He Died as He Lived

1915

"Begone!" cried a young skeptic to a clergyman; "I want none of your cant," when he showed him the great need of repentance. "I am not going to die, and, if I were, I would die as I have lived."

The physician came, to whom he said, "O tell me I'm not dying; I will not die!" "My poor friend, I cannot speak falsely to you; your soul will, ere long, be with your God." "My God!" he said. "I have no God save the world; I have stifled conviction, I have fought against God. I have resisted my mother's pleadings; and now you tell me that I must die. Do you know," he added in an awful whisper, "all that means? If I die today I shall go to hell! Take it back; tell me I'm not going to die. Father," he said," 'twas you who taught me this, you who led me on in this way; and now you say I'm going to die Stand back!" he shrieked; "I will not die!"

And a torrent of invective issued from his fever-parched lips, so terrible in their madness that it seemed like a wail from the sea of woe. No wonder the poor mother was borne, fainting from the room, and the father's brow was corrugated, while great drops of agony rested there. Oh, that infidel father! How must his heart have bled in that dreadful hour, when, in the midst of dire cursings, his gifted son fell back a corpse!