The times., 1901-04-05
Fear of Death.

ps
An interview with the surgeon to the
| bureaus Of police and fire in the city
Of Philadelphia has appeared in tn,
philadelphia Press" and is decidedly
! interesting in its way. The surgeon in
! question was apparently chosen as 8
| person likely 10 know in what frame of
mind the average human being meets
| death. lie is said to have seen at least
| two thousand people die, during his
! thirty-seven years of active service; and
| he testities that in not one of all these
! cases has the dying person shown ter
ror. He says that according to his OBJ
! servation the easiest thing in life is to
/ die"
| This is an odd contrast to the solem-
nifty and terrorism of the average re-
/ lieious book where this subject is
| touched upon. Most people now past
middle life can remember terrifying ad-
! jurations addressed TO them in child
hood and youth, either by their parents
or by some older person, and conveying
to them the impression that unless they
repented of their sins and believed in
SOtAlt BcE Etituidi GIGtu lIty Npui0 DS
seized at the approach of death. with a
terror beyond the power of words to ex-
press, and suffer miseries which no
human creature could in the least allie
viate. The surgeon in question is a
man Of strong religious views. which
makes his statement all the more i'm
pressive and the truth of it is con-
h,v
There used to be a story, industriousIy
spread by interested persons, that Vol
taire and Thomas Paine, and other
noted opponents of particular creeds,
died in convulsions Of fear and horror,
and saw visions of demons and of Satan
himself waiting at the foot of the bed
TO pounce upon their unhappy souls;
but these tales are now generally under
stood 10 be pure fabrications. AS a
matter of fact, people do not go through
these theatrical performances on their
deathbeds. If their sufferings have
been protracted, they are usually glad
to be relieved of the burden Of the flesh;
and Ihev are seldom anxious about their
souls, being concerned only for the well
fare of dear ones whom they may be
leaving without sufficient support.
This is, as most sane people will ad
nit, q decided Improvement on the old
convention. Obviously. a deathbed re-
pentance is not going TO do much good
to the people whom the dying person
may have Wronged during his life. The
opinion Of the general public todav is
that if a man is fit to live he is fit to
die. and that If he has spent his life In
all sorts of wickedness, he will carry
into the next life, wherever that may
be, the burden Of those sins, just as he
would carry them through his life on
earth, whether he repented or not
There is a growing conviction that jus
tice is not satisfied by momentary re-
pentance al the time of death, and that
in some way or other the sins for which
a person is responsible win be paid for
by himself
There is also a growing conviction
tEat an an-wise Creator can fix the re-
sponsibility better than we can. We
have earned to understand human ma
ture rather better than people did three
or four hundred years ago, and to see
how much Of the sin, folly. and misery
of this world is not the fault of the sin
ner so much as Of his ancestors or his
This change of view
makes the average person more eau
tious about pronouncing an amateur
maranatha. He has begun
to see how difficult it is to know who
really merits such a malediction
It is unquestionably better that, if
people are to suffer torment on account
of their sins, they should endure it
while there is still some time left them
to reform. The traditional deathbed
terror was certainly a waste Of emo
tion, if it ever existed, and the fact that
it does not now exist is surely matter
for rejoicing.