COLONEL R. I— was for many years the leader in America of what is called “free thought.” The writer has before him a reporter’s account of what was said by a Dr. E—, one of R. I—’s greatest friends, to his fellow “freethinkers,” as they stood around the dead body of their once infidel leader. We say advisedly “once infidel,” for, however much infidelity a dying man may leave behind him, it is certain he takes none of it with him. “The spirit returns to God that gave it,” and “every one ... shall give account of himself to God,” and there is no infidelity there.
To use Dr. E—’s own words, Colonel R. I— believed that “reason” is man’s “only torch” to light him through this world to—nobody knows where!
In this increasingly infidel day it may be well to consider what he has to say, so that the reader may judge for himself how much comfort there is to be found in their doctrines when death comes in view. In his eulogy of the departed man, among other things, Dr. E—said—
“He added to the sum of human joy, and were everyone to whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave, he would sleep tonight beneath a wilderness of flowers. Life is a narrow vale to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.
“He who sleeps here when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered, ‘I am better now.’ Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, of fears and tears, that these dear words are true of all the countless dead.”
It was very evident, according to his friend’s showing that at the end R. I— made a mistake and a very great one too, when he mistook “the approach of death for the return of health.” But if this was the mistake of a dying hour, who can weigh the gravity of the mistake of his long years of unbelief, of a life devoted to the fruitless task of trying to sweep away the blessed truth that God has given to man—either a revelation of Himself in Christ or an inspired record of His holy will in the Scriptures? Yea, if audacious human words could have done it, he would have swept all away with one bold stroke, and proclaimed, “There is no God, and therefore no God to be revealed.”
The doctor’s tribute to his friend’s memory, as he stood over his dead body recounting his many kind services to others, we have no ground to dispute, nor have we any desire to minimize the statement in the least degree. But what about the other side? If each who had been poisoned by his soul-destroying reasonings could have risen from the dead at that moment, and borne testimony to what those God-ignoring, Christ-despising teachings had done for them, what a “howling wilderness” would that “wilderness of flowers” have been quickly turned into!
Besides, “a wilderness of flowers” to sleep under is a very poor solace for an upbraiding conscience. Nothing, nothing can meet the awakened conscience of any mortal man but the precious blood shedding and death of the Lord Jesus Christ for sinners. Nothing can soothe the heart and drive away its every fear but the knowledge of the love of God, revealed in the wondrous gift of His beloved Son.
What could meet the wishes of any upright debtor but the full discharge of his liabilities?
Had Cain been able to turn half the earth into a gay flower garden, and the other half into a rich orchard, and had he brought both to God as an offering, it could no more have met his sinful case than the wealth of a millionaire who had committed murder could righteously secure his exemption from capital punishment at any tribunal but the most corrupt. In God’s account death is sin’s penalty, and bowing to the righteous sentence, as Abel did, is man’s truest wisdom, his only ground of justification. This is what Cain disputed, and he has numberless followers still.
“Life is a narrow vale,” said Dr. E—, too narrow to admit of man looking “beyond the heights” or of knowing anything of what is there.
Granted, if the only light he possesses is the “torch of human reason.” As well might a glowworm, as he crawls in some deep valley, depend upon the light of his own tiny body to show him what is beyond the snowy mountain heights that tower miles above him. But when, to the dweller in the narrow vale below, what is beyond the heights has been fully made known, and made known by One whose dwelling-place is there, who could excuse the ignorance that still prefers its own glowworm flicker to the full light of true testimony? Surely it has been well said that—
“Blind unbelief is sure to err.”
Yea, and it errs fatally, when it willfully refuses divine light. “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:1919And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (John 3:19)). Hence such are rightly described as “willingly ignorant” (2 Peter 3:55For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: (2 Peter 3:5)).
All that God is has been fully manifested here in His beloved Son, who came from heaven as the Father’s sent One. He walked among men in lowly, lovely grace. He lived to assuage their sorrows. He died to atone for their sins. God’s good pleasure in man, God’s joy in his blessing, could not have been more perfectly expressed than in the life of Jesus here below, followed by His death on the cross, nor could God’s holy abhorrence of man’s sin be more solemnly demonstrated than when as a Sinbearer Jesus passed under the righteous judgment of God.
But this was not all. He opened up for the blood-washed and forgiven a new and living way by His resurrection, “a path of life” beyond death, a path which leads into “fullness of heavenly joy, into pleasures for evermore.” God’s own pleasures, God’s own rest are now freely available for every sinner who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Oh, the blindness of unbelief that willfully and determinately turns its back on the saving grace of the blessed God revealed in Jesus!
Death is the wages of sin, and even the most skeptical cannot escape it. How, then, do infidel mourners console themselves when one of their number is taken from them? What comfort does their unbelief yield at such a moment? Let one of their own company speak for the rest.
“We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.”
Ask Dr. E—, or any of his unbelieving hearers, What star? What wing? and both he and they must be as silent as the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead they stand beside. Poor comfort this!
Oh! that they had known the blessed Saviour and the power of His resurrection! With what comfort would His words have come to their hearts: “Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death” (Rev. 1:17, 1817And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: 18I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. (Revelation 1:17‑18)).
Had they all been believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, what unspeakable consolation would have been theirs as they listened to the Spirit’s testimony concerning their departed friends!
“But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thess. 4:13-1813But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. 14For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. 15For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. 16For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 18Wherefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:13‑18)).
Can the increasing infidelity of the present day hold out any such comfort as this? Impossible. “Let us believe,” continued Dr. E—, “in spite of doubts and dogmas, of fears and tears, that these dear words are true of all the countless dead.” What the doctor referred to were the words of the mistaken dying unbeliever: “I am better now.” But he might as well have added, Spite of the dishonor we are doing to Christ and His atoning sacrifice, spite of our insults to God’s gracious Spirit and of our open defiance of His Word, let us believe that it will be well with us after all “Let us believe,” he says. Believe! Believe what? Believe that which has no foundation whatever, except in the baseless fabric of his own imagination? No, freethinker. No! It is not good enough to die with. Woe betide the man who tries it But his words prove that even unbelief finds itself unable to shake itself free from the uncomfortable thought of a great hereafter. It was evident that Dr. E— would fain clutch at some kind of hope, even though that hope had to rest on nothing more stable than the fancied sound of “the rustle of a wing,” or the supposed sight of an imagined “star.”
Oh, my reasoning reader, beware! God has spoken. Reject not His grace as set forth in the gospel of Christ.
But “Prove it to me” is the common retort of unbelief today; “prove to me the truth of Scripture.” Our answer is, We can not prove the existence of light to a man who is blind; we need not to a man who can see. It is for the rejecter to prove it is not true, and a serious matter it is for him if he cannot so prove it. The converted man needs no proof. The truth of God has reached his soul in power. He knows whom he has believed, and with boldness can he say—
“Should all the forms that men devise
Assault my faith with treacherous art,
I’ll call them vanity and lies,
And bind Thy gospel to my heart.”
GEO. C.