Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1898-02-17
The Dreasr Of Deuth-

1t may seem at first sight as il this
universal dread of death in healthy and
normal human beings living under nor
NAL conditions involved certain di-
vine cruelty, says the London Specta-
tor. Why should men be tortured by
the dread of DEATH, since death is in
ev1table? Could not God have spared
us that intolerable and purposeless
agony? That is not unnatural ques-
tioning of the rebellious spirit. Yet a
little reflection will show that it is a
very absurd criticism of the ways Of
God toward man. Granted that it is
the will of God that we shall remain
on earth and live our appointed lives
there, it is essential that mankind
should feel the dread of death. With
out that dread the world could hardly
remain peopied. The dread of death is
to the soul what the law of gravity is
to the body; it anchors us to the earth.
Without that dread to weigh us down
and keep us to the globe, half mankind
would be driven by curiosity, by the
love of change, by the dread Of ennui,
Ny WudL DdCOll CClllS ulCCuCoo oAAN
safety" to push open the closed door
and see what is beyond. Children and
a few very happy and easily pleased
people might perhaps say they would
not explore further, and that they were
perfectly content with things as they
are.
Your chilly stars can forego,
This kind warm earth is all l know"
That, however, would only be the as
piration of the few; with the mass OF
mankind it would certainly be other
wise. We know that among the culti-
waited men and women of the later Ro-
man empire suicide became sort Of
moral epidemic. The fashionable stole
doctrines, acting on race which had
begun to degenerate and decline, and
to lose it's grip on life, killed the dread
of death, and men left the world for
a within, "only on the thought to do
the same thing over and over again"
The Christian doctrine that self-slaugh-
ter is sin did not affect them, and
the notion that there is something base
in quitting ones post was not yet born.
Dryden in one of his dramas contrasts
finely the feeling about suicide of the
ancient and the modern world. The
Romans, he says, might discharge
their souls" and give them leave to
enter the other world
"But we, like sentries, are compelled
to stand
Meath starless skies and wait the ap-
pointed hour"
The present writer quotes from memo
ry and may have unwittingly injured
the pomp and majesty of Dryden's
matchless rhythm, but that is the sense
of the passage. The Christian feeling
about suicide is, in truth, only the
translation into the moral law of the
behest which is imposed by the physi-
cal law of our being. 1t, as it were,
explains and emphasizes the teaching
of our instincts. And it was neces-
sary so to emphasize the meaning of
the dread of death, for Christianity is
perpetually enjoining on us the need
for overcoming the animal self and
teaching us how to subdue the bodily
instincts. Had we not also been warn
ed not to carry the consequences of VIC
tory to all their logical conclusions, we
might have felt free to leave the earth
at will But, as we have said, we
must, if we are not materialists, grant
that he who placed US here meant us to
remain. Those, then, who are not ma
%or ;o1; cfc uyhn hp1iovo hot
world is ordered, and not allowed to
roll haphazard to its doom, have no
right to complain because the dread of
death is the heritage of mankind.