Physical death marks the transition from earthly life to eternal existence, freeing the soul to be with Christ and bringing rest akin to peaceful sleep (John 11:11-14; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14). Christian preaching often uses imagery of crossing rivers, sleeping in Jesus' arms, and shadows to depict death as a passage rather than an end, highlighting hope, resurrection, and the believer’s victory over fear through faith.
Life is like a clock wound once, ticking until death brings silence and rest.
Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The angel of life winds them up at once for all, then closes the eases, and gives the key into the hand of the angel of resurrection. "Tie-tae, tie-tae!" go the wheels of thought: our will cannot stop them: madness only makes them go faster. Death alone can break into the ease, and, seizing the ever-swinging pendulum which we call the heart, silence at last the clicking of the terrible escapement we have carried so long beneath our aching foreheads. If we could only get at them as we lie on our pillows, and count the dead-beats of thought after thought, and image after image, jarring through the over-tired organ! Will nobody block those wheels, uncouple their pinion, cut the string which holds those weights? What a passion comes over us sometimes for silence and rest, that this dreadful mechanism, unwinding the endless tapestry of time, embroidered with spectral figures of life and death, might have but one brief holiday! O. W. Holmes.
Life is a journey where many fall away until only a few remain at old age.
Ten thousand human beings set forth together on their journey. After ten years, one-third, at least, have disappeared. At the middle point of the common measures of life, but half are still upon the road. Faster and faster, as the ranks grow thinner, they that remain till now become weary, and lie down, and rise no more. At three-score and ten, a band of some four hundred yet struggle on. At ninety, these have been reduced to a handful of thirty trembling patriarchs. Year after year, they fall in diminishing numbers. One lingers, perhaps, a lonely marvel, till the century is over. We look again, and the work of death is finished.
— Bp. Burgess
Being prepared to die can inspire others to repentance and readiness for life.
Before the battle of Hatcher's Run, a Christian soldier said to his comrade, "You are detailed to go to the front, while I am to remain with the baggage. Let us change places. I'll go front: you remain in camp."—"What for?" said the comrade. "Because I am prepared to die, I think; but you are not." The exchange was made. The thought of the self-sacrifice of his friend, and his readiness for the exposures of life or the realities of death, led the unsaved soldier to repentance and a like preparation for life.
Death humbles all human pride and power, showing its universal and inescapable nature.
O eloquent, just, and mighty death! whom none could advise, thou only hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out and despised. Thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it over with those two narrow words, "Hic jacet."
— Raleigh
Ignoring God’s warnings leads to sudden judgment and loss at life’s end.
O Man! of all fools, a fool with a gray head is the worst fool anywhere. With one foot in the grave, and another foot on a sandy foundation, bow shall I depict you, but by saying to you, as God said to the rich man, "Thou fool! a few more nights and thy soul shall be required of thee;" and then where art thou? Spurgeon.
Presuming on tomorrow risks losing your soul before repentance is possible.
A young man who had inherited an estate from an uncle was exhorted to seek Christ, and said, that he would do so as soon as he had paid off the debts that encumbered the estate. The pastor said, "Young man, beware!" you may never see that day: while you are gaining the world, you may lose your soul." The young heir said, "I'll run the risk." He went into the woods, and was engaged felling a tree;
when a falling limb caused his instant death, within a few hours of his bold presumption.
Reckless presumption leads to destruction despite warnings and danger signs.
A noble ship was bearing in to port. It was the evening hour, and too late to enter without a pilot.
There were two passages into the harbor; one a dangerous narrow channel, the other a wide and safer one. The captain determined to pilot himself by the narrow passage. A storm was coming up; and the passengers, with fear and consternation, begged him to take the wider channel. He laughed at their cowardice, and swore he would do as he pleased. As the night advanced, the gale increased. Soon arose a cry, "Breakers ahead, breakers ahead!"
The captain flew to the wheel; the sails were struck; the wind had the mastery; and the captain found a will that could defy his own.
The vessel made a fearful plunge, struck the foreship deep into the sand, to be shattered by the wild waves' pleasure. Few survived the terrors of that fearful night; but among the dead thrown up by the rising tide was the body of the wilful and presumptuous captain.
Procrastination in serious matters can lead to sudden and fatal consequences.
