And strength to die. Men are afraid of dying, principally, I believe,
because they fear the unknown. It is not that they are afraid of the
pain of dying. It is not that they are afraid of going to hell; for in
all my experience, at least, I have met with but one person who thought
that he was going to hell. Neither is it that they are afraid of not
going to heaven. Their expectation almost always is, that they are going
thither. But they do not care much to go to heaven. They are willing
enough to go there, because they know that they must go somewhere. But
their notions of what heaven will be like are by no means clear. They
have sung rapturous hymns in church or chapel about the heavenly
Jerusalem, and passing Jordan safe to Canaan's shore, with no very clear
notion of what the words meant--and small blame to them.
But when they think of actually dying, they feel as if to go into the
next world was to be turned out into the dark night, into an unknown
land, away from house and home, and all they have known, and all they
have loved; and they are ready to say with the good old heathen emperor,
when he lay a-dying--
"Little soul of mine, wandering, kindly,
Companion and guest of my body;
Into what place art thou now departing,
Shivering, naked, and pale?"
And so they shrink from death.
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