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Death: Quotations from Burning Words
When to the cross I turn my eyes, And rest on Calvary, O Lamb of God, my sacrifice, I must remember Thee.— JAMES MONTGOMERY
My friends, there is one spot on earth where the fear of Death, of Sin, and of Judgment, need never trouble us, the only safe spot on earth where the sinner can stand - Cal vary.— D. L. MOODY
He who tears down the cross, what is there left to lift him to heaven? The church claiming to be a Christian church is false to the title, if she make the cross of Christ of none effect.— HERRICK JOHNSON
Lord, as to Thy dear cross we flee And pray to be forgiven, So let Thy life our pattern be, And form our souls for heaven.— J. H. GURNEY
O, cross of my bleeding Lord, may I meditate on thee more, may I feel thee more, may I resolve to know nothing but thee.— RICHARD FULLER
One may live as a conqueror, a king, or a magistrate; but ne must die as a man.— DANIEL WEBSTER
My friend, there will come one day to you a Messenger, whom you cannot treat with contempt. He will say, "Come with me; " and all your pleas of business cares and earthly loves will be of no avail. When his cold hand touches yours, the key of the counting-room will drop forever, and he will lead you away from all your investments, your speculations, your bank-notes and real estate, and with him you will pass into eternity, up to the bar of God. You will not be too busy to die.— A. E. KITTREDGE
God's finger touched him, and he slept.— TENNYSON
O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised; thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of men, and covered them all over with these two narrow words, "Hic jacet."— SIR WALTER RALEIGH
What a power has Death to awe and hush the voices of this earth! How mute we stand when that presence confronts us, and we look upon the silence he has wrought in a human life! We can only gaze, and bow our heads, and creep with our broken, stammering utterances under the shelter of some great word which God has spoken, and in which we see through the history of human sorrow the outstretching and overshadowing of the eternal arms.— W. W. BATTERSHALL
Look forward a little further to the period when all the noise and tumult and business of this world shall have closed forever.— J. G. PIKE
• We shall be in the midst of some great work, when the tools shall drop from our relaxing fingers, and we shall work no more; we shall be planning some mighty project - house, business, society, book - when in one shattering moment all our thoughts shall perish. Life shall seem strong in us when we shall find that it is done. Oh, how happy they to whom all that remains is immortality; happy you who have that confidence in the Saviour, that, although nature start at the sudden midnight cry, "The Bridegroom cometh!" faith shall answer, the moment that we remember who He is, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus!""— JAMES HAMILTON
However dreary we may have felt life to be here, yet when that hour comes - the winding up of all things, the last grand rush of darkness on our spirits, the hour of that awful sudden wrench from all we have ever known or loved, the long farewell to sun, moon, stars, and light-brother man, I ask you this day, and I ask myself humbly and fearfully, "What will then be finished? When it is finished, what will it be? Will it be the butterfly existence of pleasure, the mere life of science, a life of uninterrupted sin and self-gratification, or will it be, 'Father, I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do?'"— F. W. ROBERTSON
How shocking must thy summons be, O Death! To him that is at ease in his possessions! Who, counting on long years of pleasure here, Is quite unfurnished for the world to come. In that dread moment, how the frantic soul Raves round the walls of her clay tenement; Runs to each avenue, and shrieks for help; But shrieks in vain,— BLAIR
When we come to die, we shall be alone. From all our worldly possessions we shall be about to part. Worldly friends - the friends drawn to us by our position, our wealth, or our social qualities, will leave us as we enter the dark valley. From those bound to us by stronger ties - our kindred, our loved ones, children, brothers, sisters, and from those not less dear to us who have been made our friends because they and we are the friends of the same Saviour, - from them also we must part. Yet not all will leave us. There is One who "sticketh closer than a brother "- One who having loved His own which are in the world loves them to the end.