Archias, a Grecian chief-magistrate, was so unpopular, that his people conspired against his life. The day arrived for the execution of the plot. Archias was erased with wine, when a courier arrived from Athens, and hastened to put into his hands what afterwards proved to be a circumstantial account of the whole conspiracy, saying, "My lord, the person who writes you these letters conjures you to read them immediately: they contain serious affairs." Archias replied, "Serious affairs to-morrow;" and continued his revel. That night, in the midst of his mirth, the conspirators rushed into his palace, and murdered him and his associates.
Prosperity without God ultimately leads to death and the grave.
"What shall I come to, father," said a young man, "if I go on prospering in this way?" — "To the grave," the father replied.
Sin's hidden danger is like a serpent in a cup, bringing death and judgment unexpectedly.
The tale of the goblet which the genius of a heathen fashioned was true, and taught a moral of which many a death-bed furnishes the melancholy illustration. Having made the model of a serpent, he fixed it in the bottom of the cup. Coiled for the spring, a pair of gleaming eyes in its head, and in its open mouth fangs raised to strike, it lay beneath the ruby wine. Nor did he who raised that golden cup to quench his thirst, and quaff the delicious draught, suspect what lay below, till, as he reached the dregs, that dreadful head rose up, and glistened before his eyes. So, when life's cup is nearly emptied, and sin's last pleasure quaffed, and unwilling lips are draining the bitter dregs, shall rise the ghastly terrors of remorse and death and judgment upon the despairing soul. Be assured, a serpent lurks at the bottom of guilt's sweetest pleasure.
— Dr. Guthrie
Neglecting the soul's thirst leads to spiritual death and eternal despair.
A German had his side torn by a shell in the battle of the Wilderness, and lay down, sheltered by his blanket from the scorching sun, to die. A burning thirst caused his greatest suffering. A delegate put a canteen to his lips to relieve him. His disappointment and agony were intense when he found that he could not swallow. Every effort was in vain; and death came swiftly on. This case is analogous to the fate of one whose soul-thirst has been neglected till relief is impossible.
An hourglass symbolizes life's fleeting time, urging awareness before it runs out.
There was an ancient custom of putting an hour-glass into the coffin of the dead to signify that their time had run out, a useless notification to them. Better put the hour-glass into the hand of every living man, and show them the grains gliding steadily out. Soon all will be gone.
Melanethon's last words express his sole desire for heaven at death.
Just before Melanethon died, he expressed a wish to hear some choice passages of Scripture read; and, this desire having been met, he was asked by his son-in-law, Sabinus, whether he would have any thing else: to which he replied in those emphatic words, "Aliud nihil, nisi cælum!" "nothing else but heaven." And, shortly after this, he gently breathed his last.
An actor died onstage at the moment his character faced death, showing life's fragility.
The death of Joseph Peterson, an actor long attached to the Norwich company, (Eng.,) was somewhat remarkable. In October, 1758, he was performing the Duke, in "Measure for Measure." Mr. Moody was the Claudio, and in the third act, where, as the friar, he was preparing Claudio for execution next morning, at these words:—
"——— Reason thus with life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep: a breath
Thou art."
Here he dropped into Mr. Moody's arms, and never spake more.
An actor accidentally killed himself by fully identifying with his tragic role.
A number of young men were once engaged in acting the tragedy of "Bertram, or the Castle of St. Aldobrand," at Nashville. Mr. J. J. McLaughlin, formerly of Hopkinsville, Ky., was engaged to act the part of Bertram, whose part it was during the progress of the play to feign to stab himself. For this purpose he had provided himself with a Spanish knife. "As the tragedy wore to its devoutment his excitement increased, and the gloomy spirit of the play was upon him with a power that made a strong impression of reality upon the hearers, and made them shudder as he pronounced the following, accompanied by the plunge of the dagger that brought him to his death:—
'Bertram hath but one fatal foe on earth,
And he is here.' [Stubs himself.]
It was at this moment that he plunged the weapon to his heart. It was doubtless the result of the excited feelings of the actor, who had too absorbingly entered into the dreadful spirit of his hero. We charitably suppose that he had no premeditated design of ending his life with the play; but his complete identification of feeling with the part he acted, led him to suicide as a natural consequence.
