The boldness of flippant unbelievers is sometimes illustrated, by the dying words of ungodly men. A case in point is brought under notice by the following paragraphs from a recent issue of the “Sunday School Times” of Philadelphia:
“A New York State newspaper has published an account of the funeral service of an unbeliever which was startlingly unusual. A member of a ‘Spiritualist Science Church’ officiated, and an address that had been prepared by the man who died was read, containing the following statements: ‘I do not believe in a personal God, or, in other words, the God of the Book called the Bible.... This Book is the production of man, and in the near future the largest portion of it will be looked upon as emanating from a corrupt and diseased imagination.... Man is not a fallen creature, but has always continued to rise, from the atom to man, the highest intelligence on this plane, and will continue to rise from one grand reality to another through the æons to come.... You are your own architect, will be your own judge and executioner. You cannot transfer your responsibilities to the shoulders of a Christ.’
“No doubt this lost man was sincere in these tragic words of unbelief. He unconsciously believed Satan’s lies, and rejected God’s only Way of Salvation in God’s Son our Saviour. A reader of the ‘Sunday School Times,’ sending this clipping, writes: No man ever repented of being a Christian on his death-bed. John Wesley said, ‘Our people die well.’ The infidel Gibbon said, when dying, ‘All is dark and doubtful,’ Voltaire exclaimed, ‘I am abandoned by God and man: I shall go to hell.’ Mirabeau, of the French Revolution, said, ‘Give me more laudanum, that I may not think of Eternity.’ And Tom Paine, the prince of infidels, said, ‘Stay with me, for God’s sake; it is hell to be left alone.’ These are the natural results of Atheism. But ‘whosoever will’ may be saved.”
Painful though these facts may be, there can be tic charity in covering them, or ignoring the actuality of the ungodliness they display. Again and again, it has been pointed out that among those who serve the great enemy of souls, there are men who “wish to have it so.” Surely it is the urgent duty of those who have commission from the Lord, to call men and women to serious consideration of their standing in regard to eternal judgment.