, 1896-11-11

deaths, by which We moan deaths without
any recovery Of consciousness from the mo-
ment Of seizure. We fancy it is SO, though
the fancy may only be born of the special
notice one accords to such events; and We
fancy also. this time with more certainty,
thar there is a marked change in ;he manner
III which such incidents are regarded. Forty
Years az every ,0Gy who heard OF a death
amoag his acquaintance like that OF the
Archbishop If Canterbury deemed 1t lheum-
bent on Ism to profess, and III many cases
actually frit, a sort Of horn or which today
is almost al sent from mems minds. Conv"l-
tionaliam on the subject is extinct. no one
deplores tie suddennese Of the event, and
those vii speak frankly say openly, "How
terrible for the ArchbloLop'9 relations, but
how fortunate for him" The instructive
wincing or shivering of the mind seems, in
fact. to have be en- transferred TO the deaths
after long suffering, ami 1t is not
to hear men acknowledge that they would
rather die as the Archbish,p died than III any
other way, and even declare that they now
carefully avoid repeating that prayer III tho
Litauy which, as they think, involves a petit
ton to the Almighty against sudden death.
It is by no means clear from the context that
they are not partially in error, and that the
PRAYER is not directed a. ainst the death by
violence which at the time it was written
was Of all subjects of apprehension the most
constant and most reasonable, 1t is, OF
course, also possible that the sentence is a
survival from the days when to receive all
the aids the Church could give to the passing
spirit was held to be of the last Importance,
and men dreaded, as the brave Breton SOL
diers still dread, nothing so much as dying
like Hamlet's father-"unhouseled, unanOlut-
ia, unannealed.' However that may be, a
change of feeling is very marked, anil we are
disposed to inquire both whence it arose and
whether it is beneficial.
One cause of the change, no doubt not the
strongest but perhaps the most active, 10 the
immensely increased Impotence of pain per-
oeptible among the cultivated, who have
undoubtedly suffered q certain nervous ex-
a~ltution which compsIs them to feel pain and
the anticipation Of pain much more than
their ancestors ever did, or than men of the
lower races ever do. An AsiatiC will hold
out his arm to bo cut off without wing down,
while the actual cantety which was the re-
cognised styptic Of a former generation would
probably kill with Shock thtir degenerate
descendants. 1t is widely recognised that
The phenomenon called death. thai cessation
of vitality of which we know SO little, Is
usually a painless change, while the incl
dents of a slow dying, though not necessarily
accompanied by acute pain, as, for example,
in most fever cases, are III some cases SO
accompanied, as, for example, when the
disease is cancer Of the stomach, and in
almost all cases at least involve 10 the patient
great distress such as those feel who recover
from a prolonged fit Of fainting. The modern
instructive disposition is to avoid that dis
tress, and it IN the stronger because of q
more widely diffused knowledge of the GUS
tomary preliminarieS Of death. The impor-
lance which used to be attached to the last
hours has diminished as it has come to be
recognised that many are during those last
hours unconscious, many more distraught,
and Il majority as feeble in power Of reason
ing as hey are III bodily health. The main
cause of the change, however. is a religions
one, am improvement in the way Of re-
Eardiu4 the Creator, g decrease in the
old ithleSSpess which attributed to the
All-mercifuI a kind of lying in wait for
his features, which must have been born
oriSin lly of a keen perception of the occa-
sional irony of fnie. This feeling was never
quite universal, or the rious could never
have borne to face the battlefield, which
they did face nevertheless, but it had with
some classes an immense and most curious
weight, greatly increased by an idea which,
% far as we know, is now dead, or at all
events has disappeared from tie governing
Shoughts of men, that human beings would