Note 50 — Last Words of Distinguished Men and Women. (continued 4)

Dr. Moore states that when the vital flame was flickering, the heart was faltering with every pulse, and every breath was a convulsion, he said to a dying believer, who had not long before been talking in broken words of undying love, "Are you in pain?" and the reply, with apparently the last breath, was, "It is delightful!" In another person, in whom a gradual disease had so nearly exhausted the physical powers that the darkness of death had already produced blindness, the sense of God's love was so overpowering, that every expression for many hours referred to it in rapturous words, such as, "This is life—this is heaven—God is love—I need not faith—I have the promise." It is easy to attribute such expressions to delirium; but this does not alter their character, nor the reality of the state of the soul which produces them. Whether a dying man can maintain any continued attention to things through his senses, we need not inquire. It is enough for him, if, in the spirit, he possesses the peace and joy of believing.—The Use of the Body in Relation to the Mind.