say your own evidences for heaven;-you would be their penitence, how intense their have much to do before you arrive at that devotion, how profound their humility, how stage-but whether there be any heaven? holy their actions! Think then that you Ask yourself whether Christianity is not im- have still in your power that for which they portant enough to deserve being inquired would give millions of worlds. Hell,' says into? Whether eternal life is not too valua- a pious writer, 'is truth seen too late.' ble to be entirely overlooked? Whether In almost every mind there sometimes eternal destruction, if a reality, is not worth float indefinite and general purposes of reavoiding?-If you make these interroga-pentance. The operation of these purposes tions sincerely, you will make them practi- is often repelled by a real, though disavowcally. They will lead you to examine your ed scepticism. Because sentence is not own personal interest in these things. Evils executed speedily,' they suspect it has newhich are ruining us for want of attention ver been pronounced. They therefore think to them, lessen, from the moment our attention to them begins. True or false, the question is worth settling. Vibrate them no longer between doubt and certainty. If the evidence be inadmissible, reject it. But if you can once ascertain these cardinal points, then throw away your time if you can, then trifle with eternity if you dare.*

they may safely continue to defer their intended but unshapen purpose.-Though they sometimes visit the sick bed of others; though they see how much disease disqualifies for all duties, yet to this period of incapacity, to this moment of disqualification do they continue to defer this tremendously important concern.

It is one of the striking characters of the What an image of the divine condescenOmnipotent that he is strong and patient.' sion does it convey, that the goodness of It is a standing evidence of his patience that God leadeth to repentance !It does not he is provoked every day.' How beauti-barely invite, but it conducts. Every warnfully do these characters reflect lustre on ing is more or less an invitation; every visieach other. If he were not strong, his pa- tation is a lighter stroke to avert a heavier tience would want its distinguishing perfec- blow. This was the way in which the heation. If he were not patient, his strength then world understood portents and prodiwould instantly crush those who provoke him, not sometimes, but often; not every year, but every day.'

gies, and on this interpretation of them they acted. Any alarming warning, whether ra tional or superstitious, drove them to their temples, their sacrifices, their expiations, Does our clearer light always carry us farther? Does it in these instances, always carry us as far as natural conscience carried them?

Oh you, who have a long space given you for repentance; confess that the forbearance of God, when viewed as coupled with his strength, is his most astonishing attribute! Think of the companions of your early life; if not your associates in actual vice, if not The final period of the worldly man at your confederates in guilty pleasures, yet length arrives; but he will not believe his the sharers of your thoughtless meetings, of danger. Even if he fearfully glance round your convivial revelry, of your worldly for an intimation of it in every surrounding schemes, of your ambitious projects-think face, every face, it is too probable, is in a how many of them have been cut off, per- league to deceive him. What a noble op haps without warning, probably without re-portunity is now offered to the Christian pentance. They have been represented to physician to show a kindness as far superior their Judge; their doom, whatever it be, is to any he has ever shown, as the concerns of irreversibly fixed; yours is mercifully suspended.-Adore the mercy: embrace the suspension.

Only suppose if they could be permitted to come back to this world, if they could be allowed another period of trial, how would they spend their restored life! How cordial

the soul are superior to those of the body? Oh let him not fear prudently to reveal a truth for which the patient may bless him in eternity! Is it not sometimes to be feared that in the hope of prolonging for a little while the existence of the perishing body, he robs the never-dying soul of its last chance of pardon? Does not the concern for the immortal part united with his care of the afflicted body, bring the medical profes sor to a nearer imitation than any other supposable situation can do, of that Divine Physician, who never healed the one without manifesting a tender concern for the other? But the deceit is short, is fruitless. The ago! The call is the more alarming, because the mor- amazed spirit is about to dislodge. Who tality did not arise from some extraordinary cause, shall speak its terror and dismay? Then which might not again occur, but was in the com- he cries out in the bitterness of his soul, mon course of human things. Such a proportion of What capacity has a diseased man, what deaths is perpetually taking place, but the very fre- time has a dying man, what disposition bas quency which ought to excite attention prevents it, tilla sinful man to acquire good principles, to is is thus forced on our notice. unlearn false notions, to renounce bad prac

• An awakening call to public and individual feelings has been recently made, by an observation of an eloquent speaker in the house of commons. He remarked that himself and the honourable member for Yorkshire, then sitting on a committee appointed on occasion of a great national calamity, were the only surviving members of the committee on a similar occasion twenty-two years

tices, to establish right habits, to begin to be to us as if it had never been, except in love God, to begin to hate sin? How is the the remembrance of the use we have made stupendous concern of salvation to be work-of it; when our eyes shall close upon a world ed out by a mind incompetent to the most ordinary concerns?'

