WHAT GIVES SUPPORT IN DEATH? We have heard it said by our Orthodox friends, that Unitarianism may be a very good religion to live by, but that it will not do to die by. It seems to be generally conceded that its influences on the living are cheering and tranquillizing enough; so that, if we were to live forever here it might answer the purpose of a religion for man. But the dark visions of a dying hour are to shake the soul, and then, it has been prophetically argued, we shall need a sustaining principle which our faith does not involve. -- Such a defect must, of course, be fatal to any religious system. We would not have that for our religion, which, false to its highest purposes, allows us only a few fleeting years of the happiness of the brute which perisheth, and in our time of greatest need, on the eve of that event to which all true religion by its very nature must constantly direct its regard, will fail us. If it cannot face death, it is not from Him who has appointed death as the common entrance to the world in which we are to live forever. I ask the reader's attention then to the considerations which recommend Unitarianism as the religion for the dying. It is rather remarkable, and a proof of the futil ity of the charge in question, that from the same quarter is often heard another directly opposite to it. We are told that liberal views weaken the sanctions of religion; that they do not terrify the sinner enough with threats of eternal wrath, but lull him to sleep in careless security, deceiving him into perdition. Now, surely, that which tranquillizes too much cannot agitate with unappeasable alarms at the same time. But without regarding this contradiction, let us proceed to the question. We appeal, 1st, to experience. This alone might be thought decisive. What is the fact? Do we not see people among us die every day with the usual calmness and hope? Who has not witnessed the sufficiency of Unitarian Christianity to sustain the parting spirit? Not only so; but I appeal to common experience, whether Christians of every name do not, in general, find support at the final hour in the common and simple principles of rational piety, rather than in the subtleties of scholastic metaphysics. We have stood by the bed of death, and seen our faith do all which religion could do 0; and even when we expected to hear the complex creed, to which such vaunted importance was attached through life, appealed to with triumphant confidence, though it was not formally renounced, yet we found that, after all, the soul leaned, with a Unitarian's trust, on the simple goodness of God, undisguised and unbought. At such an hour the first principles of the attributes of Deity are all. The spirit has no time to trifle longer with fine-spun speculations and ingenious reconcilements of contradictory dogmas. Realities are dealing with it then; and though it may still, from habit, attach a formal importance to its system, yet its value is believed rather than felt; or if felt, it is felt through the power of association. It has been connected so long in the mind with religious hopes and consolations, that they may seem inseparable; and yet the association has been none the less entirely arbitrary and accidental. It will not be denied, too, that sometimes the holders of this stern system, in all its literal strictness, die with great depression and dismay; and we are quite willing to admit that this may be the effect of physical causes — of constitutional temperament, or the nature of the disease, but we think it equally fair to plead that the despondence which some liberal Christians may have evinced, might be attributed to the same causes. It may be said that Unitarians have oftener renounced their views in the hour of death than Orthodox Christians; but we can boldly deny this, if, as I have just remarked, the latter so often virtually renounce theirs, by laying no stress upon them, when the theory requires that all stress should be laid upon them, if they are thought true and important at all. We care little for the name of Unitarian, but all the inquiry which the writer has made, and the personal observations of several years in the ministry among Trinitarians, gives him confidence in asserting that, in reality, whatever names might be professed, very few die other than Unitarian. What he would consider a consistent Trinitarian death he has never witnessed. Of the few who have recanted our sentiments on their death-beds, the explanation is easy; while it is hard to explain the tacit renunciation of opposite sentiments consistently with their truth. For consider who are the Unitarians. Many are called so who are anything but religious men. They are called so simply because they protest against the opposite doctrine; and if merely in disgust at the excesses of fanaticism they will rank them. VOL. XVI.-No. 180. 1* selves with us, we cannot help it; but we will not allow either their lives or their deaths to be appealed to for illustration of the influence of our principles. If they have not lived the life of the righteous, whatever they may call themselves, we cannot look for them to die the death of the righteous. Mark the perfect man, and be hold the upright; for the end of that man, and of that alone, is peace. When the profligate Unitarian in belief is laid, conscience stricken and appalled, on his deathbed, he may be terrified by reproaches within and exhortations without to profess anything he is assured so solemnly will give him peace. The mind of even a good man must be strong to withstand the measures often resorted to, in the weakness and agitation of the last moments, to effect a conversion. He is surrounded by dark countenances boding despair, and plied with warning, threat, remonstrance and entreaty, to pronounce one word, which, he is told, will convert horror into joy, and not in himself alone, but for all those who are dearer to him than self. But when, in addition to these influences, the dark retrospect of a life of sin bows down the dying man's soul, it is not strange that he should catch at any hope which is held out to him so prominently. Again we ask, who are the Unitarians? They are they very often who have been Trinitarians. They are they who have forsaken the faith in which they were educated; the faith of their fathers and of their childhood, endeared to them for so long a time by thousands of the tenderest associations. This faith they have taken the bold and momentous step of deliberately renouncing. Now we know how vividly the recollections of our early years come out in the mind, though the memory of intervening scenes is dim, as old age draws on; and the serious reflections of a sick bed recur with natural fondness |