The Christian's Death

       For centuries the world has admired the calmness and fortitude of Socrates in the presence of death, but if Socrates died like a philosopher, Patrick Henry died like a Christian. In his last illness, all other remedies having failed, his physician, Doctor Cobell, proceeded to administer to him a dose of liquid mercury. Taking the vial in his hand, and looking at it for a moment, the dying man said:

      "I suppose doctor, this is your last resort?''

      " I am sorry to say, governor, that it is."

      "What will be the effect of this medicine?"

      "It will give you immediate relief, or--"

      The doctor could not finish the sentence.

      His patient too up the word: "You mean, doctor, that it will give relief or will prove fatal immediately?"

      "You can live only a very short time without it," the doctor answered, "and it may possibly relieve you."

      Then the old statesman said:

      "Excuse me, doctor, for a few minutes," and drawing over his eyes a silken cap which he usually wore, and still holding the vial in his hand, he prayed in clear words a simple, childlike prayer for his family, for his country, and for his own soul, then in the presence of death. Afterward, in perfect calmness, he swallowed the medicine.

      Meanwhile Doctor Cobell, who greatly loved him, went out to the lawn, and in his grief threw himself down upon the earth under one of the trees, and wept bitterly. Soon, when he had sufficiently mastered himself, the doctor returned to his patient, whom he found calmly watching the congealing blood under his finger-nails, and speaking words of love and peace to his family, who were weeping round his chair.

      Among other things, he told them that he was thankful for that goodness of God which, having blest him through all his life, was then permitting him to die without any pain. Finally fixing his eyes with much tenderness upon his dear friend, Doctor Cobell, with whom he had formerly held many arguments respecting the Christian religion, he asked the doctor to observe how great a reality and benefit that religion was to a man about to die.

      And after Patrick Henry had spoken these few words in praise of something which, having never failed him in his life before, did not then fail him in his very last need of it, he continued to breath very softly for some moments, after which they who were looking upon him saw that his life had departed. -- The Youth's Companion 

• Who Was Patrick Henry?
• Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation - Red Hill

"Blessed Assurance" hymn recorded from Hymn For Today

Hope Beyond The Grave

 Hope Beyond The Grave

This night, and the landscape is lovely no more;

I mourn; but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you,

For morn is approaching your charms to restore,

Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew,

Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn;

Kind nature the embryo blossom will save.

But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn?

Oh! when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?

"Twas thus, by the glare of false science betrayed,

That leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind,

My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade,

Destruction before me, and sorrow behind.

"Oh, pity, great Father of Light!" then I cried,

"Thy creature, who fain would not wander from Thee!

Lo! humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride:

From doubt and from darkness Thou only canst free."

And darkness and doubt are now flying away;

No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn:

So breaks on the traveler, faint and astray,

The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn.

See Truth, Love and Mercy, in triumph descending,

And Nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom.

On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending,

And Beauty immortal awakes from the tomb.

by James Beattie, LL. D.

Nearer, My God, to Thee.

from Pilgrim's Praises

The Buds Opening in Heaven

Child with flower.

       Heaven is greatly made up of little children, sweet buds that have never blown, or which death has plucked from a mother's bosom to lay on his own cold breast, just when they were expanding, flower-like, from the sheath, and opening their engaging beauties in the budding time and spring of life. 'Of such is the kingdom of heaven.' How sweet these words by the cradle of a dying infant! They fall like balm drops on our bleeding heart, when we watch the ebbing of that young life, as wave after wave breaks feebler, and the sinking breath gets lower and lower, till with a gentle sigh, and a passing quiver of the lip, our child now leaves its body, lying like an angel asleep, and ascends to the beatitudes of heaven and the bosom of God. Indeed it may be, that God does with his heavenly garden, as we do with our gardens. He may chiefly stock it from nurseries, and select for transplanting what is yet in its young and tender age--flowers before they have bloomed, and trees ere they begin to bear. Rev Dr. Guthrie

"'Tis sweet to die! The flowers of earthly love,

(Fair, frail spring blossoms) early droop and die;

Upon our spirits evermore to lie

Fanny Forrester.

The Belfry Pigeon

 The Belfry Pigeon

by Nathaniel Parker Willis

On the cross-beam under the Old South bell

The nest of a pigeon is builded well

In summer and winter that bird is there,

Out and in with the morning air;

I love to see him track the street,

With his wary eye and active feet;

And I often watch him as he springs,

Circling the steeple with easy wings,

Till across the dial his shade has passed,

And the belfry edge is gained at last;

'Tis a bird I love, with its brooding note,

And the trembling throb in its mottled throat;

There's a human look in its swelling breast,

And the gentle curve of its lowly crest;

And I often stop with the fear I feel--

He runs so close to the rapid wheel.

Whatever is rung on that noisy bell--

Chime of the hour, or funeral knell--

The dove in the belfry must hear it well.

When the tongue swings out to the midnight

moon,

When the sexton cheerly rings for noon,

When the clock strikes clear at morning 

light,

When the child is waked with "nine at 

night,"

When the chimes play soft in the Sabbath air,

Filling the spirit with tones of prayer,--

Whatever tale in the bell is heard,

He broods on his folded feet unstirred,

Or, rising half in his rounded nest,

He takes the time to smooth his breast,

Then drops again, with filmed eyes,

And sleeps as the last vibration dies.

Sweet bird! I would that I could be

A hermit in the crowd like thee!

With wings to fly to wood and glen,

Thy lot, like mine, is cast with men;

And daily, with unwilling feet,

I tread, like thee, the crowded street, 

But, unlike me, when day is o'er,

Thou canst dismiss the world, and soar;

Or, at a half-felt wish for rest,

Canst smooth the feathers on thy breast,

And drop, forgetful, to thy nest.

I would that, in such wings of gold,

I could my weary heart unfold;

I would I could look down unmoved

(Unloving as I am unloved),

And while the world throngs on beneath,

Smooth down my cares and calmly breathe;

And never sad with others' sadness,

And never glad with others' gladness,

Listen, unstirred, to knell or chime,

And, lapped in quiet, bide my time.

The Hope of Immortality

        Such worshipers of the new are all made by the creative genius of our era, that in order to appreciate the old you must ask your imagination to picture them as coming up before you for the first time. With what tears of joy would you hail the hope of immortality had that hope just come into the world! If dust had been the assumed end of man, what discovery of science or art would compare in sublimity with the sudden assurance of a second and blessed life? Such an expectation dwarfs all the common hopes of this world. A Prince yearly approaching a throne, a gifted mind gathering up the honors of learning or power, a citizen drawing near a fabulous fortune, are all small scenes or outlooks compared with that of a humble child steadily moving toward an endless and painless being. When you remember how you all love life and feel sad over the fact that the grave is before you, you may well be amazed at the height and depth of the doctrine of a second existence that shall be in all ways higher and sweeter than this. The slowness with which this notion came to man has hidden its vastness. Its age is a witness for its truth, but is against its grandeur as a thought. It is modified by its antiquity as mountains are made treeless and cold by intervening miles. Their verdure, and cascades, and song of birds are all toned away from the senses by their distance. They are spoken of as "gray," or "hazy," or " blue." One simple attribute thus remains out of a marvelous richness and variety. From many old doctrines has the multitude moved away until ideas are seen in some one dead color - ideas vast as God and beautiful as Paradise.

       When love once fears that it may cease, it has already ceased. It is all the same to our hearts, whether the beloved one fades away or only his love. Prof. David Swing

"Immortal, Invisible" Hymn, 

This version by Tommy Walker Ministries