We were traveling by express from C―y to B―m, when suddenly one of my fellow-passengers, a woman of middle age, startled by a noise, probably the shaking of the lamp above our heads, exclaimed ―
“Oh, dear! do you think it’s safe?”
A smart young man, sitting opposite to her, dressed in railway uniform, amused at her fright, replied jocosely―
“Never mind, Missus, you can only die once.”
Sitting near him, I answered, “Excuse me, that’s not true.” He seemed a little surprised by my remark, when I added, “You have been wrongly informed on that subject; pray where did you get your information from, that people can only die once? I know, on an authority that makes no mistake, that there is such a thing as dying twice.” Taking my Bible from my pocket, I read the passage, “This is the second death.” Rev. 20:1414And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. (Revelation 20:14).
“I trust, my friend,” I added, “that none of us in this carriage may ever know what it is to die twice.
“Thank God, there is a way of escape! and it is quite clear, from God’s word, who they are that the second death cannot touch, as verse 6 of Rev. 20 shows, but unless your name is in the ‘book of life,’ you cannot escape dying twice.”
Evidently the young man was somewhat taken aback by this (to him) new doctrine, though he replied a little confusedly, “Oh yes, that is true,” but it was plain, up to that moment, it had been a matter of little concern to him, whether the eternal blessedness of a life that death cannot touch was to be his, or whether he was to spend his eternity in the lake of fire, “which is the second death.”
Our journey ended, we separated, on our part desiring that God might awaken him and our fellow-travelers to a sense of the solemnity of the subject which had thus occupied us during our ride together.