WHY SHOULD WE DREAD DEATH, if we have lived well enough not to be afraid of its consequences? Why should we be frightened at that instant, since it is prepared by an infinity of other instants of the same order, death being as natural as life, and both happening the same way, without any knowledge or perception of ours? Physicians and ministers of the church, who are accustomed to observe the actions and last sentiments of the dying, will tell us, that, except in some few diseases, where the agitation caused by convulsive motions seems to indicate the sufferings of the patient, in all others death comes on tranquil, easy, and without pain; and even those terrible agonies alarm the spectators more than they torment the patient; for how many instances are there of persons who, after having been at the last extremity, retained not the least remembrance of what had passed no more than what they had felt! They had really ceased to be as to themselves during this time, since they are obliged to expunge from the number of their days all those they have passed in that state of which there remains with them no idea. Most men die, therefore, without knowing that they do, and, out of the few that retain knowledge to the last breath, there is not, perhaps, one that does not hope for, and flatter himself with, a return towards life. Nature, for the consolalation of man, has made this sentiment stronger than reason. A sick man, whose disease is incurable, who may judge of his condition by frequent and familiar examples, who is warned of it by the uneasiness of his family, by the tears of his friends, by the countenance or desertion of physicians, is not therefore the more convinced that he touches upon his last hour. His interest in life is so great, that he refers the matter only to himself; he gives no credit to the judgments of others, he regards them as ill-grounded alarms as long as he thinks, and a sense of feeling remains; he reflects and reasons only for himself, and, though all repute him as dead, his hopes are still alive. Death, therefore, is not so terrible a thing as most people imagine it to be; it is a spectre that frightens us at a certain distance, but disappears when brought to a closer view. Our notions of it are consequently false; we consider it not only as the greatest evil, but as an evil accompanied with the deepest sense of pain, and the most bitter anguish: and we have endeavoured to magnify in our imagination those doleful images, and to increase our fears by reasoning on the nature of pain. True philosophy consists in seeing things as they are, and the interior sentiment would always agree with this philosophy, if it was not perverted by the delusions of our imagination, and by the wretched habits we have contracted, or forging to ourselves phantoms of pain and pleasure. There is nothing terrible nor charming, but at a distance; but to be assured thereof, we must have the courage or wisdom to take a close view of both. Thus, sometimes in our sleeping dreams, we imagine ourselves involved in inextricable woe, and enjoy at waking the ecstasy of a deliverance from it. "And such a deliverance," says Dr. Beattie, "will every good man meet with at last, when he is taken away from the evils of life, and awakes in the regions of everlasting light and peace, looking back upon the world and its troubles with a surprise and a satisfaction, similar in kind (though far higher in degree) to that which we now feel, when we escape from a terrifying dream, and open our eyes to the sweet serenity of a summer morning. Sometimes, in our dreams, we ima gine the scenes of pure and unutterable joy; and how much do we regret at waking, that the heavenly vision is no more! But what must be the raptures of the good man when he enters the regions of immortality, and beholds the radiant fields of permanent delight!" The idea of such a happy death, such a sweet transition from the dreams of earth to the realities of heaven, is thus beautifully described by Dryden, in his poem, entitled "Eleonora :" She passed serenely with a single breath; This moment perfect health, the next was death; So little penance needs, when souls are almost pure. Or, one dream past, we slide into a new; She did but dream of heaven, and she was there. The entrance of the vale of death wears a melancholy and dismal aspect at first sight. But however gloomy it may appear, it is in the power of religion to alter and enliven the scene. Whatever shades and darkness hang over it, this can effectually dispel them all, and open beyond it ten thousand dazzling prospects far superior to those beauties which exist in the luxuriant imagination of the most visionary and animated fabulist. There are so many beautiful illustrations emblematical of man's transitory and chequered progress through life, which, to well-constituted minds, carry a source of pious feeling with them, that we conceive we cannot better or more appropriately bring our labours to a close, than by quoting one or two to our purpose; we shall therefore adopt the following "Ode on Life," as marking the use, progress, and decline of our existence : LIFE! The dear precarious boon, CHILDHOOD LED BY FOLLY. SEE, they rise, a nymph behold, This is childhood by her side. YOUTH ENSLAVED BY LOVE. WHAT is he succeeding now, Myrtles blooming on his brow? Bright and blushing as the morn, Shafts, the strong to pierce, I view, Wings the flying to pursue; Victim of his power, behind Stalks a slave of human kind, Whose disdain of all the free, |