of sense, and open on a world of spirits; when there shall be no relief for the fainting The infinite importance of what he has to body, and no refuge for the parting soul, exdo-the goading conviction that it must be cept that single refuge to which, perhaps, done the utter inability of doing it-the we have never thought of resorting that dreadful combination in his mind of both the refuge which if we have not despised we necessity and incapacity-the despair of have too probably neglected-the everlastcrowding the concerns of an age into a mo-ing mercies of God in Christ Jesus. ment-the impossibility of beginning a re- Reader! whoever you are, who have nepentance which should have been comple- glected to remember that to die is the end ted-of setting about a peace which should for which you were born, know that you have been concluded-of suing for a pardon have a personal interest in this scene. Turn which should have been obtained;-all these not away from it in disdain, however feebly complicated concerns--without strength, it may have been represented. You may without time, without hope, with a clouded escape any other evil of life, but its end you memory, a disjointed reason, a wounded cannot escape. Defer not then its weightispirit, undefined terrors, remembered sins, est concern to its weakest period. Begin anticipated punishment, an angry God, and not the preparation when you should be accusing conscience, altogether, intolerably completing the work. Delay not the busiaugment the sufferings of a body which ness which demands your best faculties to stands in little need of the insupportable the period of their debility, probably of their burthen of a distracted mind to aggravate extinction. Leave not the work which reits torments. quires an age to do, to be done in a moment,

Though we pity the superstitious weak- a moment too which may not be granted. ness of the German emperor in acting over The alternative is tremendous. The differthe anticipated solemnities of his own fune-ence is that of being saved or lost. It is no ral-that eccentric act of penitence of a light thing to perish!

CHAP. XIX.

Happy Deaths.

great but perverted mind; it would be well if we were now and then to represent to our minds while in sound health, the solemn certainties of a dying bed; if we were sometimes to image to ourselves this awful scene, not only as inevitable, but as near; if we accustomed ourselves to see things now, as we shall then wish we had seen them. Surely FEW circumstances contribute more fathe most sluggish insensibility must be rou-tally to confirm in worldly men that insensised by figuring to itself the rapid approach bility to eternal things which was considerof death, the nearness of our unalterable ed in the preceding chapter, than the boastdoom, our instant transition to that state of ful accounts we sometimes hear of the firm unutterable bliss or unimaginable wo to and heroic death-beds of popular but irreliwhich death will in a moment consign us.gious characters. Many causes contribute Such a mental representation would assist to these happy deaths as they are called. us in dissipating the illusion of the senses, The blind are bold, they do not see the prewould help to realise what is invisible, and cipice they despise.-Or perhaps there is approximate what we think remote. It less unwillingness to quit a world which has would disenchant us from the world, tear so often disappointed them, or which they off her painted mask, shrink her pleasures have sucked to the last dregs. They leave into their proper dimensions, her concerns life with less reluctance, feeling that they into their real value, her enjoyments into have exhausted all its gratifications.-Or it their just compass, her promises into no- is a disbelief of the reality of the state on thing. which they are about to enter.—Or it is a Terrible as the evil is, if it must, and that desire to be released from excessive pain, a at no distant day, be met, spare not to pre-desire naturally felt by those who calculate sent it to your imagination; not to lacerate their gain rather by what they are escaping your feelings, but to arm your resolution; from, than by what they are to receive.not to excite unprofitable distress, but to Or it is equability of temper, or firmness of strengthen your faith. If it terrify you at first, draw a little nearer to it every time. Familiarity will abate the terror. If you cannot face the image, how will you encounter the reality?

nerve, or hardness of mind.—Or it is the arrogant wish to make the last act of life confirm its preceding professions.—Or it is the vanity of perpetuating their philosophic character.-Or if some faint ray of light Let us then figure to ourselves the mo- break in, it is the pride of not retracting the ment (who can say that moment may not be sentiments which from pride they have the next?) when all we cling to shall elude maintained ;-The desire of posthumous reour grasp; when every earthly good shall|nown among their own party; the hope to

Christianity, that very few of its professor were ever either so moral, so humane, or could so philosophically govern their passions, as the sceptical David Hume.'

