We look with reverence and affection upon
all symbols which give peace and comfort to our fellow-creatures. But
the value of the new-born child's passive consent to the ceremony is
null, as testimony to the truth of a doctrine. The automatic closing of
a dying man's lips on the consecrated wafer proves nothing in favor of
the Real Presence, or any other doctrine. And, speaking generally, the
evidence of dying men in favor of any belief is to be received with
great caution.
They commonly tell the truth about their present feelings, no doubt. A
dying man's deposition about anything _he knows_ is good evidence. But
it is of much less consequence what a man thinks and says when he is
changed by pain, weakness, apprehension, than what he thinks when he is
truly and wholly himself. Most murderers die in a very pious frame of
mind, expecting to go to glory at once; yet no man believes he shall
meet a larger average of pirates and cutthroats in the streets of the
New Jerusalem than of honest folks that died in their beds.
Unfortunately, there has been a very great tendency to make capital of
various kinds out of dying men's speeches.
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