Dying Words
By J. C. Philpot
Death sets a solemn and final stamp on the life. The
setting sun casts its expiring rays over air, earth, and sky, and tinges the
whole prospect with its peculiar prevailing color. Be that hue lurid and
threatening, or be it bright and golden, such also is the general tone and
complexion of the landscape. Whatever darkness and gloom, mist and fog,
cloud and storm, may have marked the day, a beautiful evening, a bright
sunset, makes amends, and stamps its character on the whole. In many a
tried, tempted believer has this been spiritually verified. A bright sunset
has made amends for a day of mist and fog, cloud and storm.
But ah! how different with the ungodly! When the wicked
are in full prosperity they are like a river flowing on to a cataract. We
view only the wide, gentle flow of waters dancing and gleaming beneath the
sunbeam; and the sound of the cataract in the distance is not heard. We see
only how the ungodly spend their days in prosperity and their years in
pleasure; and we forget the abyss of misery and woe to which they are
hastening. When the waters have fallen down the precipice, and we are
stunned with the noise and wetted by the spray, we then see the beginning
from the end, and how deceitful and perilous was the river's former flow.
Their pursuits and pleasures, sins and follies, all come to remembrance, and
we see misery and destruction stamped on all their ways, from the cradle to
the grave—from the first rise of the rill to the river's final fall. If
connected with us by ties of blood, how painful the thought of their past
life and present condition! and if anything particular has marked their
end—suddenness or despair, the reflection is too acute to be borne, and it
is driven from the mind by any means, if possible.
How different the end of the righteous! Old John Newton,
whose remarks usually embody much sound sententious wisdom, used to say,
"Don't tell me how the man died; tell me how he lived." There may be some
truth in this, but not the whole truth. If it is blessed to live well, it is
blessed to die well. If living faith is desirable, is not dying faith
desirable? And if victory over the first enemy, unbelief, and over the three
middle enemies, the flesh, the world, and the devil, is so highly prized as
God's gift and faith's conquest, why should not victory over the last enemy,
death, be still more highly prized as God's last gift and faith's greatest
triumph? It is true that we read in the Scriptures much of the life, but
little of the death of Job, Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, and other
saints of old. Stephen's blessed end, and that chiefly as connected with his
martyrdom, is, we believe, almost the only happy death specially mentioned
in the New Testament. And yet it cannot be denied that a peaceful, happy end
is greatly desirable, not only for the departing but for those who remain
behind; for strength and comfort to survivor as well as to sufferer. The
rays of the Sun of Righteousness, gilding a dying pillow, reflect a blessed
light over the whole spiritual life of the departed. If there have been
circumstances in life, such as infirmities of temper, errors of judgment, a
trying path in providence, a doubting, fearing track in grace, which may
have cast somewhat of a shade over him, an end marked beyond contradiction
by the power and presence of the God of all grace fully dispels it. Former
specks and blemishes are lost in the last flood of light; dubious marks are
cleared up; doubts and hesitations are dispersed; and triumphant grace
swallows up the last remnant of suspicion. His looks, his words are embalmed
in the memory; the tears that flow over him are not bitter and scalding, but
soft and tender, mingling holy joy with affectionate sorrow; and his very
remains seem consecrated by the spirit—the now glorified spirit, which but
yesterday tenanted them. To them affection and respect pay the last
services. Faith digs the grave; Hope deposits in it the mortal remains until
the resurrection morn; and Love writes the epitaph, on which SUPERABOUNDING
GRACE is traced in capitals so large as to leave no space for the small
print of the good qualities, or the misprint of the bad qualities of the
departed.
Nor does the blessing end when the tomb has closed over
the pale, cold relics of mortality. Dying words are remembered; and
often, like seeds scattered from a harvested sheaf, afterwards spring up and
grow. To many a wild son, to many a thoughtless daughter, have the dying
expressions of a believing parent been in after life an awakening voice, and
made them to feel that there was a power in that still chamber, a reality in
religion on that bed of suffering to which they are strangers. As the blood
of the martyrs was the seed of the church, so the last life-drops of a dying
parent have often not fallen to the ground like water spilled, but have
sprung up into a spiritual seed. Samson slew more in death than in all his
previous life; and thus many an expiring parent has done more to slaughter a
worldly spirit and a worldly religion in the heart of a child by death in
faith, than by a whole life of warning and admonition. Dying words
are remembered when the living are forgotten!