When I lived, I provided for every thing but death; now I must die, and am unprepared. 1310-— CÆSAR BORGIA
Reflect on death as in Jesus Christ, not as without Jesus Christ. Without Jesus Christ it is dreadful, it is alarming, it is the terror of nature. In Jesus Christ it is fair and lovely, it is good and holy, it is the joy of saints.— PASCAL
To the Christian, these shades are the golden haze which heaven's light makes, when it meets the earth, and mingles with its shadows.— H. W. BEECHER
So fades a summer cloud away; So sinks the gale when storms are o'er; So gently shuts the eye of day; So dies a wave along the shore.— A. L. BARPAULD
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!— MRS. HEMANS
Soon for me the light of day Shall forever pass away; Then from sin and sorrow free, Take me, Lord, to dwell with Thee.— DOANE
00 All life is surrounded by a great circumference of death; but to the believer in Jesus, beyond this surrounding death is a boundless sphere of life. He has only to die once to be done with death forever.— JAMES HAMILTON
Yes, death, the hourly possibility of it, death is the sublimity of life.— WM. MOUNTFORD
Death is a stage in human progress, to be passed as we would pass from childhood to youth, or from youth to manhood, and with the same consciousness of an everlasting nature. Thus star by star declines Till all are passed away, As morning high and higher shines To pure and perfect day: Nor sink those stars in empty night;— SEARS
They hide themselves in heaven's pure light.— JAMES MONTGOMERY,
Life's race well run, Life's work well done, Life's crown well won, Now comes rest.— PRESIDENT GARFIELD'S EPITAPH
"God giveth His beloved sleep; " and in that peaceful sleep, realities, not dreams, come round their quiet rest, and fill their conscious spirits and their happy hearts with blessedness and fellowship. In His own time He will make the eternal morning dawn, and the hand that kept them in their slumbers shall touch them into waking, and shall clothe them when they arise according to the body of His own glory; and they, looking into His face, and flashing back its love, its light, its beauty, shall each break forth into singing as the rising light of that unsetting day touches their transfigured and immortal heads, in the triumphant thanksgiving, "I am satisfied, for I awake in— ALEXANDER MACLAREN
Thy likeness." - When our earthly day is closing, And the night grows still and deep, Let us, in Thine arms reposing, Feel Thy power to save and keep. Blessed Jesus, Give Thine own beloved sleep. What is our death but a night's sleep? For as through sleep all weariness and faintness pass away and cease, and the powers of the spirit come back again, so that in the morning we arise fresh and strong and joyous; so at the Last Day we shall rise again as if we had only slept a night, and shall be fresh and strong.— MARTIN LUTHER
Death to a good man is but passing through a dark entry, out of one little dusky room of his Father's house into another that is fair and large, lightsome and glorious, and divinely entertaining. Death is the quiet haven of us all.— ADAM CLARKE
Mysterious Night! When our first parent knew Thee from report Divine, and heard thy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue ? Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, Hesperus, with the host of heaven came; And lo! creation widened in man's view. Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed Within thy beams, O sun? or who could find, While fly and leaf and insect stood revealed, That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind? Why do we then shun death with anxious strife ? If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life?— JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE
And when no longer we can see Thee, may we reach out our hands, and find Thee leading us through death to immortality and glory. -— H. W. BEECHER
"Paid the debt of nature." No; it is not paying a debt; it is rather like bringing a note to the bank to obtain solid gold for it. In this case you bring this cumbrous body which is nothing worth, and which you could not wish to retain long; you lay it down, and receive for it from the eternal treasures liberty, victory, knowledge, rapture. When darkness gathers over all,— FOSTER
And the last tottering pillars fall, Take the poor dust Thy mercy warms, And mould it into heavenly forms.— O. W. HOLMES
Death is the waiting-room where we robe ourselves for immortality.— C. H. SPURGEON
Death is like thunder in two particulars; we are alarmed at the sound of it; and it is formidable only from that which preceded it.— C. C. COLTON
If life has not made you by God's grace, through faith, holythink you, will death without faith do it? The cold waters of that narrow stream are no purifying bath in which you may wash and be clean. No! no! as you go down into them, you will come up from them.— ALEXANDER MACLAREN
The character wherewith we sink into the grave at death is ine very character wherewith we shall reappear at the resurrecvor.— THOMAS CHALMERS
He that always waits upon God is ready whenever He calls. Neglect not to set your accounts even; he is a happy man who to lives as that death at all times may find him at leisure to die.— OWEN FELTHAM
Death cannot come To him untimely who is fit to die; The less of this cold world, the more of heaven; The briefer life, the earlier immortality.— MILLMAN
A joyful messenger of peace, whose kind hand opens to the weary pilgrim the gates of immortality, and lets the oppressed go free, is death. No man who is fit to iive need tear to die. Poor, timorous, faithless souls that we are! How we shall smile at our vain alarms when the worst has happened! To us here, death is the most terrible thing we know. But when we have tasted its reality, it will mean to us birth, deliverance, a new creation of ourselves. It will be what health is to the sick man. It will be what home is to the exile. It will be what the loved one given back is to the bereaved. As we draw near to it, a solemn gladness should fill our hearts. It is God's great morning lighting up the sky. Our fears are the terror of children in the night. The night with its terrors, its darkness, its feverish dreams, is passing away; and when we awake, it will be into the sunlight of God. wod obs— GEORGE S. MERRIAM.V
Tarry with me, O my Saviour! Lay my head upon Thy breast, Till the morning; then awake me - Morning of eternal rest.— CAROLINE S. SMITH
O that we may all be living in such a state of preparedness, that, when summoned to depart, we may ascend the summit whence faith looks forth on all that Jesus hath suffered and done, and exclaiming, "We have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord," lie down with Moses on Pisgah, to awake with Moses in paradise. t— HENRY MELVILL