make their disciples stand firm by their example; the ambition to give their last possible blow to revelation-or perhaps the fear of expressing doubts which might beget a suspicion that their disbelief was not so sturdy Yet notwithstanding this rich embalming as they would have it thought. Above all, of so noble a compound of matter and momay they not, as a punishment for their long tion,' we must be permitted to doubt one of neglect of the warning voice of truth, be the two things presented for our admiration; given up to a strong delusion to believe the we must either doubt the so much boasted lie they have so often propagated, and real- happiness of his death, or the so much exly to expect to find in death that eternal tolled humanity of his heart. We must be sleep, with which they have affected to permitted to suspect the soundness of that quiet their own consciences, and have really benevolence which led him to devote his laweakened the faith of others? test hours to prepare, under the label of an Every new instance is an additional but-Essay on Suicide, a potion for posterity of tress on which the sceptical school lean for so deleterious a quality, that if taken by the support, and which they produce as a fresh patient, under all the circumstances in triumph. With equal satisfaction they col- which he undertakes to prove it innocent, lect stories of infirmity, depression, and might have gone near to effect the extincwant of courage in the dying hour of reli-tion of the whole human race. For if all ragious men, whom the nature of the disease, tional beings, according to this posthumous timorousness of spirit, profound humility, prescription, are at liberty to procure their the sad remembrance of sin, though long own release from life, under pain or sickrepented of and forgiven, a deep sense of the ness, shame or poverty,' how large a porawfulness of meeting God in judgment;— tion of the world would be authorized to whom some or all of these causes may occa- quit it uncalled! For how many are subsion to depart in trembling fear; in whom, ject to the two latter grievances; from the though heaviness may endure through the two former how few are altogether exnight of death, yet joy cometh in the morn-empt!* ing of the resurrection.

The energy of that ambition which could It is a maxim of the civil law that defini- concentrate the last efforts of a powerful tions are hazardous. And it cannot be de-mind, the last exertions of a spirit greedy of nied that various descriptions of persons fame, into a project not only for destroying have hazarded much in their definitions of a the souls, but for abridging the lives of his happy death. A very able and justly admi-fellow creatures, leaves at a disgraceful disred writer, who has distinguished himself by tance the inverted thirst of glory of the man, the most valuable works on political econo- who to immortalize his own name, set fire to my, has recorded as proofs of the happy the Temple at Ephesus. Such a burning death of a no less celebrated contemporary, that he cheerfully amused himself in his last hours with Lucian, a game of whist, and some good humoured drollery upon Charon and his boat.

zeal to annihilate the eternal hope of his fellow creatures might be philosophy; but surely to authorize them to curtail ther moral existence, which to the infidel who looks for no other, must be invaluable, was not philanthropy.

But may we not venture to say, with one of the people called Christians,** himself a But if this death was thought worthy of wit and philosopher, though of the school of being blazoned to the public eye in all the Christ, that the man who could meet death warm and glowing colours with which afin such a frame of mind, might smile over fection decorates panegyric; the disciples of Babylon in ruins, esteem the earthquake the same school have been in general, anxwhich destroyed Lisbon an agreeable occur-iously solicitous to produce only the more rence, and congratulate the hardened Pha-creditable instances of invincible hardness of raoh on his overthrow in the Red Sea.' heart, while they have laboured to cast an This eminent historian and philosopher, impenetrable veil over the closing scene of whose great intellectual powers it is as im- those among the less inflexible of the fraterpossible not to admire, as not to lament their nity, who have established in their departunhappy misapplication, has been eulogized ing moments, any symptoms of doubt, any by his friend, as coming nearer than almost indications of distrust, respecting the valíany other man, to the perfection of human nature in his life; and has been almost deified for the cool courage and heroic firmness with which he met death. His eloquent panegyrist, with as insidious an inuendo as has ever been thrown out against revealed religion, goes on to observe, that 'perhaps it is one of the very worst circumstances against

The late excellent Bishop Horne. See his letters to Dr. Adam Smith.

* Another part of the Essay on Suicide, has this pas sage,- Whenever pain or sorrow so far overcome my patience, as to make me tired of life, I may conclude that I am recalled from my station in the plainest and most express terms.' And again-When I fall upon my own sword, I receive my death equally from the hands of the Deity, as if it had proceeded from a lion, a precipice, or a fever.' And again-Where is the crime of turning a few ounces of blood from their nateral channel.'

dity of their principles-Principles which Christianity, continue to add increasing they had long maintained with so much brightness to the crown of the already glozeal, and disseminated with so much in- rified saint. If this be true, how shall imadustry. gination presume to conceive, much less how shall language express, what must be expected in the contrary case? How shall we dare turn our thoughts to the progressive torments which may be ever heaping on the heads of those unhappy men of genius, who have devoted their rare talents to promote vice and infidelity, continue with fatal success to make successive proselytes through successive ages-if their works last so long, and thus accumulate on themselves anguish ever growing, miseries ever multiplying, without hope of any mitigation, without hope of any end!

