"Pray for Me to the Devil"

In the life of John Paton, the missionary, he tells the following incident connected with his early life: ―He says: I visited an infidel whose wife was a Roman Catholic. He became unwell and gradually sank under great suffering and agony. His blasphemies against God were known and shuddered at by all the neighbors. His wife pleaded with me to visit him. She refused, at my suggestion to call her own priest, so I accompanied her at last. The man refused to hear one word about spiritual things and foamed with rage; he even spat at me when I mentioned the name Jesus. “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him! There is a wisdom which is at best earthly, and at worst “sensual and devilish.” His wife asked me to take care of the little money they had, as she would not entrust it to her own priest. I visited the poor man daily, but his enmity to God and his sufferings together seemed to drive him mad. His yells gathered crowds on the streets: he tore to pieces his very bed-clothes, till they had to bind him on the iron bed where he lay, foaming and blaspheming. Towards the end I pleaded with him even then to look to the Lord Jesus, and asked if I might pray with him. With all his remaiiing strength, he shouted at me: ―
“Pray for me to the Devil”
Reminding him how he had always denied that there was any devil, I suggested that he must surely believe in one now, else he would scarcely make such a request, even in mockery. In great rage, he cried: “Yes, I believe there is a devil, and a God, and a just God, too; but I have hated Him in life and I hate Him in death! With these awful words, he wriggled into eternity; but his shocking death produced a very serious impression for good especially amongst young men in the district where his character was known.