Bliss in Dying

"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." (Revelation 14:13)

O my soul! Is this blessedness yours in prospect? Are you ready, if called this night to lie down on your death-pillow, sweetly to fall asleep in Jesus?

What is the sting of death? — It is sin. Is death, then, to you, robbed of its sting, by having listened to the gracious accents of pardoning love, "Be of good cheer, your sins, which are many, are all forgiven!" If you have made your peace with God, resting on the work and atoning blood of His dear Son, then the Last Enemy is divested of all his terror, and you can say, in sweet composure, of your dying couch and dying hour, "I will both lay down in peace and sleep — because You, Lord, make me to dwell in safety!" Reader! ponder that solemn question, "Am I ready to die? Am I living as I should wish I had done — when that last hour arrives?"

And when shall it arrive? Tomorrow is not yours. Truly, there may be but a step between you and death! Oh! solve the question speedily — risk no doubts and no perhaps. Every day is proclaiming anew the lesson, "The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong." Seek to live, so that that hour cannot come upon you too soon, or too unexpectedly. Live a dying life! How blessed to live — how blessed to die — with the consciousness, that there may be but a step between you and glory!

J.M.D.