Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1869-11-03
The Phenomena Of Death.

DR.. Richardson says that by the strict or
dinance of nature death is not intended to
be cruel or physically painful to the body
The natural rule is that the natural man
should know no more concerning his own
death than hi. own birth. Born without
the consciousness of suffering, and yet sub
jected at the time to what in after life would
be extreme suffering, he would die, if the
perfect law be fulfilled In him, in like man
ner oblivious to all pain, mental and physi-
cal. Al his entrance into the world. he
sleeps into existence and awakens into knowl
edge; at his exit from the world, his ply
steal cycle completed, he dozes into sleep
and sleeps into death.
The true euthanasia or purely painless.
purely natural physical death, lie described
in its perfection, as among the most won
dertul Of natural phenomeba. The faculties
of mind which have been Intellectual, with.
out pain, or anger. or sorrow, lose their sway.
retire, rest. Ideas of time and place are
gradually lost; !; ambition ceases repose is
the one thing asked for, and sleep day by
day gently and genialiy wiles away the hours.
The wakings are short, careless, painless,
happy awakenings TO a busy world, to hear
soundsof children at play, TO hear, just au-
dibly gentle voices offering aid and comfort,
to talk little on simple things, and By the
merest WEAKNESS, to be enticed once again
into that soothing sleep which, Gay by day,
Ifh
all. At last, the intellectual man reduced
to the instructive, tbs consummation is de-
sirable; and without pain or struggle or
knowledge of the coming event, the deep
sleep that falls SO often is the sleep perpet-
ual-euthanasia. This as it is described, is
the death by nature; aud when mankind
has learned the truth, when, as will be, the
time shall come that there shall be no
more an infant of days, nor an old man who
has not filed his days, the act of death
shall be as mercfulIy accomplished as any
operation which, on the living body stepped
IN deep oblivion, the modern surgeon pain
lessly performs.
From the process of the purely natural
death there are some exceptions. The SUI
preme organizing mind has exposed us to
natural accidents, in " hich the death, sud
den, unexpected, inevitable, is painless also.
Lightning stroke, sun stroke, crash of mat
ter, swift burial IN great wsters--these are
common acts of nature that kill, and so
quickly that the body hath not time TO know
or to feel. To experience pleasure or pain,
We have TO receive the impression, and it
has to be transmitted to the organ of the
mind; here it has to be fixed or registered
lastly, that the mind has to become aware
that the impression is registered, which last
act is il truth the conscious act. Time is
required for this, although almost inappre-
ciahle. Destruction by lightning stroke is SO
swift that the impression conveyed &c the
body is not registered, and therefore is not
known or felt.
1t is the same with sudden immersion in
water, consequent insensibility, and restora-
ton. The experience of some who have
undergone this is, entire loss of all conscious
ness of sll that took place from and after
the immersion. Nature is kind even in her
determined, unrelenting action.
And even in death caused by the action of
the spirit of free will in man, which rem
ders the world practically a chamber of sui
cides-for, by want, by pleasure, by care, by
strife, by sloth, by labor, by Incidence, by
courage, by cowardice, by lust, By unnatural
chastity, by debasement, by ambition, by
generosity, by avarice, by pride, by servili-
ty, by love, BY hate, and by all the hundred
opposed and opposing passions in their ex-
cess, We die, we KILT is on the whole not
cruel or painful. In all the pestiences, the
brain of the stricken usually loses its func-
tions long before dissolution, and to the suf-
ferer the last act is restless Sleep In ex-
tremely violent death from human causes
the railway collision, the crush in battle, life
is extinguished IN moment without the
consciousness of pain. In consumption, al
though painful to behold, how many of its
victims live to their final hour in happy
plannings of the future and die in the dream.
The points in this subject are simply these:
Nature, which is TO US the visible manifes-
tation of the Supreme Intelligence, is benef-
icent in the infiction of the act of death
that thwarted in her ways, she is still benef-
icent, and that she may be trusted By her
children
The great law and intention of nature, is
that in death there should be no suffering
whatever.
Whatever there is in death Of pain. of
terror, of unsubdued sorrow to the living.is
made pain, made terror, made sorrow; and
that to attempt the removal of these is the
noblest and holiest task the spirit of man
can set itself to carry out and to perfect. 1t
is to give euthanasia to the Individual, mil
lenium to the world.
A mounted officer was riding through
field in which there were some apple trees
laden with early fruit, and some struggling
persimmon trees covered with green persim
mana He o.u Sopoa SoliiarO a.,a,,..:u