Now we do not
quarrel with these forms. 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 dogma. 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 cut-throats in the streets of the New
Jerusalem than of honest folks that died in their beds.
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