The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1879-01-23
[Cornhill MagaZine.]
The Fear of Death.

tue SUBJECTS relating TO III we COON Oul
selves to q sort Of anticipated loneliness
Few of US have the courage to speak gu
city and freely Of our own prospects O
mortality with those nearest and deares
to US. Tenderness and custom combin
to seal our lips; and there grows up
habit of reserve which we scarcely W isl
to break through. Yet the veil of ha bit
ual silence which we throw over death
as concerning ourselves, adds to tha
sense Of mystery and chillness which i
were surely wiser as far as may be to dis
pei than to increase. Each of Us mus
die alone but we need not encount~
the fear oi death alone.
How far is it true to say that the fea
of death is a natural and universal in
stinct or rather to what extent does the
instructive fear of it prevail among our
selves ? The very reserve of which
have spoken makes it impossible to an
swer with any confidence. If such re
serve may be taken as an indication o.
shrinking from a painful subject this
shrinking would appear to be much less
strong among the poor than the rich
Their outspokenness with respect to
their own approaching death, or that ot
4 parents or children whom they may be
nursing with the utmost tenderness, is
very startling to unaccustomed ears, and
not ample reason to know that it is com.
patible not only with tender affection
but with deep and lasting sorrow for the
very loss of which by anticipation they
spoke SO unhesitatingly. No doubt all
habits OF reserve imply more or less Of
the power of self-control, which is so
largely dependent upon education but
there would seem to be also a real differ
ence of feeling between rich and poor
about death. Perhaps their habtual
plainness of speech about it may contri-
butte towards lessening the fear of it
among them. But there is an obvious
and deeply pathetic explanation of their
calmness in the prospect of it for them
| selves or for those dearest to them. The
hardness and baroness of life lessons its
hold upon them; sometimes even makes
them feel it not an inheritance to be COW
eted for their children. The dull resig-
nation with which they often say the
little ones are better off, when they
| die, tells grievous story of the struggle
for mere existence while the simplicity
of their faith in the unseen is equally
striking in its cheerful beauty. Both
habits of mind tend to diminish the fear
of death ITSELF as well as the unwilling
ness to speak of it which belongs to more
complicated states of feeling and more
IuXurlOuS naD1tS or lie.
1t is of course impossible fully to dis
tinguish between the fear of death, and
the fear of that which may come after
death; and this is not the place for fully
considering the grounds of the latter
fear. But our feeling about the great
change is assuredly composed of many
elements, and the nature of our expecta-
ton of another life is by no means the
only thing which makes death more or
less welcome. We do not probably at all
fully realize how wide is the range of
possible feeling about this life, making
our anticipations of its ending as many
tinted almost as those with which we
contemplate the hereafter. We tacitly
agree in common conversation to avoid
the subject as it concerns ourselves and
our interlocutors, and in speaking Of 9th
ers we make it a point of good manners
to refer to it as matter of regret; while
religious books and sermons always as
sumo that the King of Terrors can be
encountered with calmness only by the
aid of that faith which they preach. But
is it really the case that apart from the
terrors of religion and the courtesies of
feeling, the end of life would always be
unwelcome in its approach to ourselves
and to others? Is there inherent in all
of US universal craving to prolong the
term of this sublunary existence, and to
prevent the loosening of any of its ties ?
We may be pretty sure that there is
some foundation in reason for any strong
ly prevalent manipulation of feeling. 1t
is easy to see how this particular practice
has grown up; but it does seem to have
passed the limit of sincerity, and there
fore of wholesomeness. Even if we may
not speak freely, it must be well to think
truly in a matter of such deep and fire. |
ouent concern; and it can surely be no
true part of religion to deepen the natur-
al opposition of feeling to the lot which |
is appointed to all.
One of the great distinctions which the
voluntary assumption of mourning tends
to obliterate is that between timely and |
untimely deaths. There is no doubt a
sense in which to the eye of faith no
death can be untimely, but this is as dis
tinctly a matter of faith as the blessed |
ness of pain. Faith may discern a right
ness in the cutting short of the young
life, as in all forms of suffering and affiic-
surmount all obstacles neither faith nor
reason can profit by our ignoring the |
natural inequalities of the ground. Some
deaths are not in any true sense afhic- |
tions; and to say SO need imply no dis
respect, nay it may convey the very high |
est testimony, to the departed. We |
speak of survivors as -mourners, till we
forget that there are survivors who, in |
place of mourning, may for very love be
filled with solemn joy in the completed
course to which added length of days
could scarcely have added either beauty |
or dignity. When we allow ourselves to
think of the reality rather than of the
mere conventional description of the
- ft11 haf ch
have only one word with which to speak
of the completion and of the destruction
of a human lifetime; only one word for
the event which closes the long day S
toll, and for that which crashes like a
thunderbolt into the opening blossom of
family life; for that which makes and
that which ends widowhood for the
final fulfllment or reversal of all our
temporal hopes; for bereavement and
for reunion. 1t is true that in one sense
it is zone event" which befalls in all
these cases, but the feelings belonging to
it have as wide a range OF color as the
sunset clouds. Need we wrap them all
in the same thick veil of gloomy language
and ceremonial?
At any rate, the feelings with which we
contemplate the termination of our own
earthly life must vary indefinitely in diff.
ferent individuals, and in the same in
dividual at different times; and it would
be matter of deep interest to compare
our respective experience if we could
bring ourselves to do so.
1t is sometimes said that no one can
tell what his own feeling about death
would be, until he has been brought face
to face with it. This is no doubt true
but it is also true that the feelings with
which we regard it from distance vary
as much as those with which we should
meet its near approach, and that the