A vision of death.
The scene is one of true pathos; it is one of those touches of nature which" make the whole world kin." We have—
I. DEATH SUDDENLY PRESENTING ITSELF TO MAN IN HIS PRIME. (Isaiah 38:1.) Death is very common in infancy; it must be near in old age. It occasions no surprise, and brings comparatively little pain or grief when it occurs at either of these extremes. Infancy does not understand it, and age accepts or even welcomes it. But occasionally, man in the prime of his powers, woman m the glory of her days, is called upon to look death in the face when life seems to stretch out far into the future. The outbreaking of latent disease, the mysterious and totally unanticipated collapse, the fearful and fatal accident,—these or ether things are at work, saying in stern tones to one and another of our race, "Thou shall die, and not live."
II. THE PROFOUND HUMAN REGRET WHICH IT THEN OCCASIONS. "Hezekiah wept sore." We differ, according to our individual temperament and our national habits, as to the exhibition of our feelings. The Jewish king gave vent to his sorrow in hot tears and sore lamentation. An Englishman will probably command both voice and feature when he learns that he must die, and may not live. But no one, suddenly taken away from the midst of beloved relations and friends, unexpectedly torn from the activities and enjoyments on which he has set his heart and spent his energy and centred his hopes, can be unmoved, untroubled. It is a transcendently solemn moment when the human heart first learns that, instead of blessed communion and of joyous activity, there must be hopeless separation and the silence of the grave. Sudden death in prime is a wrench sorer and sadder than any which life has known.
III. THE REFUGE OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT IN THE LAST RESORT, "Then Hezekiah … prayed unto the Lord." There are some things which, when everything else fails, lead us to God—the extremities of joy and sorrow, a crisis in our career, the near presence of death. When human art has failed, and man can do no more for us, then we turn our thought to Heaven—we lift up our face unto God. God can intervene, we know, in the very greatest exigency; it may be that he will; we will "pray unto the Lord." And if we do so reverently and resignedly, we do so rightly; for who can tell how or when he may be pleased to act on our behalf, to "see our tears, to hear our prayers," and to "add unto our days" (Isaiah 38:5)? Or, if we do not have recourse to God in prayer for deliverance, we can fall back on that which may be better still—on a cheerful submission to his holy will.
IV. A CONSOLATION AT THE CLOSE OF LIFE. If we do not make it a plea with God, as Hezekiah thought it right to do, viz. that we "have walked before God in truth and with a perfect heart," etc. (Isaiah 38:3), we may find in such a fact a very precious consolation to our own spirit. To have to look back from the dying hour on a course of folly, guilt, and mischief, must be bitterness itself. To be able to survey, from that last scene, a life of sincere devotion to God and faithful service of mankind, must be a source of unspeakable thankfulness and serenity.
V. A DUTY IN DEATH WHICH IT IS THE DUTY OF LIFE TO REDUCE TO ITS LOWEST POINT. "Set thine house in order" (Isaiah 38:1); do the necessary things that remain undone—that which is unfinished in the sanctuary of the soul, in the inner circle of the family, in the relationships which are outside. But how excellent it is to live with all these things preserved in such order that, when the end comes, there will be the least possible left to do, and the mind can turn, untroubled, to rest in the presence of the Saviour, and to look for the rest that is so soon to be enjoyed!—C.