The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1869-06-02
Testimony of a Pastor.

Is it argued by the preacher, that this life
is too insecure, too unsubstantial, to be pur'
sued as the portion of the soul? My rem
ininscences tell me that the argument is
good. | have seen the fact affirmed most
abundantly demonstrated. have observed
that death is ever at hand to defeat the
best-laid schemes and blast the most rational
hopes of man. l have seen him again and
again, selecting as his victims the very ones
who we would have said ought not to die
and could not die. o | have seen him cut
down with his remorseless scythe the fairy
child, the maiden in the pride of her beauty,
the minister of God in the midst of his USE
fulness, the mother with her little flock liv-
wing upon her love, and the father holding
up his dependent household by his provi-
denee and care. have seen, in our cpl
demic summers, a young mechanic, whose
energy and probity had opened for him, as
he supposed, sure avenue to wealth, and
the bride, whom he had brought in her ruddy
girlhood few months before to his neat lit
tie home, both almost at the same hour pros
trated by the fever, torn from one another,
and from all earthly objects by the stupor
in which he was wrapped, and the delirium
which had seized upon her, and reunited
only when death came-in less than two
days-and again almost at the same hour,
to bear them both to the presence of God;
and in one burial few of us laid them
side by side in the same grave. That Incl.
dent, and hundreds of others of the same
import, though less striking in their details,
have taught me, that the man who makes the
world his trust is the grandest mailman who
ever built a costly house upon foundation
of sand.
Is it argued by the preacher that the way
of the transgressor is hard? l have seen
this verified, when have seen the drunkard,
after throwing away talents which might
have made him reputable, and wrecking the
hearts of those who loved him, going to his
early grave; when have seen the man of
violence groaning in remorse upon his
bloody death-bed; when l have seen the
criminal shuddering in his cell in terror of
the gallows to which his crimes had brought
him; and when / have seen-for l have
seen this too-the tenant of the house of
shame closing her life of vice in the agonies
of despair; when have seen these, and
hundred other spectacles implying the
same doctrine, though less marked in form,
1 have been satisfied that the wages of sin,
from first to last, is death.
And is it argued by the preacher that
godliness is profitable unto all things, hav-
ing promise of the life that now is, and of
that which is to come? A long procession
OF beautiful characters, graced with the piety
of the gospel, and radiant habitually with
the peace which trust in Jesus and love to
God had inspired, rises before me. And a
long series of scenes, in which these charac-
ters, after demonstrating the genuineness of
their faith by their patience in suffering, had
calmly, joyfully fallen asleep in the arms of
their Saviour, to waken in his likeness and
in his presence in heaven, comes to light on
the pages of my memory; and when l think
of them, 1 am sure the apostle was right
when he called Christ and his salvation
Gods "upspeakable gift; )" when he de-
scribed the faith of the believer as "pre-