THIS ancient cult, hitherto largely confined to heathendom, is, in these death-dealing days, beginning to creep, like a thief in the night, into the hearts and minds of men, and is speeding at an alarming rate through our own land.
As to its origin there can be no manner of doubt; it emanates from the Pit, and its root, its flower and fruit, savor of the father of lies, even the Evil One himself! Under its blinding and soul-deadening influence the minds of those who allow Satan’s subtle tentacles to enfold them, are held down to the earthly plane, and the material horizon.
Such is the satanic stranglehold that the vision of its victim is limited to the things of time and sense, and “the things that are not seen but eternal,” are utterly blotted out; he hopes that “death ends all.”
The essence of this dark creed may be condensed into its modern, though pagan, slogan: “When my number’s up, then I’ll have to go, so that’s that!”
The Black Void.
But the Fatalist is not one whit above the Infidel, the Agnostic, the Atheist, or — the Suicide, for he is deliberately committing soul-suicide!
The outcome of this material doctrine — that “What is to be will be,” the “Kismet” of the Oriental — leads to a hardening of the conscience in the one who holds it, in his-repudiation of any accountability towards God, or responsibility in regard to his own eternity. Moreover, he ignores the Divine warning that, “Every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” It has no place for sin, or need of the Saviour, and thus consigns its dupe to making the most of this world with such catch-words as, “A short life and a merry one!” while starving his soul, and dooming him to everlasting loss.
An Illustration.
I go back along the years, and in memory I find myself standing by the bedside of a dying shipmate, an Agnostic. “Nobody can know what happens on the other side,” he asserted, and in his feeble mental and physical state — his mind saturated with his agnostic ideas — he seemed quite unable to grasp those verities on which the Christian stakes his future.
Here was a soul launching out on the measureless, timeless Sea of Eternity, without chart, compass, sailing directions, or Pilot, into the blackness and darkness of despair, where God had held out for him nothing but light, and life, and “joy unspeakable and full of glory!”
A Warning!
My reader, I would beg of you to shun such a Will-o’-the-Wisp as Fatalism is, with all your heart and soul, and if you have not done so, to accept Christ as your Saviour.
Then, and then only, can you meet Death, that messenger at the gate of eternity, with true fortitude. And he will meet you, not as a deadly foe, but as a friend who will usher you into that glad haven of happiness for which we men intuitively long! “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
E. G. C.