"You think of death as a Christian," said I.
"And how else should I think of it?" she replied. "Can I not trust
Him in whom I have believed? What is it more than passing from a
lower to a higher state of life--from the natural to the spiritual
world? When the hour comes, I will lay me down in peace and sleep."
She remained silent for some moments, her thoughts apparently
indrawn. The brief, closing sentence was spoken as if she were
lapsing into reverie. I thought the subject hardly in place for a
wedding occasion, and was about starting another theme, when she
said--
"Do you not think, Doctor, that this dread of dying, which haunts
most people like a fearful spectre--the good as well as the bad--is
a very foolish thing? We are taught, from childhood, to look forward
to death as the greatest of all calamities; as a change attended by
indefinable terrors. Teachers and preachers ring in our ears the
same dread chimes, thrilling the strongest nerves and appalling the
stoutest hearts. Death is pictured to us as a grim monster; and we
shudder as we look at the ghastly apparition.
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