In spite of the sedulous anxiety of his satellites to conceal the clouded setting of the great luminary of modern infidelity, from which so many minor stars have filled their little urns, and then set up for original lights themselves; in spite of the pains taken-for we must drop metaphor-to shroud from all eyes, except those of the initiated, the terror and dismay with which the Philosopher of Geneva met death, met his summons to appear before that God whose providence he had ridiculed, that Saviour whose character and offices he had vilified, -the secret was betrayed. In spite of the precautions taken by his associates to bury in congenial darkness the agonies which in his last hours contradicted the audacious blasphemies of a laborious life spent in their propagation, at last like his great instigator, he believed and trembled.

A more recent instance of the temper and spirit which the College of Infidelity exhibits on these occasions is perhaps less generally known. A person of our own time and country, of high rank and talents, and who ably filled a great public situation, had unhappily in early life, imbibed principles Whatever the sage of Ferney might be in and habits analogous to these of a notoriousthe eyes of Journalists, of Academicians, of ly profligate society of which he was a Encyclopædists, of the Royal Author of member, a society, of which the very apBerlin, of Revolutionists in the egg of his pellation it delighted to distinguish itself own hatching, of full grown infidels of his by, is

own spawning; of a world into which he had been for more than half a century industri

Offence and torture to the sober ear.

ously infusing a venom, the effects of which In the near view of death, at an advanced will be long felt, the expiring philosopher age, deep remorse and terror took posseswas no object of veneration to his NURSE.- sion of his soul; but he had no friend about She could have recorded a tale to harrow up the soul,' the horrors of which were sedulously attempted to be consigned to oblivion. But for this woman and a few other unbribed witnesses, his friends would probably have endeavoured to edify the world with this addition to the brilliant catalogue of happy deaths.*

It has been a not uncommon opinion that the works of an able and truly pious Christian, by their happy tendency to awaken the careless and to convince the unbelieving, may, even for ages after the excellent author is entered into his eternal rest, by the accession of new converts which they bring to

It is a well attested fact, that this woman, after his decease, being sent for to attend another person in dying circumstances, anxiously inquired if the patient was a gentleman; for that she had recently been so dread

fully terrified in witnessing the dying horrors of Mons. de Voltaire, which surpassed all description, that she had

resolved never to attend any other person of that sex unless she could be assured that he was not a philoso

him to whom he could communicate the state of his mind, or from whom he could derive either counsel or consolation. One day in the absence of his attendants, he raised his exhausted body on his dying bed, and threw himself on the floor, where he was found in great agony of spirit, with a prayer-book in his hand. This detection was at once a subject for ridicule and regret to his colleagues, and he was contemptuously spoken of as a pusillanimous deserter from the good cause. The phrase used by them to express their displeasure at his apostacy is too offensive to find a place here.* Were we called upon to decide between the two rival horrors, we should feel no hesitation in pronouncing this death a less unhappy one than those to which we have before alluded.

Another well known skeptic, while in perfect health, took measures by a special order, to guard against any intrusion in his last sickness, by which he might, even in the event of delirium, betray any doubtful pher. Voltaire, indeed, as he was deficient in the moral apprehension that there might be any honesty and the other good qualities, which obtained hereafter; or in any other way be surprised for Mr. Hume the affection of his friends, wanted his in uttering expressions of terror, and thus sincerity. Of all his other vices, hypocrisy was the con- exposing the state of his mind, in case any summation. While he daily dishonoured the Redeemer such revolution should take place, which by the invention of unheard of blasphemies; after he his heart whispered him might possibly haphad bound himself by a solemn pledge never to rest till | pen,

he had exterminated his very name from the face of the earth, he was not ashamed to assist regularly at the awful commemoration of his death at the altar!

The writer had this anecdote from an acquaintance

of the noble person at the time of his death.

VOL. I.

