The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1899-09-14
DEATH LOSING ITS TERRORS,
The Great Change Which Has Taken
Place In the View of Death.

The Great Change Which Has Taken
Place In the View of Death.
Death as a motive is moribund. Perhaps
the most distinctive note of the modern
spirit is the practical disappearance of the
thought of death as an influence directly
bearing upon practical life. We insure our
lives, it is true, but having done SO, think
no more of the matter, except in the spirit
of William Micawber when he signed
promissory note. There are no skeletons
at our feasts nowadays, or at worst they
are living ones. Death has lost its terrors,
and it is often regarded as the last and
best friend.
One of the main causes of this remark
able change in sentiment is the improve
ment in modern sanitation and hygiene,
and the increased average duration of life.
In the Middle Ages nothing was so uncer-
tain as life. Duels and private wars, feuds
and bandits, plaques and pestilence, made
men uncertain Of their lives from hour to
hour. When mems position in life de-
pended upon the strength of their right arm,
they ceased to be effective when they be-
came stale as athletes. Thus old age
began for men early in the forties. The
average age was younger, vet death came
more frequently, SO that his visits were
the more and more unwelcOme. When any
day might be ones last, it was natural to
be always thinking of what came after
death. Nowadays death comes later with
more warnings Of his approach, and takes
us less by surprise. We are more willing
to go, less eager to stay.
That increase in the average age of men
has wider results than would appear at
first sight. The forties in a mans life are
the decade of disillusion, and society in
which the tone is mainly given by men Of 40
and upwards Is sure to be practical and
pessimistic. Now the tendency of modern
life is to put power into mems hands
mainly after they have reached the age Of
49, Mr.. Cation has noticed in his Heredi-
Genius, that men do not get into the
biographical dictionaries till after the age of
40. 1t is only in the present generation that
the cumulative effect of the increased age
of the men of influence has had time to
show itself, and the result has been what
Is known as the fin de steele Tone Part of
this tone is characterized by the dying of
death. More and more death tends to re-
move the oldest, and the gaps it causes
seem more natural and normal. Often, too
medical science protracts life at the cost Of,
extra suffering, SO that death comes at last
more as release, and frequently causes
more relief than grief to those who remain.
Thus all sides death is losing its ter
rors. We are dying more frequently when
our life's work is done, and it seems more
natural to die. We live SO hurriedly that
the final ceasing to be is getting to be re-
garded as the summum bonum. The favor
lite text on tombs is getting to be God
giveth his beloved slcop." The sentiment
expressed on Prof. Huxleys tombstone 1T
is well even il the sleep be endless" ex-
presses general feeling. Life is becoming
so complicated that any one man seems
less important and significant in this life,
so it is harder to imagine him having any
more significant function in any other And
when the joys and fears of a future life be-
come dim, death as motive disappears.
1t is not as If any marked revolution of
feeling with regard to continued life in
the future existed; that remains the great
Pc: haps it. always was. What people think
about it, when they do think about it, de-
ponds on their temperament. But the point
1 am making is, that they do not think
about it at all; and the whole subject is
ceasing to have practical effect on the life
of man.
There are signs of this everywhere. The
popularity of cremation is one
Of them. Still more significant is the dis
appearance, of hell from popular theology.
THAT is all very weli," said the Scotch
when he heard Dean Stanley.
but gle me my HE'LL But few will be |
found to re-echo his cry And with the
of hell the diverEences Of the
various creeds lose much of their signin- |