"The hallucination, if such we may call it, did not end with the plunge of the dagger. His feelings bore him along yet further. There was still, after some exclamations of surprise from the tragic monks, a dying sentence for him to repeat. He went through it with a startling effect:—
[With a burst of exultation.]
'I died no felon's death—
A warrior's weapon freed a warrior's soul.'
# AFFE
# 7. Affection, Conjugal.
A king reflects on death's humility amid life's ambitious pursuits.
Philip, king of Macedon, as he was wrestling at the Olympic games, fell down in the sand; and when he rose again, observing the print of his body in the sand, cried out, "O how little a parcel of earth will hold us, when we are dead, who are ambitiously seeking after the whole world whilst we are living!"
Physical beauty fades in death, showing the vanity of worldly attractions.
A young lady in A ——, N. Y., was attacked with the small-pox. She was gay and thoughtless, and had been much admired for her comeliness and
# 35. BEGGARS
Whitfield's silent death illustrates the assurance of salvation in final moments.
In the last visit but one which Whitfield paid to America, he spent a day or two at Princeton, under the roof of Dr. Finley, then President of the College at that place. At dinner, the Dr. said, "Mr. W., I hope it will be very long before you will be called home; but when that event shall arrive, I shall be glad to hear the noble testimony you will
# 123. DEBTS ON M
Presuming on future repentance risks sudden death and losing one's soul.
Rev. Mr. Baker, a Free-will Baptist evangelist, was visiting from house to house, in a certain neighborhood, in New England; and met on his walk three young men with axes on their shoulders. He stopped and conversed with them. Two appeared somewhat serious: the third, a gay, frank young man, replied, "You see, sir, that splendid white house on that farm yonder?" "Yes." "Well, sir, that estate has been willed to me by my uncle; and we are now going to do chopping in the woodland that belongs to it. There are some incumbrances on the estate which I must settle, before the farm can be fully mine; and as soon as I have cleared it of these incumbrances I mean to become a Christian." "Ah! young man," said the minister, "beware; you may never see that day; while you are gaining the world, you may lose your soul." "I'll run the risk," said he, and they parted. The three young men went into the woods; and this daring procrastinator, and another, engaged in felling a tree. A dry, heavy limb, hung loosely in the top; and as the tree was jarred by the successive strokes of the axe, it quit its hold, and as it fell crashing through the branches to the earth, it struck the head of the young heir, in its way, and stretched him on the ground a lifeless corpse. Thus were his hopes cut off; and hazarding the delay of months he lost his soul in an hour. His fellow-laborer was converted; for conviction struck his mind when he saw the young heir quivering in death! "I felt then such a horror at the danger of delaying religion, when I thought what he had just said, and saw his end, that I determined to neglect my soul no longer." His example was followed by others; and a great revival ensued.
Procrastinating repentance with false confidence leads to eternal damnation at death.
In the early part of my ministry, said the Rev. Mr. T. East, of Birmingham, a woman was in the habit of attending the place of worship in which I preached, who occupied a seat on the stairs, and who was very tenacious of her sitting, not allowing any other person to occupy it. She was observed by her friends, who sought occasion to converse with her on the important subject of religion; but she was very shy and evasive. All they could extract from her was this appalling reply: "Oh, I shall only want five minutes time when I am dying to cry for mercy: and I have no doubt God Almighty will give it me." It was in vain to remonstrate with the woman; this was always her reply. Time passed on. One day, I was walking down the street, when a young woman ran up to me in a state of great agitation and excitement, exclaiming, "O, Mr. East, I have found you; do come to my mother, sir; come this minute, sir: she is dying, she is dying!" I hastened with her to the house, and was astonished to find in the dying sufferer the poor unhappy woman who had attended my place of worship. She was evidently expiring: but, turning her dying eyes towards me, she cried out, "O, Mr. East, I am damned, I am damned!" and expired.
# 129. Miscellaneous.
An infidel's final moments reveal fear and uncertainty about life after death.
An avowed infidel, whose language and conduct had been most profane, and who had boldly argued for man's right to kill himself when he found it expedient, swallowed a quantity of opium which put an end to his life. Among his papers was found one, on which was written, "I have this moment swallowed a vial of tincture of opium, consequently my life will be but short. Whether there will be a heaven or a hell, I leave parsons to divine." The part of the manuscript which followed was blotted, and concluded thus: "My hand trembles, my eyes grow dim, I can see to write no more; but he that would be happy should be religious."
