dying man
could sleep; how consoling to his mind was the thought of every hour of
peaceful rest; of every hour in which the patient was withdrawn from
consciousness, insensible to suffering, removed for a time from the
miseries of a dying life. He should ask himself whether these intervals
of insensibility were not on the whole the happiest in the
illness--those which he would most have wished to multiply or to
prolong. He should accustom himself, then, to think of death as
sleep--undisturbed sleep--the only sleep from which man never wakes to
pain.

You find yourself in the presence of what is a far deeper and more
poignant trial than an old man's death--a young life cut off in its
prime; the eclipse of a sun before the evening has arrived. Accustom
yourself to consider the life that has passed as a whole. A human being
has been called into the world--has lived in it ten, twenty, thirty
years. It seems to you an intolerable instance of the injustice of fate
that he is so early cut off. Estimate, then, that life as a whole, and
ask yourself whether, so judged, it has been a blessing or the reverse.
Count up the years of happiness. Count up the days, or perhaps weeks, of
illness and of pain. Measure the happiness that this short life has
given to some who have passed away; who never lived to see its early
close. Balance the happiness which during its existence it gave to those
who survived, with the poignancy and the duration of pain caused by the
loss. Here, for example, is one who lived perhaps twenty-five years in
health and vigour; whose life during that period was chequered by no
serious misfortune; whose nature, though from time to time clouded by
petty anxieties and cares, was on the whole bright, buoyant, and happy;
who had the capacity of vivid enjoyment and many opportunities of
attaining it; who felt all the thrill of health and friendship and
ecstatic pleasure. Then came a change,--a year or two with a crippled
wing--life, though not abjectly wretched, on the whole a burden, and
then the end. You can easily conceive--you can ardently desire--a better
lot, but judge fairly the lights and shades of what has been. Does not
the happiness on the whole exceed the evil? Can you honestly say that
this life has been a curse and not a blessing?--that it would have been
better if it had never been called out of nothingness?--that it would
have been better if the drama had never been played? It is over now. As
you lay