Christ over all which makes death terrible, is a sublime reality, a fact which in its operation becomes a part of our own history. There exists amongst men a general persuasion that the dying hours of a Christian must manifest, more or less, his participation in the victory. The persuasion is just; for, although there must be exceptions, and there may be many, the results of special counteracting influences on the mind, yet it is the nature of faith to shed around the soul the true light that is come into the world, and that light does disclose the abolition of death for all who are in Christ Jesus. But if, for the believer, the terrors of death are finally overcome, they are first seen with the clearest glance, in their own vastness. It is perfectly true, therefore, that many a profligate man has been braver than many a Christian. They who think of death as only a momentary shock, or only the end of this life, and think no farther; or they who deride or deny all which has been revealed of a retribution after this life, may advance through years of health, and perhaps to the end, without evidence, perhaps without consciousness, of serious alarm. But hardly can a Christian be found, who has not at some time looked on death with solemn anxiety. Many have borne this load along with them almost to the end; and a heavy and fearful mist has ever hung around their utmost horizon. If their perception of the manner in which a sinner must be justified before God has been indistinct, these fears have been so much the more natural and unconquerable. An illustrious example of this habitual gloom was the devout and most thoughtful and strong-minded Doctor Johnson. It had been very much the frame of the excellent Jones of Nayland. Even the pious Halyburton, whose deathbed was a scene of unsurpassed and utter triumph, spoke then of himself as one "that had been many years under the terror of death." Not without reference to such solemn dread, is a petition placed in the Litany for deliverance in the hour of death;" and many a pastor has heard from many a conscientious Christian, when that hour arrived, the joyful acknowledgment that a mighty weight of apprehension was now, for the first time, entirely lifted from the soul. To the eye of the believer, death is the transition from the world of duty to the world of recompense. His mind has been overwhelmed with the unutterable magnitude of that decision which, although not first made at that point, can thenceforth be no more reversed. He is very conscious of a deceitfulness within himself, and still more of the vast distance between his own attainments and the purity of that fellowship to which he aspires. What, then, if this distance should prove impassable at last, and all his hope only a flattery from within? The prevailing sentiment of most believers, throughout their course, is doubtless that of hope and cheerful content; but in our present state every feeling is mingled and shaded; and it is impossible that sin and weakness should not sometimes and to some degree change hope into anxiety. A common experience has been uttered by John Newton: "We may anticipate the moment of dissolution with pleasure and desire in the morning, and be ready to shrink from the thought of it before night." Still, hope is commonly in proportion to faith; and through his life the Christian, justified by faith, rejoices in hope, looks on to the end, and glories even in tribulation. For him, the cloud which closes the prospect is never a mere uncertain vapour; if it is not dark and awful, it is gilded and enwrapped and pierced with rays of glory. The habitual conviction of his mind is that which was expressed by St. Paul; just so far as he can say, "To me to live is Christ," just so far he knows that to him to die is gain." He is sure that the victory over death and the grave has been won, and that, if he is but in Christ at last, nothing in life or death, nothing present or to come, can separate him from the love by which that victory was so dearly purchased. Thus he passes on, with dazzling hopes, sometimes shaded by fears, and always softened by humility. Thousands on thousands of Christian deathbeds admonish him to fear transgression only; since then no other fear will haunt his departure. And there can hardly be a more signal illustration of the vicarious redemption than this, that the event which the sinless. Saviour anticipated with a spirit so straitened, a soul so troubled, and prayers so agonizing, should be expected by sinful men with such calm and confiding and exulting peacefulness. XLVII. Providences in Christian Death. "Thou know'st the secret wishes of my heart: SOUTHEY. IT is no part of the common, Providential system that believers, rather than unbelievers, should receive any other than the general, natural warnings of the approach of dissolution. Such knowledge as that of the Lord Jesus, who, though deliverance was in His control,knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of the world," is not given to His followers. But, in the ages of miracles and of inspiration, St. Paul could affirm as a certainty, while yet in prison, that the time of his departure was at hand;" and St. Peter could say that he "must shortly put off this tabernacle," in the manner which his Master had shown him by an express prophecy. Intimations, not wholly dissimilar, are said to have been sometimes given in later ages. Polycarp dreamed that his pillow took fire and was consumed; and, as the persecutors were already seeking him, he inferred, what seemed rather improbable, that his martyrdom would be, as it was, by fire. In prison, Perpetua of Carthage saw in dreams what was interpreted by herself and her companions as indicating their fate and the order of their departure, as it soon befell. Gregory the Great relates that his aunt, St. Tarsilia, the day before she was seized with her last sickness, had a vision in which her ancestor, Felix, one of the bishops' of Rome, invited her to a glorious habitation. It was said that Bishop Hall punctually foretold the very night of his death. More often, sayings have dropped from good men, as they unconsciously drew near to sickness or sudden death, which seemed as if a higher mind had gently led their thoughts to themes that beseemed a pilgrim almost in sight of Jerusalem. In private recollection, such examples will occur to many, and they are frequently noted in the sketches of the lives and deaths of Christians. It may be through the operation of some of the more subtle elements in our corporeal system, suggesting rather to feeling than to thought the approach of change, and the nearness of that incorporeal world which sometimes seems to touch us through our nervous constitution. Or it may be through some actual intimation from invisible ministers of good, as a guardian conducting a child to the home which he had left in infancy, might prepare his mind, without informing him, as he drew towards the end of the journey. However it be, the fact is sufficiently frequent to have been often noted, and is too readily explained to permit the charge of superstition. Doctor Arnold died very suddenly; but the last words of his last lecture, on the preceding day, were a blessed anticipation of waking in the likeness of Christ; and the last entry in his diary, before he lay down to the sleep from which he only awoke to die, was of a solemn review of his whole life, and a sober, pious contemplation of the future. "And then," he wrote, "what is to follow this life?" The last recorded conversations of Bishop Heber, before his sudden transition, were on the highest |