Many Jews sensed sin and wrath but lacked peace in seeing God's salvation at death.
BED OF THE JEW.—In his interesting work, "Judah and Israel," Mr. Frey, a converted Jew, and who for more than forty years has labored among this people as a minister of the gospel, says: "For seven long years, while officiating Rabbi in the synagogue, it was my painful lot to attend the sick and dying; and while I found all of them sensible of their being sinners, and exposed to the wrath of God, I never found one saying, like good old Simeon, 'Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.'"
A deathbed scene reveals deep compassion amid poverty and suffering.
At the foot of a lofty hill, writes a correspondent of an American periodical, crowned to the summit with the richest verdure, a miserable mud cabin peeped out from among encircling bushwood and straggling elms. A stillness seemed to lie around the spot, and I felt an indescribable sensation creep over me as I drew near the house of mourning. I paused at the entrance. A low murmuring kind of sound stole upon my ear, and again all was hushed. I gently opened the door, and bent myself forward, as if to ascertain, unnoticed, what was passing within. I saw at the first glance that death had been there. The apartment on the threshold of which I now stood, was of the meanest construction; it was without a single piece of furniture that deserved the name. In one corner of it a dead body lay stretched out, very slightly covered with a tattered coat, and a cold kind of horrible feeling ran through my very soul; and it would probably have shrunk away from any further investigation, if I had not been suddenly arrested by a soft sweet voice, mingled with a low groan, somewhat like a death-rattle, that seemed to issue from the same apartment. I turned my head around, and beheld a sight that chained me, as if by magic, to the ground. Oh, it was heart thrilling to behold! On a bundle of straw, a woman, somewhat in years, lay apparently in the agonies of death. Near her head hung, reclining in deep sorrow, a beautiful little half naked child. On one side, a lovely girl, about thirteen years of age knelt; a Bible clasped in her thin slender hands, with which she was endeavoring to comfort her dying mother. I instantly recognized two of my Sabbath school children. The meeting was affecting. They had been without food for some days. The mother died next day, in the triumph of that faith which her little daughter taught her out of the Bible. The girls grew up to be respectable members of society, and one of them has been a teacher in a Sabbath school for several years.
A condemned man’s calm focus on tobacco shows how ruling passions persist even at death.
The Editor of the Chenango Telegraph, in giving an account of the execution of George Denison, who suffered at Norwich, New-York, says, that while standing upon the fatal drop, and during the exhortation of the clergyman, the prisoner asked in a whisper, for the tobacco box of the deputy sheriff, from which he coolly took a quid, deposited it in his mouth, and returned the box. In ten minutes, he was launched into eternity! On the morning of the day that Hamilton, who shot
Major Birdsall, was to be executed, the clergy passed two hours in solemn exercises with him. After they left the cell, Hamilton gave some directions about his gallows wardrobe. As the keeper was leaving to execute his commission, he asked Hamilton if he wanted any thing else. He replied,
"You may get me a paper of tobacco."
After a moment's reflection, he added,
"Stop, perhaps I have enough,"—and, rising on his elbow, drew a part of a paper from under the pillow of his pallet, and measuring in his mind the quantity of tobacco by the few hours he had to live, calmly remarked, "This will last me."
Severus' last words reveal the emptiness of worldly achievements at death.
When Severus, Emperor of Rome, found his end approaching, he cried out, "I have been every thing, and every thing is nothing;" then ordering the urn to be brought to him in which his ashes were to be inclosed, on his body being burned, according to the custom of the Romans, he said, "Little urn, thou shalt contain one for whom the world was too little."
Great statesman Pitt died alone, illustrating the solitude of death for all.
Pitt died at a solitary house on Wimbledon Common. Not far off, by the roadside, stood a small country inn, where the various parties interested in the great statesman's life were accustomed to apply for information, and leave their horses and carriages. On the morning of the 23d of January, 1806, an individual having called at the inn, and not being able to obtain a satisfactory reply to his inquiries, proceeded to the house of Pitt. He knocked, but no servant appeared—he opened the door and entered—he found no one in attendance—he proceeded from room to room, and at length entered the sick chamber, where, on a bed, in silence and in perfect solitude, he found to his unspeakable surprise, the dead body of that great statesman who had so lately wielded the power of England, and influenced, if he did not control, the destinies of the world. We doubt whether any much more awful example of the lot of mortality has ever been witnessed.
