How Saints May Help the Devil.
THERE was a young minister once, preaching very earnestly, in a certain chapel; he had to walk some four or five miles to his home, along a country road, after service. A young man, who had been deeply impressed during the sermon, requested the privilege of walking with the minister, with an earnest hope that he might get an opportunity of telling his feelings to him, and obtaining some word of guidance or comfort. Instead of that, the young minister, all along, told the most singular tales to those who were with him, causing loud roars of laughter. He stopped at a certain house, and this young man with him, and the whole evening was spent in frivolity and foolish talking. Some years after, when the minister had grown old, he was sent for to the bedside of a dying man. He hastened thither with a heart desirous to do good. He was requested to sit down at the bedside, and the dying man, looking at him, and regarding him closely, said to him: “Do you remember preaching in such a village, and on such an occasion?” “I do,” said the minister. “I was one of your hearers,” said the man; “and I was deeply impressed by the sermon.” “Thank God for that!” said the minister. “Stop!” interrupted the man, “Don’t thank God until you have heard the whole story. You will have reason to alter your tone before I have done.” The minister changed countenance; but he little guessed what would be the full extent of that man’s testimony. Said he, “Sir, do you remember after you had finished your sermon, that I, with some others, walked home with you? I was sincerely desirous of being led in the right path that night. But I heard you speak in such a strain of levity, and with so much coarseness, too, that I went outside the house while you were sitting down to your evening meal. I stamped my foot upon the ground; I said that you were a liar; that Christianity was a falsehood; that if you could pretend to be in earnest in the pulpit, and then come down and talk like that, the whole thing must be a sham. And I have been an infidel,” said he, “a confirmed infidel, from that day to this. But I am not an infidel at this moment. I know better. I am dying, and about to be damned, and at the bar of God will lay my damnation to your charge. My blood is upon your head!” And with a dreadful shriek, and with a demoniacal glance at the trembling minister, he died.