It is too late, I am lost !” was the dying cry of a young man, who had passed through a revival of religion, and had not been moved by the power of the Holy Spirit. Sudden sickness seized him, and death stared him in the face, and he was filled with anguish when he saw the danger of his precious soul. He was urged to fly to the Saviour and trust Him, as did the thief on the cross. But he felt that it was too late, and with the lamentation on his lips, “Too late, I am lost !” he expired.
Mr Harvey called to see a dying man, who thus gave utterance to the deep sorrows of his soul : “I see a horrible night approaching, bringing with it the blackness of darkness for ever. Woe is me. When God called, I refused. Now I am in sore anguish, and yet this is the beginning of sorrows. I shall be destroyed with an everlasting destruction !”
“I won’t die now,” cried a young lady, when she felt the pangs of death getting hold upon her. But when they increased, and she saw there was no way of escape, and that whether, willing or not, she must die, she cried out, “Lord, what must I do?” and fell back in death.
A rich man was dying, and when the physician had exhausted his skill in fruitless attempts to arrest the violence of his disease, the sufferer asked, “Shall I never recover?” “You are quite sick,” answered the doctor, “and should prepare for the worst.” “Can-not I live for a week?” “No; you will probably continue but a little while.” “Say not so,” said the dying man, “I will give you a hundred thousand pounds if you will prolong my life three days.” “I could not do it, my dear sir, for three hours,” said the doctor, and the man was dead in less than an hour.
“There is no mercy for me now,” said a youth, who had been careless and irreligious in health, and now in sickness he felt that the atonement which he had despised was not within his reach. He died without hope, protesting to the end that there was no mercy for such a sinner as he.
How distressing such reflections as these awaken! Who would die as these sinners died? Who would not have the Christian’s hope to die with, even if he would live as sinners live? It was a wicked man who said, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.”
New Theology.—New discoveries in matters of revealed truth I look not for; and must confess that whatever is novel I suspect of being false. Light, I have no doubt, is still to be shed on certain obscure passages of Holy Writ, especially in the fulfilment of prophecy; but that the science of theology should advance, as other sciences do, every year, always becoming more perfect and satisfactory, seems to me impossible. The reason is obvious. Theological truth is not come at as other truth is. It is not the result of any long and laborious induction. It is not built up by any experiment. It is a science of pure revelation, and therefore must have existed in its perfection from the date of the revelation. It cannot be affected, as other sciences, by the march of mind; for it is the human mind that marches, not the divine. Now, theological truth is the expression of this mind, to which there can be no accession of new ideas. If 1800 years ago God had made a revelation on the subject of astronomy, the science of astronomy would have been as perfect a science then as it is now. The astronomer of the 1st century would have held in his hand as complete and unerring treatise on his favourite science; and what more could the astronomer of the 19th century have? And why should not the former be as likely to attain to the true meaning as the latter? What I have supposed of the science of astronomy is of theology strictly and literally true; and in this respect it is distinguished from all other sciences.—Neivins.