There is not one word of truth in the report. These two cases furnish samples of the manner in which a dying cause will grasp at straws.
We will subjoin here the testimony of a clergyman, in proof that infidels are not more likely to die in a state of mental distress than Christians: The Rev. Theodore Clap, in his autobiography, says, "In all my experience I never saw an unbeliever die in fear. I have seen them expire without any hope or expectation of the future, but never in agitation from dread or misgiving as to what might befall them hereafter. We know that the idea is prevalent that this final event passes with some dreadful terror or agony of soul. It is imagined, that, in the infidel's case, the pangs of dissolution are greatly augmented by the upbraidings of a guilty conscience, and by the reluctance of the spirit to be torn from its mortal tenement, and hurried into the presence of an avenging Judge; but this is all a superstitious fancy. It is a superstitious fear, from a false education, that causes any one to die in fear."
The Rev. W. H. Spenser, of the First Parish Church (Massachusetts), says, "Some of the men most bitterly stigmatized as infidels have been among the most brilliant and useful minds the world has ever known, and, when dying and suffering from calumny and scorn, have only to wait for time to do them justice, and place them in history with the world's benefactors or saviors. There is not to be found on record one purely infidel man, in the sense now referred to, whose death-bed was attended by recantations and remorse." Thus testifies a clergyman.
We will now show from reliable authority that the most ardent faith in Christ and the Bible, and the most rigid and conscientious observance of their doctrines and precepts, do not guarantee permanent acquiescence or satisfaction, or protect the mind from the most violent mental perturbation in the hour of death. John Calvin stood in the first ranks of the Church militant in his time, and was considered by many the leading clergyman in Christendom. Hear what Martin Luther, his co-laborer, says with respect to his mortal exit: "He died forlorn and forsaken of God, blaspheming to the very end.... He died of scarlet fever, overrun and eaten up by ulcerous abscesses, the stench of which drove every person away. He gave up the ghost, despairing of salvation, and evoking devils from the abyss, and uttering oaths most horrible, and blasphemies most frightful." Then tell us no more about infidels recanting and dying unhappy, after reading this case. Yet all the cases and evidences cited above only tend to show that no forms of religious belief have any thing specially to do with the condition of mind in the hour of mortal dissolution, except so far as that belief has been invested with groundless, superstitious fears. Hence persons who distribute death-bed tracts are in rather small business. We like the answer of a liberal-minded man, who, when in his dying moments he was asked by a priest if he had made his peace with his God, replied, "We have never had any unfriendly words." We don't believe there can be a case found in all Christendom of an infidel repenting whose parents were unbelievers, so that he was not educated and biased in favor of any form of religious faith or belief.
CHAPTER XXXIX.—FORGIVENESS FOR SIN, AN IMMORAL DOCTRINE.
The doctrine of divine forgiveness for sin is another illogical and immoral doctrine of the orthodox school, as well as that of heathen nations, which a logical analysis and the practical experience of nearly all religious countries show has been pernicious in its effects upon the morals of society. A little reflection must convince any unbiased mind that, while men and women are taught to believe that the consequences of sin or crime can be arrested or mitigated by an act of forgiveness by the divine Law-maker, they will feel the less restrained from the commission of crime and wickedness. They naturally look upon it as a sort of license for the indulgence of their passions and propensities. They are taught that none of the evil consequences of wrong-doing can follow them to another world if they repent in time, and ask forgiveness. This they accept as a broad license to take their swing in vice and villainy. And thus they are partially demoralized by the doctrine. Much more rational is the doctrine of the Swedenborgians and Harmonialists, that every sin or wrong act we commit makes its impress upon the soul, or immortal spirit, which will be carried with it to the life eternal, and will there long operate to impair the happiness, and retard the spiritual growth, of every person who in this life indulges in crime or immoral conduct. They teach us that the character we form for ourselves on this plane of existence will be carried with us to the spirit-world; that our character undergoes no radical change by merely passing through the gates of death. Hence, whatever defective moral qualities we permit to de incorporated into our characters here will operate to sink us to a lower plane of happiness in the after-death world. This is a plausible and rational doctrine, to say the least, and can have no effect to demoralize the community, as the sentiments breathed forth by some of the orthodox hymns have evidently done.
"There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel's veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains."
Could any doctrine be more demoralizing than that here set forth,—that the deep-dyed stains of a life of crime, debauchery, and wickedness can all be wiped out by the simple act of plunging into a pool of blood, or rather by believing that the atoning blood of Christ will cleanse from all sin? The same idea is incorporated into Watts's well-known hymn,—