Invisible Ink

Things written with the juice of a leinojt when they are brought to the fire are plaijt and legible; so when wicked 7Jien draw near to the fires of hell, their secret sins siajid out before theviy and they cry out upon their beds. The prospect of eternity discovers those secret beliefs and inward fears which they laboured so hard to deny and conceal. Few men can keep up a deceit when they approach their end. The skeleton hand readily tears off the mask. A death-bed is not always free from hypocrisy; but, assuredly, it is hard for the dying sinner to keep up his deceit. The fire of his approaching doom brings out the secret writing upon his soul, which even he himself had not before cared to read, and then he who thought himself a firmly rooted sceptic finds out that he had after all an inward conviction which he could not stifle, and a fear in his heart which he could not smother. O that men would seek to know themselves, for it might turn out that the defiant blasphemy of their tongues is not, by any means, a sure index that their heart is at rest in unbelief.

What must be that man’s condition whose very infidelity is feigned? It is a terrible thing to be a sham Christian, but what must be the worthlessness of a hypocritical infidel? When the genuine metal is worthless, what shall we say of its counterfeit? Yet we doubt not that thousands of sceptics, in their inmost hearts, believe what they blusteringly deny, and the day will come when, like him whose children they are, they will believe and tremble.

Lord, help me to read my own heart. Let me know my true state, and let that state be such as thou wilt approve.