THE FEAR OF DEATH.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3650, 11 June 1927, Page 4

THE FEAR OF DEATH.

DREAD IN DIFFERING FORMS. London, April 23. “The dread of death will never be removed by the promise of a future existence,” writes the Bishop of Southwark (_Dr. Cyril Garbett), in a message to his diocese on “The Fear of Death,” in the May number of the Southwark Diocesan Gazette. “What is wanted is the assurance that in the life to come all that is best and truest in human character is preserved and heightened. Not length of time alone, but value is needed; not mere quantity of years, but the deepening of their quality,” he continues. “I can think of many men and women brave and sensible in the affairs of life who in quiet conversation have admitted this fear of death. HUMAN CRAVING.

“With many the ground for this fear is to be found in the haunting dread that the close of life means extinction. It is the nemesis which naturally follows when .this life has been regarded as all sufficient. There arc some who have no fear of extinction, their lives have been so hard and so sad that they look forward to a sleep from which there will be no awakening. But to most there is a dread of parting forever from all that has made their lives

happy. “With the decay of faith the belief in the certainty of immortality has gone. In the past death Indeed had its aspects of awe and solemnity. There is a craving to know that death is not the end, and that our communion with our friends is not broken forever.

“It is this which has led many to find comfort in the more or less assured results of psychical research or in the far less certain claims of the spiritualist. A “REPELLENT” IDEA.

“The existence after death described by many spiritualists is to most thoughtful men repellent rather than attractive —it is a mere lengthening of this present life. It cannot be said too often that mere survival of death is not necessarily a boon.”