Diogenes shows death makes all equal, regardless of status or position.
Diogenes was not in the wrong, who, when the great Alexander, finding him in the charnel-house, asked him what he was seeking for, answered, "I am seeking for your father's bones and those of my slave; but I cannot find them, because there is no difference between them."
Massive battle casualties illustrate the tragic consequences of human sin and conflict.
At Durham, 1346, there fell 15,000; at Haldonhill and Agincourt, 20,000 each; at Bautzen and Lepanto, 25,000 each; at Austerlitz, Jena and Lutzen, 30,000 each; at Eylau, 60,000; at Waterloo and Quatre Bras. one engagement, 70,000; at Borodino, 80,000; at Fontenoy, 100,000; at Yarmouth, 150,000; at Chalons, no less than 300,000 of
Attila's army alone! The Moors in Spain, about the year 800, lost in one battle 70,000; in another, four centuries later, 180,000, besides 50,000 prisoners, and in a third, even 200,000. Still greater was the carnage in ancient times. At Cannæ, 70,000 fell. The Romans alone, in an engagement with the Cimbri and Teutones, lost 80,000. The Carthaginians attacked Hymera in Sicily with an army of 300,000 men, and a fleet of 2000 ships, and 3000 transports; but not a ship nor a transport escaped destruction, and of the troops, only a few in a small boat reached Carthage with the melancholy tidings. Marius slew, in one battle, 140,000 Gauls, and in another, 290,000. In the battle of Issus, between Alexander and Darius, 110,000 were slain, in that of Arbela, 300,000. Julius and Cæsar once annihilated an army of 363,000 Helvetians; in a battle with the Usipetes, he slew 400,000; and on another occasion, he massacred more than 430,000 Germans, who "had crossed the Rhine, with their herds, and flocks, and little ones, in quest of new settlements."
### 432. Sieges.
Bones of fallen soldiers were ground into manure, symbolizing the futility of war.
In the year 1830, it is estimated that more than a million bushels of "human and inhuman bones" were imported from the continent of Europe into the port of Hull, England. The neighborhood of Leipsic, Austerlitz, Waterloo, &c., where the principal battles were fought some fifteen or twenty years before, were swept alike of the bones of the hero, and the horse which he rode. Thus collected from every quarter, they were shipped to Hull, and thence forwarded to the Yorkshire bone-grinders, who by steam engines and powerful machinery, reduced them to a granulary state. In this condition they were sent chiefly to Doncaster, one of the largest agricultural markets of the country, and were there sold to the farmers to manure their lands. The oily substance gradually evolving as the bone calcines, makes better manure than almost any other substance—particularly human bones. Some of the good farmers of Yorkshire, were thus perhaps indebted to the very bones of their children for their daily bread! What a commentary on war and military glory does such a fact furnish us. The soldiers of England going forth to fight her battles on the Continent, their blood fattening the fields of her allies, and their bones brought back to fatten the soil of their fathers!
Dying saints see angels and glimpse Heaven, affirming faith in the afterlife.
Clement Brown, when dying, pointed with his finger, and said: “I see one, two, three, four angels waiting their commission. I see them as plainly as I see you, Hester. How I wish you could see them. They are robed in white. Angels beckon me and Jesus bids me come.” Sarah Clare, shortly before her death, said: “I have been at the door of Heaven. It was open for me. I beheld the Almighty on His throne.” Isaac Collins, when about to pass out, said: “Heaven is near. There stands my Saviour.”
A dying soldier joyfully responds to his name called in Heaven, assured of salvation.
A wounded soldier lay dying upon the battlefield, and he was heard to say at intervals, “here, here.” On being asked what he wanted, he replied: “They are calling the roll in Heaven, and I am answering to my name.” Soon he passed away into the spirit world.
Prominent men lament not serving God faithfully as they face death.
