A violent storm overtook a vessel on one of the lakes. Among the passengers were Volney, the French atheist, two men, and several ladies. The danger became imminent, but no one exhibited such terror as Volney, who threw himself on the deck, now imploring, now cursing the captain, and reminding him that he had engaged to carry him safely to his destination. At last, as the probability of their being lost increased, he loaded his pockets with dollars and prepared to swim for his life.
One of the men remonstrated with him on his folly, pointing out that he would sink like a piece of lead with so great a weight.
After this, Volney became so noisy, and was besides so much in the way of the sailors, that they pushed him down the hatchway.
He, however, soon came up again, having lightened himself of the dollars, and in agony of mind he once more threw himself on the deck, exclaiming with uplifted hands and streaming eyes, "O, my God! my God! what shall I do?”
"What, Mr. Volney!" said one of the passengers. "So you have a God now!" Volney replied, with trembling anxiety,
"O yes, yes!”
He then became so ashamed of himself that he hid away from his fellow-passengers, who had previously heard his boastful scoffing against Christianity.
There is, properly speaking, no such person as an atheist—one who does not believe in a Supreme Being: "No God" is mere idle talk. It is comparatively easy, when in health and safety, to protest loudly against the possibility of the existence of a God; it is altogether another thing when grim death stares one in the face. Then these so-called atheists or infidels betray their secret belief in the power of God, and are overwhelmed with a dread of the Eternal.
Many instances can be adduced of their abject terror in times of danger, and if all the deathbed experiences of infidels were truly narrated, it would probably be found that scarcely one of them departed without some recognition or fear of God.