OR, DYING WITH AND WITHOUT RELIGION: DESIGNED TO ILLUSTRATE THE TRUTH AND POWER OF CHRISTIANITY. EDITED BY Davis W. Clark, D. D. New-York: PUBLISHED BY LANE & SCOTT, 200 Mulberry-street. JOSEPH LONG KING, PRINTER. 1864, Mar. 19. John joseja ellom, Esq., Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by G. LANE & L. SCOTT, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New-York. PREFACE. THIS volume owes its origin to a season of calamity. While the cholera was raging in the city of New-York during the summer of 1849, the author was called to witness a great variety of "death-bed scenes." At the same time his own health was too much shaken to admit of any severe literary pursuit. Under those circumstances, the work was suggested to his mind as one likely to subserve a useful purpose; and during that season most of the material for the work was collected and arranged. Since then, it has occupied the hours of respite from more imperious duties, in revision and preparation for the press. In now presenting it to the public, the author would express the hope that it may promote the great interests of true religion. The selection of examples has been made with great care, from a wide range, so far as age, place, avocation, condition, character, and opinions are concerned. It has been the aim of the author to give a condensed view of the character and life of each individual, as preparatory to the delineation of the closing scene. Everything extraneous has been carefully excluded. The subjects naturally range themselves into two classes; and to correspond with this, the work has been divided into two parts, one picture exhibiting the close of a life of righteousness, the other of a life of sin. Part first-THE DYING CHRISTIAN-comprises six sections under the following heads:-Christian Martyrs-Christian Ministers-Christian Men-Christian Women-Christian Children and Youth-Dying Regrets of Worldlyminded Professors. Part second-DYING WITHOUT RELIGION-comprises five sections, as follows:-The Dying Sinner-The Dying Backslider-The Dying Persecutor―The Dying Infidel-Insensibility in the Hour of Death. Under each of these heads the most striking and instructive examples that have occurred are presented; the whole forming the most complete array of facts ever embodied in any one work, on a subject of universal and most weighty concern. POUGHKEEPSIE, N. Y., D. W. CLARK. |