When Woolsey, the Catholic Cardinal, came to die, he said, “Had I but served God as faithfully as I served the King, He would not have given me over in my gray hairs.” When the great Randolph came down to the river of death, he cried out: “Remorse, remorse! Let me see the word. Show it to me in a dictionary. Write it. Ah! remorse, you don’t know what that means!”
Death can come suddenly, instantly transitioning us to the spiritual realm.
The veil that conceals the other world is only our embodied existence, and though our body is fearfully and wonderfully made it is but frail mortality. The puncture of a thorn, the sting of an insect, a mite of poison, or a tiny shot, may cause it to fall in death. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, in the throb of a pulse, we may start into disembodied spirits, glide into the company of spirits, and pass into the knowledge of the other world.
Rejecting Christ leads to a fatal spiritual struggle at death.
An old Scotch woman, after having the gospel of God’s grace faithfully presented to her, put down her pipe, and then seemed to weigh the matter slowly in her mind for a while. Then with face hard and unmoved, said: “No, Ihave lived without Christ seventy years and I can live without Him the rest of my days.” Not long after this she was found dead in bed, her arms thrown above her head as though there had been a struggle with some terrible foe.
Without Christ, death is a terrifying, uncontrollable descent.
Gordon, once a celebrated stage-driver on the Pacific Coast, was a fearfully profane man, and his end was dreadful. In the delirium of death he thrust out his feet and clutched at the bedclothes. When asked the cause of his anguish, he exclaimed: “Oh, I am going down a fearful grade, and can’t find the brake.”
The veil between life and heaven is thin and fragile, easily removed at death.
There is only a veil between us and Heaven! A veil is the thinnest and frailest of all conceivable partitions. It is but a fine tissue, a delicate fabric of embroidery. It waves in the wind; the touch of a child may stir it and accident may rend it; the silent action of time will moulder it away. The veil that conceals Heaven is only our embodied existence; and though “fearfully and wonderfully made,” it is only wrought out of our frail mortality. So slight is it that the puncture of a thorn, the touch of an insect’s sting, the breath of an infected atmosphere, may make it shake and fall. In a bound, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, in the throb of a pulse, in the flash of a thought, we may start into disembodied spirits.
Even great armies face inevitable death and mortality over time.
Xerxes cast his eyes over his vast army one day, and wept when he came to realize that in a few years that army would be but a million of dead men.
Neglecting timely action can lead to fatal consequences, like being lost in a dark cave.
—A man entered a dark, winding cave, carrying with him a lamp, and a ball of twine. That he might find his way out of the cave, in case his light went out, he fastened one end of the twine outside, and unwound it as he walked into the cave. In this manner, he had gone a long distance into those dark recesses. At length, he entered a large apartment, and for a moment set down his lamp and ball, to break off a stalactite of peculiar beauty. Suddenly his lamp went out. He immediately endeavored to find his ball; but all his efforts were vain. His lifeless body was found long afterward in the dark cavern.
Regret after fatal delay illustrates the lost's cry, 'If I only had,' in eternity.
A man who had charge of a swing-bridge opened it just to oblige a friend, who said there was plenty of time for his boat to go through before the train of cars came along. But a moment after the express came thundering on, and dashed into the dark waters below. The bridge-keeper, whose neglect had caused the disaster, lost his reason, and his life since has been spent in a madhouse. The first and only words he uttered when the train leaped into the open chasm were, “If I only had;” and he has gone on constantly repeating the vain regret. Ah! that will be the cry of the lost in another world,—”If I only had.”
A fool neglects to prepare for death, showing folly in ignoring eternal realities.
There was a nobleman who kept a fool or clown, to whom he one day gave a staff, with a charge to keep it till he should meet with one who was a greater fool than himself. Not many years after, the nobleman fell sick, even unto death. The fool came to see him. His sick lord said to him, “I must shortly leave you.” “And whither art thou going?” said the fool. “Into another world,” replied his lordship. “And when will you come again?—within a month?” “No.” “Within a year?” “No.” “When, then?” “Never.” “Never!” said the fool. “And what provision hast thou made for thy entertainment there, whither thou goest?” “None at all.” “Here, take my staff; for, with all my folly, I am not guilty of any such folly as this.”
Neglect alone can cause ruin or death without active wrongdoing or harm.
