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Show Another case I remember of a young Tommy who had a long, weary illness from an awful wound. He, too, no doubt, was bound to die, but he, too, lost heart. It was arranged that he should go to England, Eng-land, but he had ceased to care to do so, and refused. re-fused. The end came rapidly after that. I think these instances show that much depends on will power. My own father was a man of extraordinary ex-traordinary vitality. A month before his death his doctor said to me : "By all the laws he ought to be dead now." It was difficult to believe a few hours before his death, at the age of ninety, that he was a dying man. His again was a case of the most absolute belief in the other world, coupled with an intense desire to live and not die a moment too soon. Probably the greatest pain in death is mental pain. I can conceive a wasted life, a stupid life, and. still more, a wicked life, making it very painful pain-ful for a man to die. IIS DEATH PAINFUL? I The physical pain of death depends, I suppose, on the particular cause of death, says a writer in London Tit Bits. Naturally, death from starvation or cancer must be very much more painful than death from old age. Dying is probably more painful pain-ful than death itself. At some most painful death beds there seems to come a period of calm when the end draws near. I think it is a great pity that for the sake of relations a death agony is sometimes some-times prolonged by the use of powerful drugs. I remember a doctor saying to me at the death bed of a young officer: "If there were relations here we should keep him alive for a few hours." Why should a dying man be kept alive for these sentimental senti-mental reasons? I suppose a great deal of the painfulness of death is due to our struggling against it. Just as when we resist an anesthetic, it causes us great discomfort, discom-fort, while if we meekly submit to it the sensation is delightful, so with death. The reason we resist is that we cling to life. This does not necessarily mean that we are afraid to die, or that we have doubts about immortality, and waut to have as much of this world as possible for fear there is no other. The greatest struggle for life I ever witnessed was on the part of a young spiritualist, who most certainly believed in the next world. He simply refused to die, and did literally live some days longer because of his determination. de-termination. It was rather splendid, this insistence on life, though It probably cost him a lot of pain. On the other hand, I remember a young soldier In France who died from sheer lack of wanting to live. The doctor told me that he need not have died If he had ouly resolved tc live. |