So little concerned was the rest of the party at the solemn event which had just occurred, and so destitute of all human sensibility, with a hardened indifference rarely to be equalled, played out their game before they gave the alarm ! 10. A DYING INFIDEL. A CERTAIN individual who resided not far from Dudley, in Worcestershire, was for some years a steady and respectable professor of Christianity. During this time, he was a good father, a good neighbour, and a loyal subject. A wicked man, however, put into his hands Paine's Age of Reason," and Volney's "Ruins of Empires." He read these pernicious books, renounced Christianity, and became a bad father, a bad neighbour, a disloyal subject, and a ferocious infidel! At length, sickness seized him, and death stared him in the face. Before the period of his dissolution, some Christian friends, who had formerly united with him in the sweet duties of devotion, resolved, if possible, to obtain access to him With much difficulty they accomplished their object. They found him in a most deplorable state. Horror was depicted on his countenance, and he seemed determined not to be comforted. They spoke to him, in a suitable manner, respecting the Lord Jesus Christ and salvation But he replied with fury, "It is too late; I have trampled on his blood!" They offered to pray with him; but he swore they should not. However, they kneeled down and presented their supplications to God in his behalf. And while, in this humble posture, they were pleading the merits of Jesus, the poor miserable infidel actually cursed God and died! "But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my prison-house, I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy warm blood; And each particular hair to stand on end, But this eternal blazon must not be To ears of flesh and blood !"-SHAKSPEARE. THE late Dr. Young, in an account of the last hours of a young man of rank and talents, whom he denominates Altamont, has described one of the most affecting deathbed scenes that ever was beheld : "The sad evening before the death of the noble Altamont, I was with him. No one was there but his physician, and an intimate friend whom he loved, and whom he had ruined. At my coming in he said: 'You and the physician are come too late. I have neither life nor hope. You both aim at miracles. You would raise the dead!' Heaven, I said, was merciful. Or I could not have been thus guilty. What has it not done to bless and to save me? I have been too strong for Omnipotence! I plucked down ruin!' I said, the blessed Redeemer Hold! hold! You wound me! This is the rock on which I split-I denied his name.' "Refusing to hear anything from me, or to take any. thing from the physician, he lay silent as far as sudden darts of pain would permit, till the clock struck. Then with vehemence; O time! time! it is fit thou shouldst thus strike thy murderer to the heart. How art thou fled forever! A month! O for a single week! I ask not for years; though an age were too little for the much I have to do.' On my saying we could not do too much; that heaven was a blessed place- So much the worse. "Tis lost! 'tis lost! Heaven is to me the severest part of hell! Soon after I proposed prayer. Pray you that can. I never prayed. I cannot pray-nor need I. Is not heaven on my side already? It closes with my conscience. Its severest strokes but second my own.' "His friend being much touched, even to tears, at this, (who could forbear? I could not,) with a most affectionate look he said: 'Keep those tears for thyself. I have undone thee. Dost weep for me? That's cruel. What can pain me more?' me. Here his friend, too much affected, would have left him: No, stay, thou still mayest hope. Therefore hear How madly have I talked! How madly hast thou listened and believed! But look on my present state, as a full answer to thee, and to myself. This body is all weakness and pain: but my soul, as if stung up by torment to greater strength and spirit, is full powerful to reason, full mighty to suffer. And that which thus triumphs within the jaws of mortality, is, doubtless, immortal. And, as for a Deity, nothing less than an Almighty could inflict what I now feel.' "I was about to congratulate this passive involuntary confessor, on his asserting two prime articles of his creed, extorted by the rack of nature; when he passionately exclaimed: 'No, no! let me speak on. I have not long to speak. My much-injured friend! my soul, as my body, lies in ruin-in scattered fragments of broken thought. Remorse for the past, throws my thoughts on the future; worse dread of the future, strikes them back on the past. I turn, and turn, and find no ray. Didst thou feel half the mountain that is on me, thou wouldst struggle with the martyr for his stake, and bless heaven for the flame that is not an everlasting flame; that is not an unquenchable fire.' 66 How were we struck? Yet, soon after, still more. With what an eye of distraction, what a face of despair, he cried out, 'My principles have poisoned my friend; my extravagance has beggared my boy; my unkindness has raurdered my wife! And is there another hell? O! thou blasphemed, yet most indulgent, Lord God! Hell itself is a refuge, if it hide me from thy frown.' "Soon after, his understanding failed. His terrified imagination uttered horrors not to be repeated, or ever forgot. And ere the sun arose, the gay, young, noble, ingenuous, accomplished, and most wretched Altamont expired." 2. ANTITHEUS MR. CUMBERLAND, in the " Observer," gives us one of the most mournful tales that ever was related, concerning a gentleman of infidel principles, whom he denominates Antitheus. "I remember him," says he, "in the height of his fame, the hero of his party; no man so caressed, followed, and applauded; he was a little loose, his friends would own, in his moral character, but then he was the most honest fellow in the world; it was not to be denied that he was rather free in his notions, but then he was the best creature living. I have seen men of the gravest character wink at his sallies, because he was so pleasant and so well-bred, it was impossible to be angry with him. Everything went well with him, and Antitheus seemed to be at the summit of human prosperity, when he was suddenly seized with the most alarming symptoms: he was at his country-house, and (which had rarely happened to him) he at that time chanced to be alone; wife or family he had none, and out of the multitude of his friends no one happened to be near him at the moment of his attack. A neighbouring physician was called out of bed in the night to come to him with all haste in this extremity he found him sitting up in his bed, supported by pillows, his countenance full of horror, his breath struggling as in the article of death, his pulse intermitting, and at times beating with such rapidity as could hardly be counted. Antitheus dismissed the attendants he had about him, and eagerly demanded of the physician, if he thought him in danger. The physician answered that he must fairly tell him he was in imminent danger. 66 6 66 6 'How so! how so! Do you think me dying?' 'He was sorry to say the symptoms indicated death.' "Impossible! you must not let me die: I dare not die: O doctor! save me if you can.' 666 Your situation, sir, is such, that it is not in mine, nor any other man's art to save you; and I think 1 should not do my duty if I gave you any false hopes in these moments, which, if I am not mistaken, will not more than suffice for any worldly or other concerns which you may have upon your mind to settle.' "My mind is full of horror,' cried the dying man, 'and I am incapable of preparing it for death." "He now fell into an agony, accompanied with a shower of tears; a cordial was administered, and he revived in a degree; when, turning to the physician, who had his fingers upon his pulse, he eagerly demanded of him, if he did not see that blood upon the feet-curtains of his bed. There was none to be seen: the physician assured him, it was nothing but a vapour of his fancy. I see it plainly,' said Antitheus, 'in the shape of a human hand: I have been visited with a tremendous apparition. As I was lying sleepless in my bed this night, I took up a letter of a deceased friend to dissipate certain thoughts that made me uneasy: I believed him to be a great philosopher, and was converted to his |