Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

of his attack. A neighbouring physician was called out of bed in the night to come to him with all haste in this extremity he found him sitting up in his bed, supported by pillows, his countenance full of horror, his breath struggling as in the article of death, his pulse intermitting, and at times beating with such rapidity as could hardly be counted. Antitheus dismissed the attendants he had about him, and eagerly demanded of the physician, if he thought him in danger. The physician answered that he must fairly tell him he was in imminent danger.

"How so! how so! Do you think me dying?'

"He was sorry to say the symptoms indicated death.' "Impossible! you must not let me die: I dare not die: O doctor! save me if you can.'

"Your situation, sir, is such, that it is not in mine, nor any other man's art to save you; and I think I should not do my duty if I gave you any false hopes in these moments, which, if I am not mistaken, will not more than suffice for any worldly or other concerns which you may have upon your mind to settle.'

"My mind is full of horror,' cried the dying man, and I am incapable of preparing it for death."

"He now fell into an agony, accompanied with a shower of tears; a cordial was administered, and he revived in a degree; when, turning to the physician, who had his fingers upon his pulse, he eagerly demanded of him, if he did not see that blood upon the feet-curtains of his bed. There was none to be seen: the physician assured him, it was nothing but a vapour of his fancy. 'I see it plainly,' said Antitheus, 'in the shape of a human hand: I have been visited with a tremendous apparition. As I was lying sleepless in my bed this night, I took up a letter of a deceased friend to dissipate certain thoughts that made me uneasy: I believed him to be a great philosopher, and was converted to his

opinions; persuaded by his arguments and my own experience, that the disorderly affairs of this evil world could not be administered by any wise, just, or provident being, I had brought myself to think no such being could exist, and that a life, produced by chance, must terminate in annihilation: this is the reasoning of that letter, and such were the thoughts I was revolving in my mind, when the apparition of my dear friend presented itself before me; and unfolding the curtains of my bed, stood at my feet, looking earnestly upon me for a considerable space of time. My heart sunk within me; for his face was ghastly, full of horror, with an expression of such anguish as I can never describe; his eyes were fixed upon me, and at length, with a mournful motion of his head-" Alas, alas!" he cried, "we are in a fatal error!" and taking hold of the curtains with his hand, shook them violently, and disappeared. This, I protest to you, I both saw and heard; and look! where the print of his hand is left in blood upon the curtains!' "' Antitheus survived the relation of this vision very few hours, and died delirious in great agonies.

What a forsaken and disconsolate creature is man without his God and Saviour!

13. LORD P

"To die! to sleep!—

To sleep! perchance to dream! ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause!"

THE case of Lord P- is detailed by Mr. Simpson in his "Plea." He was an apostate, a deist, and a mocker of religion. On his dying bed his conscience was overwhelmed with horror at what he had done. In this

agony of mind he called to a person to "go and bring that cursed book," meaning the work by which he had been seduced into Deism-"I cannot die until I destroy it."

It was put into his hands. With mingled horror and revenge he tore it into pieces, hurled it into the flames, and soon after died in great horrors.

SECTION V.

Insensibility in the Hour of Death.

1. DAVID HUME.

It is an awful proof of the depraved condition of human nature, that so many persons exert their utmost efforts to sink themselves to a level with the brutes that perish, and to strip themselves of man's distinguishing honour -immortality. Infidels at the same time soar with the pride of Satan and grovel with the reptile of the dust. Now they exalt man so high that he needs not the instruction or care of the Deity, but soon they debase him to an equality with the worm, while they maintain that like the worm he dies and is no more.

Mr. Hume appears in one respect to have differed from most infidels. His life was tolerably moral. This has been a subject of boasting among his unbelieving friends, but it has been most justly remarked, “All evil beings are not immoral." Satan himself" offends not in the articles of eating, wine, or women;" he is differently employed. He is employed in tempting others to offend.

"The matter of fact is: that life cannot be in the right, which is spent in doing wrong. And if to question all the doctrines of religion, even to the providence and existence of a God, and to put morality on no other foot than that of utility-if to do this be not to do wrong, then farewell all distinction between right and wrong forever more. To maintain and diffuse the truth of God, is to do his will; to deny, corrupt, or hinder it, is to work iniquity; and a life so employed is a wicked life -perhaps the most wicked that can be imagined. For

what comparison is there between one who commits a crime of which he may repent, or, at worst, it may die with him; and one who, though he do not himself commit it, teaches and encourages all the world to commit it, by removing out of the way the strongest sanctions and obligations to the contrary, in writings which may carry on the fearful work from generation to generation ?"

As he lived and taught like a philosopher, so, Mr. Gibbon says, he died like one. His death has been the boast of infidels. "It may be taken as their apostolic specimen, standing parallel in their history, to the instance of St. Paul in the records of Christianity, 'I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge shall give me at that day.'"

We are informed, that when he was extremely debilitated by disease, he went abroad at times in a sedan chair, and called on his friends; but his ghastly looks indicated the rapid approach of death. He diverted himself with correcting his works for a new edition, with reading books of amusement, with the conversation of his friends, and sometimes in the evening with a party at his favourite game of whist.

On one occasion, when his dissolution drew near, he expressed to Dr. Smith the satisfaction he had in leaving his friends, and his brother's family in particular, in prosperous circumstances. This, he said, he felt so sensibly, that when he was reading, a few days before, "Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead," he could not, among all the excuses which are alleged to Charon,* for not readily entering into his boat, find one that fitted him.

Charon, in the old heathen tales, is said to have ferried departed souls over the river Styx, in their way to Elysium or Tar

tarus.

« AnteriorContinuar »