It is so natural to pray then that prayer might be supposed to be an invariable element of the last scenes. But it is not always. A death-bed without God is an awful sight; yet it does occur. The currents of the mind may be flowing so powerfully earthward that even then they cannot be diverted. There are even death-beds where the thought of God is a terror which the dying man keeps away; and sometimes his friends assist him to keep it away, suffering none to be seen and nothing to be said that could call God to mind. Natural as prayer is, it is only so to those who have learned to pray before. It had long been to Jesus the language of life. He had prayed without ceasing--on the mountain-top and in the busy haunts of men, by Himself and in company with others--and it was only the bias of the life asserting itself in death when, as He breathed His last, He turned to God. If, then, we would desire our last words to be words of prayer, we should commence to pray at once. If the face of God is to shine on our death-bed, we must now acquaint ourselves with Him and be at peace. If, as we look upon the dying Christ or on the dying saints, we say, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his," then we must begin now to live the life of the righteous and to practise its gracious habits. II. The last word of the dying Saviour was a quotation from Scripture. This was not the first time our Lord quoted Scripture on the cross: His great cry, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" was likewise borrowed from the Old Testament, and it is possible that there is Scriptural allusion in others of the Seven Words. If prayer is natural to the lips of the dying, so is Scripture. For different seasons and for different uses there is special suitability in different languages and literatures. Latin is the language of law and scholarship, French of conversation and diplomacy, German of philosophy, English of commerce. But in the most sacred moments and transactions of life there is no language like that of the Bible. Especially is this the case in everything connected with death. On a tombstone, for example, how irrelevant, as a rule, seem all other quotations, but how perfect is the fitness of a verse from Scripture. And on a death-bed there are no words which so well become the dying lips.