69

But not only in those happy deaths which but GRATEFUL,'-the prescience of phiclose a life of avowed impiety, is there great losophy thus assuming as certain what the room for suspicion, but even in cases where humble spirit of Christianity only presumes without acknowledged infidelity, there has to hope. been a careless life; when in such cases we There is another reason to be assigned for hear of a sudden death-bed revolution, of the charitable error of indiscriminately conmuch seeming contrition, succeeded by ex- signing our departed acquaintance to certraordinary professions of joy and triumph, tain happiness. Affliction, as it is a tender, we should be very cautious of pronouncing so it is a misleading feeling; especially in on their real state. Let us rather leave the minds naturally soft, and but slightly tincpenitent of a day to that mercy against tured with religion. The death of a friend which he has been sinning through a whole awakens the kindest feelings of the heart. life. These Clinical Converts,' (to borrow But by exciting true sorrow, it often excites a favourite phrase of the eloquent bishop false charity. Grief naturally softens every Taylor,) may indeed be true penitents; but fault, love as naturally heightens every virhow shall we pronounce them to be so?-tue. It is right and kind to consign error to How can we conclude that they are dead oblivion, but not to immortality. Charity unto sin' unless they are spared to live unto indeed we owe to the dead as well as to the righteousness?' living, but not that erroneous charity by Happily we are not called upon to decide. which truth is violated, and undeserved He to whose broad eye the future and the commendation lavished on those whom truth past lie open, as he has been their constant could no longer injure. To calumniate the witness, so will he be their unerring judge.* dead is even worse than to violate the rights But the admirers of certain happy deaths, of sepulture; not to vindicate calumniated do not even pretend that any such change worth, when it can no longer vindicate itself, appeared in the friends of whom they make is a crime next to that of attacking it;* but not so much the panegyric as the apotheosis. on the dead, charity, though well underThey would even think repentance a dero- stood, is often mistakingly exercised. gation from the dignity of their character.— If we were called upon to collect the They pronounce them to have been good greatest quantity of hyperbole-falsehood enough as they were; insisting that they might be too harsh a term-in the least gihave a demand for happiness upon God, if ven time and space, we should do well to there be any such Being; a claim upon search for it in those sacred edifices expressheaven, if there be any such place. They ly consecrated to truth. There we should are satisfied that their friend, after a life see the ample mass of canonizing kindness spent without God in the world,' without which fills their mural decorations, expressevidencing any marks of a changed heart, without even affecting any thing like repentance, without intimating that there was any call for it, DIED PRONOUNCING HIM

SELF HAPPY.

But nothing is more suspicious than a happy death, where there has neither been religion in the life nor humility in its close, where its course has been without piety, and its termination without repentance.

ed in all those flattering records inscribed by every variety of motive to every variety of claim. In addition to what is dedicated to real merit by real sorrow, we should hear of tears which were never shed, grief which was never felt, praise which was never earned; we should see what is raised by the decent demands of connexion, by tender, but undiscerning friendship, by poetic li

Others in a still bolder strain, disdaining the posthumous renown to be conferred by • What a generous instance of that disinterested atsurvivers, of their having died happily, pru-tachment which survives the grave of its object and pidently secure their own fame, and changing ously rescues his reputation from the assaults of maboth the tense and the person usual in mo- lignity, was given by the late excellent bishop of Por numental inscriptions, with prophetic confi-teus, in his animated defence of archbishop Secker! dence record on their own sepulchral mar- May his own fair fame never stand in need of any such ble, that they shall die not only 'HAPPY,' find in the bosom of every good man! The fine talents warm vindication, which, however, it could not fail to

The primitive church carried their incredulity of the appearances of repentance so far as to require not only years of sorrow for sin, but perseverance in piety, before they would admit offenders to their communion; and as a test of their sincerity, required the uniform practice of those virtues most opposite to their former vices. Were this made the criterion now, we should not so often hear such flaming accounts of converts, so exultingly reported, before time has been allowed to try their stability. More especially we should not bear of so many triumphant relations of death-bed converts, in whom the symptoms must frequently be too equivocal to admit the positive decision of human wisdom.

of this lamented prelate, uniformly devoted to the parposes for which God gave them-his life directed to those duties to which his high professional station called him-his Christian graces-those engaging manners which shed a soft lustre on the firm fidelity of bis friendships-that kindness which was ever flowing from his heart to his lips-the benignity and candour which distinguished not his conversation only, but his conductthese and all those amiable qualities, that gentle temper and correct cheerfulness with which he adorned society, will ever endear his memory to all who knew him intimately; and let his friends remember, that to imitate his virtues, will be the best proof of their remembering them.