No name is better known wherever Scotsmen dwell on the face of the earth than that of Sir Walter Scott. His "Waverly Novels" have found their way into every corner of the world, and been translated into most major languages, and his poems recited wherever civilized language is used. Yet though he made his name and won enduring fame by fiction, it did not even suffice for himself in his last moments. Shattered in fortune and health, he turned at last to fact—the great facts of the Word of God, of which he has well written:
Within this wondrous Volume lies
The mystery of mysteries.
Happiest they of human race
To whom their God has given grace
To read, to fear, to hope, to pray;
To lift the latch, to find the way.
And better they had ne'er been born,
That read to doubt, or read to scorn.
Lying in lovely Abbotsford during his last illness, he said to his son-in-law, Mr. Lockhart, "Bring me that Book."
"What book?" asked Mr. Lockhart.
"There is but one Book," replied the famous author. "Read to me out of the Bible."
And he was right, for whatever may seem to satisfy during life, "God and the Word of His grace" alone can satisfy in death and for eternity. "And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Heb. 9:2727And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: (Hebrews 9:27)), it is well to be prepared for the day of reckoning. Works of fiction may do to spend the moments of Time; words of truth and grace alone can prepare for Eternity.