Neglect is enough to ruin a man. One who is in business need not commit forgery or robbery to ruin himself; he has only to neglect his business, and his ruin is certain. A man who is lying on a bed of sickness need not cut his throat to destroy himself; he has only to neglect the means of restoration, and he will be ruined. A man floating in a skiff above Niagara need not move an oar, or make an effort, to destroy himself; he has only to neglect using the oar at the proper time, and he will certainly be carried over the cataract.
Infidels' dying words reveal despair and fear of judgment without Christ.
Voltaire, addressing his doctor, said, “I am abandoned by God and man. I will give you half of what I am worth if you will give me six months of life.” The doctor answered, “Sir, yon cannot live six weeks.” Voltaire replied, “Then I shall go to Hell, and yon will go with me;” and soon after expired. Spira, an Italian apostate, exclaimed just before death, “My sin is greater than the mercy of God. I have denied Christ voluntarily; I feel that He hardens me, and allows me no hope.” Charles IX, who gave orders for the massacre on St. Bartholomew’s Day, expired, bathed in his own blood, whilst he said: “I am lost forever; I know it.” Newport.—”Oh, the insufferable pangs of Hell and damnation!” Hobbes.—”About to take a leap into the dark!”
Death marks the boundary between time and eternity, with ongoing consciousness.
As you take the hand of a loved one and see the light of the eye go out, you feel as though you were standing on the line between time and Eternity. I cannot believe that there is any lack of consciousness; I cannot believe that there is any lack of interest in the loved ones left behind. To me, as I grow older, the other world seems nearer, more and more of my friends are crossing. So many that took you and me by the hand in other days have crossed the river, but they may not be far from us. Are they not interested in us yet? Do they not love us still?
A dying street boy envisions angels and longs for heaven despite his harsh life.
In a dark alley in the great city of New York, a small, ragged boy might be seen. He appeared to be about twelve years old, and had a careworn expression on his countenance. The cold air seemed to have no pity as it pierced through his ragged clothes, and made the flesh beneath blue and almost frozen. [Illustration: "I am dying now, because I feel so queer; and I can hardly see you. I can kinder see the angels holding out their hands for me to come to that beautiful place they call heaven."] This poor boy had once a happy home. His parents died a year before, and left him without money or friends. He was compelled to face the cold, cruel world with but a few cents in his pocket. He tried to earn his living by selling newspapers and other such things. This day everything seemed to go against him, and in despair he threw himself down in the dark alley, with his papers by his side. A few boys gathered around the poor lad, and asked in a kind way (for a street Arab): "Say, Johnny, why don't you go to the lodges?" (The lodge was a place where almost all the boys stayed at night, costing but a few cents.) But the poor little lad could only murmur that he could not stir, and called the boys about him, saying: "I am dying now, because I feel so queer: and I can hardly see you. Gather around me closer boys. I cannot talk so loud. I can kinder see the angels holding out their hands for me to come to that beautiful place called heaven. Goodbye, boys. I am to meet father and mother." And, with these last words on his lips, the poor lad died. Next morning the passers-by saw a sight that would soften the most hardened heart. There, lying on the cold stone, with his head against the hard wall, and his eyes staring upward, was the poor little frozen newsboy. He was taken to the chapel near by, and was interred by kind hands. And those who performed this act will never forget the poor forsaken lad. -- Golden Dawn
Death reveals our eternal state, freezing us in the character we hold at life's end.
The hour of death may be fitly likened to that celebrated picture in the National Gallery, of Perseus holding up the head of Medusa. That head turned all persons into stone who looked upon it. There is a warrior represented with a dart in his hand; he stands stiffened, turned into stone, with the javelin even in his fist. There is another with a poignard beneath his robe, about to stab; he is now the statue of an assassin, motionless and cold. Another is creeping along stealthily, like a man in ambuscade, and there he stands a consolidated rock; he has looked only upon that head, and he is frozen into stone. Such is death. What I am when death is held before me, that I must be for ever. When my spirit departs, if God finds me hymning his praise, I shall hymn it in heaven; if he finds me breathing out oaths, I shall follow up those oaths in hell.
A Christian's last moment is the sweetest, nearest heaven, and the start of eternal praise.
The best moment of a Christian's life is his last one, because it is the one which is nearest heaven; and then it is that he begins to strike the keynote of the song which he shall sing to all eternity. O! what a song that will be!
