Cottonwood report. [volume] (Cottonwood, Idaho) 1893-1901, 1898-04-15
DREAD OFF DEATH.
some Reflections Upon This old ana
Natural Feeling,

II may seem at first sight as IL this
universal dread of death in healthy and
normal human beings living under nor
NAL conditions involved a certain divine
cruelty, says the London Spectator. Why
should men be tortured by the dread Of
death, since death is inevitable? Could
not God have spared us that intolerahle
and puflSseless agonyf That Ia not
unnatural questioning of the rebellious
spirit. Yet little reflection will show
that II Is a very absurd criticism of the
ways of God toward man. Granted that
1t Is the will of God that we shall re-
main on earth and live our appointed
lives there, 1t is essential that mankind
should feel the dread OF death. without
that dread the world could hardly re-
main peopled. The dread of death 10 to
the soul what the law Of gravity Is to the
body; 1t anchors us to the earth. With
out tkat 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 by what
Bacon calls 'niceness and safety" to
push open the closed door and see what
is beyond. Children and a few very hap
Ply people might perhaps say they would
not explore further. and that they would
perfectly content with things as they
are. E
Your chilly stars can forego
This kind warm earth 10 all know.
That. however, would only be the aspira-
kind 1t would certainly be otherwise. We
know that among the cultivated men and
women of the later Romsn empire suicide
became a sort of moral epidemic. The
fashionable stole doctrines. acting or a
race which had begun to degenerate and
to lose its grip ON life. killed the dread
of death, and men left the world for q
wlim, only on the thought to do the
same thing over and over again." The
Christian doctrine that self slsughter ia q
sin did not affect them, and the notion
| that there Is something base in quitting
ones post was not yet born. Dryden
| iii 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 appointed
hour.
The present writer quotes from memory
| and may have unwitti' gly injured the
| pomp and majesty Of Dryden's matchlesa
| rhythm, but that is tho sense OF the pas
sage. The Christian feeling about suicide
| Is, In truth, only the translation into tho
moral law of the beheat which is inn
| posed by the physical law of our being.
| It, as 1t were, explains and emphasizes the
| teaching of our Instincts. And It was nee
| essary so to emphasize the meaning OF
| the dread of death, for Christianity ID
| perpetually enjoining on us the need OF
| overcoming the animal self and teaching
us how to subdue the bodily instincts.
| Had we not also been warned not to carry
| the consequences of victory to all their
| logical conclusions we might have felt
free to leave the earth at will. But AZ
we have ssid, we must, II We are not ma
| terialists ,grant that he who placed us
| here meant us to remain. Those, then,
who are not materialists, and who be-
| lieve that the world is ordered, and not al
lowed to roll haphazard to its doom, have
no right to complain because the dread Of
| death is the heritage of mankind.