SATURDAY, APRIL 11, 1914. AT DEATH'S DOOR

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2120, 11 April 1914, Page 4

SATURDAY, APRIL 11, 1914. AT DEATH'S DOOR

-„-: $ ; The terror of death "consists in our idoa that death is terrible," says an ancient philosophei s , and his opinion is impressively confirmed, by/anumber -oi interesting which bavo ajJ-pcared recently, i-ii tho London J'ini«. The beginning of the cori'espofidenco was a contribution by Professor Cook Wnsos, who stated that the comfort he derived fr-om an experience of hjs ; own was so groat that for the sake sf others ho Mt its his duty to give publicity to the incident. His_ fafchej , had been struck down in his 88th year by inßxusiia which cntkd in ! failure of the heart-. His, condition, was terrible to watch. His panting wii3 so bad and accompanied eafcly by such cflort, that ifc Was al- ■ most impossible to -believe the theory ; of the doctors that he knew nothing of it. The patient survived, and ' when ho recovered consciousness ho ! remarked.: "Tell the doctor that I have had a very comfortable night." Testimony of this character is decidedly reassuring, and wkca i_i is baek:ed nn by tho actual expoienees of ; jjoople who have themselves heon close onough to death to kftow what it feels ■like, ifc goes a good Way to rob' dying of some of its terrors. One writer mentions that Pkofessor Jow-etT, After an illness in which his life hang in the balance, described the experience as "full of interest and devoid of alarm." The- samo writer had a "close call" himself, but Mt no. phy* sieal pain of 8 struggle for -breath and no fear. A man who was brought to death's door by an attack e:f Asiatie cholera tells us that ho lapsed into half-üßcunseiotisncsß and felt aa though h<i was entering a vague and happy peace, where all vjas dark, but not in the least terrifying. Another correspondent states that it is recorded of Dr. Wi-luaJl Hwebs, i the celebrated anatoaist, who died, in 1783, that ift hk last a-omeuts he teaiafltcd to his friend, Dn. Oost-BE: "If I had strength enough to hold- a pen I would Write how J (W»y and pleasant a thing it is to die."

The personal experience of a doctor, who., while in a low stoto after an operation, had an attack of heart faihiro, is of special interest. He had no unpleasant symptoms; though for no less than four hours ha had !to be treated with oxygen and. strychI nifte. At the end of that timo' he "cftfiic to" and his first words were: "I have had a splendid sleep." Ho states that any doctor iii active p.ractm could nwiltiply similar esporiences almost indefinitely- Dβ. H. : Oameiios Gitf.jFS approaches the question, from a somewhat different point of view, and gives instances to show "the use and service of pain iii the world." It is, ho says, our great teacher. "Without pain tho niiman faco- could make jjo progMSs, and we .should have no evolution iii HatuM. , - Where ft can do no saving sarvice, it dooa not exjst. He; stiys there is an old proverb in the Highlands which states that "thero: is always pence before death," and ■ Highlanders do not like nn illness, not attended by uain, Vajuabtc aiid interesting though these testiniofiica undoubtedly arts ttwy thvow light on one side only of the problem of death —the physical Bide. Tiiey do not touch on what may ba calfod the mystical aspect; the dread of going out alone into the unknown;' the unwillingness to ( mafa the leap into tho clafk; tho repulsion which e(woof the best niiuds {eel at the idea of cxliaclion. The late Professor Hi'xiey refers to this phasi> the question in a letter to Lord Moriev :

"It is a curious thing/' Hβ writes, "that I fliid my dislike to ilia thought of Ditißction irioi'<a«ihs is I f)t older and nearer tlie goal, It flashes acresj me

at nil Joris of times with .1 sort of horror that i>i 1900 1 eJsnll -probably knowno more of what is going on tliii.ii I did in 1880. I had Sooner 'bo in lieJl a good deal—»it any taXe iu one of the upper circles where tlifl eJimate and foinpnny arc not 100 trying. I wonder if you are plagued in this way."

Jα these striking words Huxle£ lias expressed in his characteristic way thi revolt of the mind of man in all agP3 Against the idea of boing smiffo'.l out like the 'flame of a candle. Primitive man refused to entertain the thought of extinction, and from the dawn of its history mankind has clung with wonderful persistenco to tho belief in a future life. Eternity has been set in the heart of man, aad our moral nature protests against th-3 idea that this life is all. "So little done, so much to tta," exclaimed Oecjl Ixodes on his death-bed, and this is , probably the feeling of Iho majority of men who have lived lives worth living. "A man is immortal till his work is done," says Dr. Jame§j\Varb, "and it is because wo see that his trork is not done, that his capacities are not worked cut here, that we feel confident that death is not the end of him." If this confidence is misplaced a serious blow is struck at the rationality of tho world. > Groat moral and rational principles are bound up with belief in a future lifej and Huxley., agnostic though he was, has placed on record the opinion that if this belief is essential to morality, physical science has h-> more tfi sa,y against the probability of that doctrine tlia.u the- most ordinary experience has, -and it effectually closes the mouths, of those who pretend to refute it by objections deduced from merely physical data,

It is certainly' reassuring and comforting to feel that death is not sticb a distressing experience irom th« physical point of view as many people seem to believe; but most of Us would lifee to know a gi-oat deal mere than this. Wo want to know whether death meftiis annihilation, or whcfchcr,_ as the Jkster messago tell. , us, it is really the gate of liie. A man may get very near to the gate, and coino back and tell us what it felt like to be there; but there ave no cracks- through which he Cftii get even » glimpso of the other sidc-j and no rctttrn tickets ftre issued for the journey that jpasses throagh the portal. • One hesitates nowadays te set limits to tho possi-bl-i, iind whether, means of communicating with those on "the other side' , will ever be satisfactorily* established remains to be seen. Siji Outer topes has told us that a body of responsible investigators has even now landed on the treacherous but ■premising shores of a aew Oontkcnc. Their quest is a fasclnatitifr one, and their first sight into tho strange beyond would stir up emotions Kfco those felt by a> "watcher of the skies" "When a flow plaiidt stviin.s hito his \tn; Or ltlro stoiit Cortez; as with •enflo ey«a Hβ stared on fte Pacific j aa<l all his men Looked at each otlter ititli mild sur-. iniso Siknt «ix>n a peak in Barieii, Tliough many of us may not be as hopeful of success as Srit OliVbe Ldpcffi and his fellow explorers, we, i&n all heartily wish them bon voyai/i'f and assure tiwrii that any reliable infonn&tion they may obtain of life in the "vasty deep" will boeagerly welcomed, by ft grateful world.