when dying, that they had lived in infidelity. Everywhere such instances have occurred. They are tco notorious to need citation. The boldest unbelievers have furnished the most numerous examples. They have felt every foundation removed when heart and flesh began to fail. What they had boasted in life, they found a miserable comforter in death. The Earl of Rochester, a scholar and a blasphemer, as

mine that all was not right within. This continued and increased until he became insensible. I hope in God I shall never witness a similar scene."" Christian Observer, vol. 31, p. 665.

66

There is internal evidence of truth attached to the above. Hume had no opinions with regard to God, or the future, except that all was doubtful. Whether there was a God, a future state, a hell, or annihilation, he did not profess to know. The future had its terrors, he acknowledged. To him they were terrors of darkness and uncertainty. He spoke of "the calm, though obscure regions of philosophy." He called the whole question as to man's future destiny, a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery." All he could arrive at was, “doubt, uncertainty, suspense of judgment." In this state of mind, nothing could have been more forced or unnatural than the levity described by Smith. That was his stage-dress. If a man lay a hundred pounds upon a game, he is anxious till the uncertainty as to its fate be removed. But Hume knew that his ALL, For EVER, was at stake, and that he was unconcerned, unanxious, when not diverted, is incredible. On the other hand, the account presented above is exactly what nature and reason would expect from the state of mind in which the philosopher described himself, as to all that awaited him. Not to be penetrated with anxiety of the most painful kind, when a few hours were to decide whether he was to be annihilated, or to be carried to the judgment-seat of God, and find all that he had ridiculed in the gospel true, and be condemned to eternal misery-a destiny which, on his own principles, was as likely as any thing elsecould only be accounted for on the supposition that disease, or friends, diverted his attention from the decision approaching.

deep in vice as in infidelity, when he approached the end of life, became a thorough penitent, and to one of his former companions said, from his death-bed, "O remember, that you contemn God no longer. He is an avenging God, and will visit you for your sins; and will, I hope, in mercy touch your conscience, sooner or later, as he has done mine. You and I have been friends and sinners together a great while. We have been all mistaken in our conceits and opinions; our persuasions have been false and groundless; therefore I pray God grant you repentance." To those who had been drawn into sin by his example and encouragement, he said, "I warn them no more to make a mock of sin, or contemn the pure and excellent religion of my ever blessed Redeemer, through whose merits alone, I, one of the greatest of sinners, do yet hope for mercy and forgiveness."

Hobbes could never bear to talk of death. His mind was haunted with tormenting reflections. If his candle went out in the night, while he was in bed, he was in misery. As he descended to the grave, he said, "he was about to take a leap in the dark."

Struenzee, prime minister of Denmark, and Brandt the companion of his disgrace and imprisonment, had both been poisoned by the writings and society of Voltaire; and both, in prospect of death, renounced infidelity with detestation, and embraced the gospel as all their hope.

Shall I lead you to the horrible spectacle of Voltaire in the arms of death, and expecting in a few moments to stand at the bar of God. He has just

returned from a feast of applause in the theatre, to be laid on a bed of death in the agonies of an upbraiding conscience. The physician enters. "Doctor," said the apostle of infidelity, with the utmost consternation, "I am abandoned by God and man. I will give you half of what I am worth, if you will give me six months' life." The physician told him he could not live six weeks. 66 Then," said he, "I shall go to hell." His companions in guilt, D'Alembert, Diderot, and Marmontel, hasten to keep up his courage, but meet nothing but reproach and horror. In spite of the guard of infidels about him, he sends for the Abbé Gautier to come as soon as possible. In his presence and that of other witnesses, he signs a recantation of infidelity, and professes to die in the church. It is sent to the rector of St. Sulpice and the archbishop of Paris for approval. The Abbé Gautier returns with it, but cannot enter. Every ayenue to the dying infidel is defended by those who had shared in his conspiracy against Christianity. They want to hide his terrors and their own shame. Now it is that D'Alembert, Diderot, and about twenty others of like character who beset his apartment, never approach him but to hear their condemnation. "Retire!" he often exclaims with execrations; "it is you that have brought me to my present state. Begone! I could have done without you all, but you could not exist without me. And what a wretched glory have you produced me!" Then his conspiracy comes before him, and alternately supplicating and blaspheming, he complains that he is abandoned by

God and man, and often cries out, "O Christ! O Jesus Christ!" He is looking on Him whom he pierced. He is drinking the cup of trembling, the foretaste of the second death. The Mareschal de Richelieu flies from the scene, declaring it "too terrible to be sustained." The physicians, thunderstruck, retire, declaring the death of the impious man to be terrible indeed." One of them pronounces that "the furies of Orestes could give but a faint idea of those of Voltaire."*

We shall close these awful scenes with a few glances at the dying Paine. Once it was his boast, that during a dangerous illness he thought with new satisfaction of having written the Age of Reason, and found by experiment that his principles were sufficient to sustain him in expectation of death. It was an empty boast. Let us see him when really dying, He would not be left alone night or day. If he could not see that some one was with him, he would scream till a person appeared. A female attendant more than once found him in the attitude of prayer. Having asked her what she thought of his Age of

* "The nurse who attended him being, many years afterwards, requested to wait on a sick Protestant gentleman, refused till she was assured he was not a philosopher; declaring, if he were, she would on no account incur the danger of witnessing such a scene as she had been compelled to do at the death of M. Voltaire. I received this account," adds the Right Rev. Daniel Wilson, "from the son of the gentleman to whose dyingbed the woman was invited, by a letter now in my possession.'

The above account is abridged from the "History of Jacobinism," by the Abbé Baruel, and has been denied by no one of the many witnesses to the death of Voltaire.

Reason, and being answered, that from a conviction of its evil tendency she had burnt it, he wished all its readers had been as wise, and added, "If ever the devil had an agent on earth, I have been one." An infidel visitor said to him, "You have lived like a man, I hope you will die like one." He turned to others in the room and said, "You see what miserable comforters I have." The woman whom he had enticed from her husband, lamented to a neighbor her sad condition. "For this man," she said, "I have given up my family and friends, my property and my religion; judge then of my distress, when he tells me that the principles he has taught me will not bear me out." Well might she be distressed when she heard his exclamations. "He would call out, during his paroxysms of distress, without intermission, '() Lord, help me; God help me; Jesus Christ help me; O Lord, help me;' repeating the same expressions without any the least variation, in a tone of voice that would alarm the house."*

And now, what need be said in conclusion? have seen the fruit of the trees.

ruption, the other holiness of life.

You

One produces cor

One roots up, the

other nourishes and cherishes whatever is good around it. The spread of infidelity is that of vice and disorder and all confusion. The spread of Christianity is that of purity, peace, and all the virtues of the social state. The more thoroughly an individual embraces infidelity, the more entirely does he become the slave of sin.. The more perfectly he embraces

*Cheetham's Life of Paine.