Accidental deaths and injuries far exceed wartime casualties annually in America.
Man’s increasing wisdom and growing regard for his fellow man will some day result in a better state of things than is here indicated:
According to an estimate made by Mr. Frederick L. Hoffman, of the Prudential Insurance Company, the annual rate of fatal accidents in American cities is between 80 and 85 in each 100,000. On a basis of 80,000,000 population, this would mean a yearly loss of about 65,000 lives. By the same authority it is calculated that 1,664,000 persons are badly injured every year, and that some 4,800,000 receive wounds of a less serious character. We have a yearly list of fatalities somewhere between 64,000 and 80,240, and of serious maimings of 1,600,000; whereas two great armies, employing all the enginery of warfare, could succeed in slaughtering only 62,112 human beings yearly. (Text.)
The short life of the mayfly contrasts with eternity, reminding of life’s brevity.
The May-fly, of which there are several varieties, lives at the longest but three or four days; some varieties but a few hours of one day. Yet they are delicately organized, and possess all the functions of insect lives.
Man’s few years of mortal existence may seem as brief compared with eternity.
The brief life cycle of a butterfly illustrates the fleeting nature of mortal life.
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The life of a perfect butterfly or moth is short. A few days after emergence from the chrysalis case, the female deposits her eggs on the leaves or stems of the plant that is to sustain the larvæ. Her work is now accomplished, and the few days more allowed her are spent in frolicking among the flowers, and sucking the sweet juices they provide. They soon show symptoms of a fast approaching end. Their colors begin to fade, and the beauty-making scales of the wings gradually disappear through friction against the petals of hundreds of flowers visited and the merry dances with scores and scores of playful companions. At last, one bright afternoon, while the sun is still high in the heavens, a butterfly, more weary than usual, with heavy and laborious flight, seeks a place of rest for the approaching night. Here, on a waving stalk, it is soon lulled to sleep by a gentle breeze.
Next morning, a few hours before noon, the blazing sun calls it out for its usual frolics. But its body now seems too heavy to be supported by the feeble and ragged wings, and, after one or two weak attempts at play, it settles down in its final resting-place. On the following morning a dead butterfly is seen, still clinging by its claws to a swinging stem.--W. FURNEAUX, “Butterflies and Moths.”
Proper burial honors the dead and preserves their memory respectfully and permanently.
Gen. M. C. Meigs, U.S.A., discusses the burial of the dead as follows in _Building_:
I see that the question of disposing of the dead in towers of masonry, or by cementation, is being discust. It is not new. Asiatic conquerors have built the living, after capture of their cities, into towers of masonry, using their bodies as blocks, and generally the adobe mortars of the desert plains for cementing them together. One of them built a pyramid or tower containing thousands of heads.
The city of New York inters in its Potter’s Field about four thousand bodies annually. Europe rents a grave site for a term of years--a short term--and then disinters the bones and packs them in a catacomb or a vault. Would not New York save money and treat its dead with greater respect if it embedded each body in a mass of Hudson River cement and sand (Beton Coignet)? I find that one-half a cubic yard of Beton Coignet will completely enclose the body of a man of six feet stature, weighing two hundred pounds. The average human being would require even less than thirteen cubic feet. At ruling prices such a sarcophagus would cost only two or three dollars. The name and date, a perpetual record and memorial of the dead, could be inscribed with letter-punches or stamps on the head or foot of the block or sarcophagus. Ranged alongside each other in contact, and in two rows, _i.e._, two blocks deep, these would build on any suitable plan a fourteen-foot wall, massive enough and strong enough to be carried to the height of one hundred and fifty feet.
Thus would be erected, at the rate of nearly two thousand cubic yards per year, a great temple of silence, a grand and everlasting monument to those who pass away. The designs for such a monument seem worthy of the study of our best architects. It might be a pyramid, a cone, a tower, or a temple, or a long gallery like those of the Italian city of Bologna, the most beautiful cemetery in the world.
Many years ago the London _Architect_ published the proposal of an architect to erect by slow degrees and in successive courses a solid pyramid in which, in cells, the dead of London would be enclosed. But this made no provision for memorial inscriptions or visible records. The fourteen-foot wall does this.--_Building._
