LIII. Reliance on Christ in Death. "And oh, when I have safely passed GRANT. THE reliance of the heart upon the love and grace of Christ becomes even simpler, firmer, and more intense in its last trial. If we need the mediation of the Son of God, then surely, if ever, must the need be felt; and if He is indeed the Saviour of sinners, how can a penitent sinner fail to cling then with all His soul to the assurance of His love, when all other supports fall all around? The Lord who loved us and gave Himself for us; who ransomed us with his blood; who went before us, for our sake, in the path of mortal suffering; who died, and dying overcame and abolished death; is seen by the eye of faith as the Good Shepherd, and guides with His rod and staff along the dark valley. I know whom I have believed," was the thought of the imprisoned apostle, when he expected his summons to martyrdom. "Yes, He is very precious to me," are the accents that are but whispered by one. dying believer. "I am going to my Lord," exclaims another as he departs. This day," said Bishop Jewel, just before he expired, "this day let me see the Lord Jesus." "Blessed Jesus," were the last words of the good Bishop Horne, whose sweet book on the Psalms has been the companion of so many prayers. "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly," has been the cry of thousands, while each has sunk, as it were, into His everlasting arms. Other thousands have taken upon their pale lips the dying words of Stephen, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." The last words of the learned and pious Doctor Good were the completion of a sentence begun by another: they spoke of Him away the sins of the world." who taketh Even here, however, it is not commonly that spectacle of ardent, eager looking, as to the brazen serpent, which may have been earlier witnessed. Faith has become the habit of the soul, and thus is calmer and more like a natural, spontaneous sentiment. It is not so much the almost desperate grasp of the drowning man, who must perish if he lose but this one hold; it is rather as when a friend leans on a tried friend, and commits to him every interest, and life itself, without a question. But, as a testimony to that Gospel, which has brought him thus far, and now more than ever lights the way, and for the satisfaction and instruction of all around, as well as to invigorate his own faith and hope by recurrence to their first principles, many a dying Christian disclaims all trust in his own righteousness, and declares his sole confidence in the atoning Mediator. To Him, indeed, all the holy ordinances which at any time surround the deathbed point alike. No prayer is offered there, but in His name; no other would accord with the inward pulsations of him who dies, or of those who see him die. The sacrament, which is taken as if in preparation for the last journey, is that of His body and blood. From him who clasps a crucifix to his bosom, with sincere though misguided devotion, to him who, : also misguided, refuses the aid of all visible ordinances, but still believes Christ is "the only name given under heaven;" and the suggestion of any other hope would result in faintness of spirit and in shrinking dismay. The heart, in death, receives and bears an irrefragable testimony to those two sayings of the Lord, "No man cometh to the Father but by me;" and "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." Faith alone overcomes; the faith which unites to Him that giveth the victory. LIV. Love in Christian Death. “Oh, dearest friend, death cometh! he is here, SIGOURNEY. THE softening influence of suffering and of the parting hour makes the chamber of death a scene of tender love. If at such a season the roughest hearts are melted, much more must Christian charity be then more than ever affectionate and complete. The difference in death-beds is not generally that between love and hate, but that between love which is merely earthly and love which is also heavenly. With the dying Christian, it is the very spirit of the skies. It tells how near he is to the land whose air he already breathes, drawing in health for the soul while the body sinks away. What a tenderness spreads itself over the love of a believer for his friends, when he is to leave them behind! Every word of counsel is so precious, every request so sacred, at that hour, not only because it is the last, but because it is full of a love stronger than death. Oswald, a pious Saxon king, breathed out his soul on the field of battle with the words, "Spare, Lord, the souls of my people!" "Peace be with you," said the Reformer Musculus, and crossed his hands on his breast and died. "In this love and communion we are and remain one," said Schleiermacher to his family, just as he expired, after partaking with them the Lord's Supper. The great Lord Burleigh, in a letter written just before his death, expressed his desire to be in heaven, a servitor for his Queen and for the church. Whitgift, palsied and dying, could only say, “Pro ecclesia Dei!"—for the church of God! Who has read without a feeling of strong and admiring sympathy, how one of the English martyrs under Queen Mary, a married priest, clasped his wife and children, and said that he were no man who would not be content to die for such, for their legitimacy and fair fame? The inexpressibly affectionate looks of the dying, fix sometimes a recollection more precious than any treasures. Tender messages to the absent, grateful glances in return for little attentions, the fervent kiss, the sweet, indescribable smile, the grasp of the hand in the act of departure, who has not witnessed all these, if he has been often at Christian deathbeds? This dying love for friends reveals itself peculiarly in the desire, the hope, and the assurance of future reunion. It reaches to the dead as well as the surviving, and exults with a peculiar rapture in the approaching meeting with such as stand already on the everlasting shore. A few hours before the death of Luther, he rejoiced in this prospect. "We shall, I think," said he, be renewed in the other life, through Christ, and shall much more perfectly recognise our parents, wives, and children." Melancthon, a few days before his death, told Camerarius that he trusted their friendship should be cultivated and perpetuated in another world. Cruciger, another of the school of the Reformers, spoke in his last hours, of meeting and recognition. Caspar Olevianus, a divine of Heidelberg, when his son had been summoned to see him before he should die, sent to |