The Dead Man’s Key

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Apr 21, 1904

The Dead Man’s Key

A STORY is told of an English minister who, being called to pray by the bedside of a dying man, sought to take him by the hand, in token of their agreement in offering united prayer. The sick man withheld his hand, keeping it under the bedclothes, and the minister prayed without it. Presently the man died, and then, as his hand was uncovered, the mystery was explained—he was holding in his hand, with the grasp of death, a key—the key of his safe where his money was kept.

The Lewiston Journal tells of a man in Durham, Maine, who was very penurious and a very determined man. He died at an advanced age. On his deathbed he kept his right hand closely clutched. As he drew his last breath, he tightened his hold. Everybody there knew what he held in that hand. It was the key to the chest in which he kept his gold.

As his nerveless hand unclosed, the key dropped from it, and clattered against the bedside. As if to hold it even after he was dead, the miser had tied the key about his wrist by a strong cord, which he grasped as long as life remained.

He could not take his gold with him, but he kept the key. They buried him as he was, with the key to his money chest tied about his wrist.

“And what became of the gold?” “O, the heirs have taken care of that just the same! They split open the chest with an ax, and divided the gold, and let the miser keep the key about his wrist.” He is moldering in the grave, and the key is resting beside him. “We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.”

“What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”—The Common People.