Seek such union to the Son of God, as, leaving no present death within, shall make the second death impossible, and shall leave in all your future only that shadow of death which men call dissolution, and which the gospel calls sleeping in Jesus.— JAMES HAMILTON
Love masters agony; the soul that seemed Forsaken feels her present God again And in her Father's arms Contented dies away.— JOHN KEBLE
Every day His servants are dying modestly and peacefully - not a word of victory on their lips; but Christ's deep triumph in their hearts - watching the slow progress of their own decay, and yet so far emancipated from personal anxiety that they are still able to think and plan for others, not knowing that they are doing any great thing. They die, and the world hears nothing of them; and yet theirs was the completest victory. They came to the battle field, the field to which they had been looking forward all their lives, and the enemy was not to be found. There was no foe to fight with.— F. W. ROBERTSON
"Come and see how a Christian can die," said the dying sage to his pupil; how would it do to say, "Come and see how an infidel can die?" How would it have done for Voltaire to say this, who, in his panic at the prospect of eternity, offered his physician half his fortune for six weeks more of life?— JAMES HAMILTON
Dying visions of angels and Christ and God and heaven are confined to credibly good men. Why do not bad men have such visions? They die of all sorts of diseases; they have nervous temperaments; they even have creeds and hopes about the future which they cling to with very great tenacity; why do not they rejoice in some such glorious illusions when they go out of the world? Death is the crown of life.— E. F. BURR
And now, with busy, but noiseless process, the Comforter is giving the last finish to the sanctifying work, and making the heir of glory meet for home, till, at a signal given, the portal opens, and even the numb body feels the burst of blessedness as the rigid features smile and say, "I see Jesus," then leave the vision pictured on the pale but placid brow. How well he fell asleep !— JAMES HAMILTON
Like some proud river, widening toward the sea; Calmly and grandly, silently and deep, Life joined eternity.— S. T. COLERIDGE
O Earth, so full of dreary noises! O men, with wailing in your voices! O delvéd gold, the wailer's heap ! O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall! God makes a silence through you all, And "giveth His beloved, sleep."— MRS. BROWNING
Earth has one angel less, and heaven one more since yesterday. Already, kneeling at the throne, she has received her welcome, and is resting on the bosom of her Saviour.— HAWTHORNE
Beloved in the Lord, if you only will lay hold of the Saviour's strength, and cast yourself entirely on His kind arms, with His dying grace He will do wonders for you in the dying hour. A great trembling may come upon you when you think of going down to tread the verge of Jordan; "for ye have not passed this way heretofore. But Jesus has; and you shall see His footprints on the shore. He will be your guide unto death, and through death.— ALEXANDER DICKSON
Dead is she? No; rather let us call ourselves dead, who tire so soon in the service of the Master whom she has gone to serve forever.— W. S. SMART
So we fall asleep in Jesus. We have played long enough at the games of life, and at last we feel the approach of death. We are tired out, and we lay our heads back on the bosom of Christ, and quietly fall asleep.— H. W. BEECHER
I do not know why a man should be either regretful or afraid, as he watches the hungry sea eating away this "bank and shoal of time" upon which he stands, even though the tide has all but reached his feet - if he knows that God's strong hand will be stretched forth to him at the monient when the sand dissolves from under him, and will draw him out of many waters, and place him high above the floods on the stable land where there is " no more sea." دو— ALEXANDER MACLAREN
When you take the wires of the cage apart, you do not hurt the bird, but help it. You let it out of its prison. How do vou know that death does not help me when it takes the wires of my cage down? - that it does not release me, and put me into some better place, and better condition of life ?— BISHOP RANDOLPH S. FOSTER
The most heaven-like spots I have ever visited, have been certain rooms in which Christ's disciples were awaiting the summons of death. So far from being a "house of mourning," I have often found such a house to be a vestibule of glory.— T. L. CUYLER
The world recedes; it disappears! Heaven opens on my eyes!— POPE
I am not in the least surprised that your impression of death becomes more lively, in proportion as age and infirmity bring it nearer. God makes use of this rough trial to undeceive us in respect to our courage, to make us feel our weakness, and to keep us in all humility in His hands.— FENELON
When at last the angels come to convey your departing spirit to Abraham's bosom, depend upon it, however dazzling in their newness they may be to you, you will find that your history is no novelty, and you yourself no stranger to them.— JAMES HAMILTON
And when, in the evening of life, the golden clouds rest sweetly and invitingly upon the golden mountains, and the light of heaven streams down through the gathering mists of death, I wish you a peaceful and abundant entrance into that world of blessedness, where the great riddle of life will be unfolded to you in the quick consciousness of a soul redeemed and purified.— J. G. HOLLAND
Dear brethren, our ship is sailing fast. We shall soon hear the rasping of the shallows, and the commotion overhead which bespeaks the port in view. When it comes to that, how will you feel? Are you a stranger, or a convict, or are you going home? Brethren, we are all sailing home; and by and by, when we are not thinking of it, some shadowy thing (men call it death), at midnight, will pass by, and will call us by name, and will say, "I have a message for you from home; God wants you; heaven waits for you."— H. W. BEECHER
Do we not all, in this very hour, recall a death-bed scene in which some loved one has passed away? And, as we bring to mind the solemn reflections of that hour, are we not ready to hear and to heed the voice with which a dying wife once addressed him who stood sobbing by her side: "My dear husband, live for one thing, and only one thing; just one thing,— the glory of God, the glory of God!"— E. P. TENNEY