Page images
PDF
EPUB

The wild repetition of these words, in the tone and with the mad movements of a lunatic, was very distressing. The man's eye and whole expression betokened a real insanity. We arrived at the house, and soon found an old but strong coat. The poor man on seeing it tore off his old ragged remains of a coat, rolled it up into a ball, pitched it with a wild shriek into the air, and as it fell kicked it into the sea. He then put on the other, very quietly buttoned it, stroked it down with his hands, and seemed much satisfied, and spoke more composedly. "That's good; that's right good. Thank ye, Sir, for Jesus' sake, for Jesus' sake, for Goodness' sake."

We offered him, then, twopence, and asked him if he knew what to do with it.

66

'Aye, aye, to buy meat; to buy meat when a man's hungry. I'm not hungry; not to-day, not to-day." "But maybe you will be to-morrow. money."

Take the

"Look 'e there (showing a little bag of meal), look 'e there. See, I've plenty, and I'll get more, for Jesus' sake, for Jesus' sake (pushing away the money). No, no; see, I have plenty, thanks to Goodness, thanks to Jesus-to Jesus-to Jesus (raising his voice wildly).”

Thinking he might have some sense to understand me, I said, "Why do you use that name so carelessly, so often? It is not good to do so."

66

Carelessly, carelessly! No, no," (slowly,) "not carelessly-no, no!"

"Why do you use it at all?”

"Why? why? Sure, why wouldn't a man? Why wouldn't I? Sure, man, Jesus is Goodness! Sure God loves us, man dear! Sure God loves us, and we

love God; we love Jesus. Aye, man dear, that's it; don't ye know? that's it."

"And does God love you?"

"Is it love me? Aye, to be sure, man dear; and you too, man dear!"

"How can you think that, when He lets you go about naked and hungry?"

"Naked? (stroking down the coat.) Hungry? (taking the little bag of meal, about two pounds weight.) He doesn't. What would make you say that, man dear? HE DOESN'T. See what I got for Jesus' sake; see what Goodness made you give me for Jesus' sake. Man dear, it's all Goodness, ye know, all Goodness."

"Does Goodness do anything better for us than give us clothes and food?"

(Seriously) "Eh?"

"Does Jesus do anything better for us than keep us from hunger and nakedness?"

(More seriously) "Eh? Why do you ask that? Sure He loves me (speaking very slow, and without any wild expression). Aye, aye, man dear. He loves ye too, man; and I love ye, man, for JESUS' sake! Do ye forget all about it?”

"Where did you learn that?"

"Learn that? Aye. Go ye to the church at C-n, and ye'll hear all about it. I heard it all long ago; all, all; but I forget the most of it. Something came over me. Ah, ah! I was bad; I was bad! Ah, man dear, what is it? See, see, see!"

And away he ran, shouting and clapping his hands. He was a stranger in the district; and, on inquiry in the houses he had been relieved at, or had been lodged in, I was convinced he was not an impostor.

A DEATH-BED SCENE.

VISITING a sick man who seemed to be at the point of death, and was in extreme anguish of spirit, I tried to comfort him with all the assurances of God's forgiving love, and of God's promises of salvation to sinners.

The dying man replied that he could believe all this; could believe that, through Jesus Christ, he, although a great sinner, should be forgiven and received into heaven in the greatness of the mercy of the Lord.

"But," said he, " that is no consolation to me.

"I have not only been a sinner, but I have led others into sin; have been the occasion of the fall and iniquity of some; have assisted and forwarded the sin of others. Some of both I have known to die in open enmity to God-in the very commission of their sins.

"Now they are damned, cut off from all salvation. "And I am to be saved! What salvation can make me happy, while I am the author, or at least the agent, of damnation, of eternal, unending torments, to some of my fellow-creatures-to some whom I have loved and do love still?

"Oh! no! no! If I was in heaven I could not but beg God Almighty, if He had a spark of pity for me, to let me go and share their torments, if I could not even help them or comfort them. No hell that God or devil could invent would be as horrible as heaven would be to me, while I knew that the fruit of my sin was their damnation beyond God's mercy."

He farther said; "I know much that you will say to put me off this view; but it is in vain. You will say it was their fault, and they would have been damned without my help.

"Maybe so; but they are damned by my help. And

if you call that 'love' which would torture me for ever in heaven with the thought of them in hell, or if you can call that love,' which I should necessarily feel towards God for bringing me to heaven in such a case, then your idea of love is very far from mine. It is far less love than that with which I love those lost souls. "You will say; perhaps, I shall know nothing about their torments. It will not do. If I could forget them, and the share I have in their damnation, I must forget my own self, my own sins; I must forget what God forgives me, and so I could not be a repentant or a grateful soul.

"No. We shall know more, and not less than we now do. And I shall see, oh! I shall see for ever, and ever, and ever, the torments of those poor lost souls; and every spark of brimstone upon them will be a furnace of glowing fire heaped upon me, and blown to a greater fury of fire by my being in heaven (if I am to be there) and they in hell.

"And in hell they are most surely-for they never had the opportunities I have had; they died young: some in the very commission of sin, and in utter ignorance of the Gospel, or in flagrant denial of its truth.

"Yes, they are damned-damned-damned! And if I had been so unfortunate as to be cut off when they were, I should be so too-and beyond all hope-beyond all mercy-beyond all salvation."

Then with a ghastly look he said, slowly: "Did YOU never help a soul to hell? If you did not, you must have always been good. And if you did, do you expect to be happy in heaven while they are in hell, eh ?"

I had often and long considered the subject, though not exactly in this view of it; so that, although much moved by his hopeless agony, I saw the error that caused it. But never did the dreadfulness of that error force itself so upon me.

I asked him; "Why do you say they are damned beyond all hope, beyond all salvation ?"

"Because they are dead."

reach the dead?"

"And cannot God's power
"To be sure it can; but it won't."
"Why?"

[ocr errors]

Why? Why, how can you ask? Does not every one know that after a man is dead all hope is gone?"

[blocks in formation]

"You don't know it! Yet you know the Bible better far than I do. O! tell me, tell me, what possible hope have for sinners who die in their sins?"

can you

"Just the same as for those that live in their sinsdamnation is their portion!"

"Ah! but while we live we may be rescued from the terrible danger."

"No, my friend, no! He who lives in sin is in no danger of damnation."

"No danger?"

"No; for he is damned! lost!"

"And no hope, then, for any one?"

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »