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Show THE CHEERFULNESS OF DEATH. - .-' ;.-f" A medical man, writing in the Outlook, gives his impressious upon. death. His name is Keen W. W. Keen and hisv conclusions prove that he is a keen scholar. , "Most people," he says, "even most Christian' people, shrink from death. In sermons and hymns and in literature it is generally represented as repulsive. re-pulsive. It is. spoken of as 'Death's Cold Stream,' 'The Last Enemy,' the 'Dark Valley of the Shadow Death',' and the 'terrors of death' are pictured in vivid terms. For the Christian at least, this is all wrong. ' Death should be in reality his. best friend; welcomed rather than feared. "So far as the physical aspect of death is concerned, con-cerned, the universal teaching of physicians is that the process of dying is rarely painful or even unwelcome un-welcome to the paitent, though full of sorrow to his family. A happy, unconsciousness in nearly all cases shields the dying man from pain. The weakness, weak-ness, the fever, the parched lips, the labored breathing, breath-ing, are all unfelt. Most people die quietly and often almost imperceptibly. "We thought her dying when she slept, And sleeping when she died," is often true. Even when convulsive movements occur, they arc entirely independent of consciousness; conscious-ness; merely physical in origin and character, and absolutely unattended by any suffering. "If, then, death is not. an unpleasant, process physically, why should it be feared from the spiritual spir-itual side? See what it does for the Christian. "It frees him from accident, sickness and suffering, suf-fering, to which his body has been liable all his life, and from which he has often suffered, sometimes some-times intensely and for long periods of time. "It frees him from, all sorrow. No one who has ever reached adolescence escapes sorrow. To many, sorrows are multiplied manifold and bear down even the stoutest heart. The 'weary' and the 'heavy laden' make up the mass of mankind. "It opens the gates of heaven to him. While we know nothing accurately of the details of heavenly heav-enly life, we do know that there wc shall live in eternal bliss; there we shall be in the presence of God himself; there we shall see and know intimately our Lord Jesus Christ; there we shall feel the influence in-fluence of the Holy Spirit; there we shall meet the saints of all ages; there he shall be reunited to the dear ones who have happily preceded us; there shall come in due time the dear ones we j have left on earth; there our minds will expand beyond our present comprehension; there all the unsolved problems of ' earth will be clear as day; there wc shall learn why perplexity, disappointment and trouble were our lot on earth and were needful for the orderly and sufficient development of our own character, and of Gods large plans not only for us, but for the race ; there, in a word, all that is evil shall vanish away and all that is good shall be ours forever. "If death, then, is not a painful, unpleasant process, and if it does for us so much, it should be, not. the last enemy, but our best friend; not dreaded as the messenger of evil, but welcomed as the companion who will lead us into paths of pleasantness and reveal to us the joys for which we have been longing all our lives. We should not speak of the terrors of death, but should feel in our very hearts the cheerfulness of death.' i " ' M, .. " . . . - -. . ' |