:

"Familiar to us all is the thought that death is but a birth into
another state of existence, whether that state be the eternal paradise
which is the final goal of every man's hopes, or merely another stage
thitherward. Death is a birth, the truth of which will more forcibly
appeal to our minds when we reflect also that birth is a death."

"How can that be, except for the still-born?" queried the astrologer.

The hakeem raised a hand deprecating the interruption.

"Nay, follow me in my argument," he continued quietly. "If death is a
birth, then is a birth truly death. For the babe has been living through
a prior stage of existence. To it the nine months passed in its mother's
womb may have meant a long span of life. For time is but a relative
term, and, measured against eternity, the whole period of man's sojourn
on earth, be it three score or four score years, is but as the puff of
a single breath. So the child in the womb lives there a full span of
existence; it is nurtured and it grows, it sleeps and it wakes, it lies
passive and it disports itself, it is sensitive to cold and to heat, to
thirst and to hunger, and God alone knows what it thinks and what mental
impressions it forms of the existence through which it is passing. And
the hour of its birth is truly the hour of its death, for in pain and
travail it is plucked from its warm and comfortable surroundings, and
with the shock of physical change and unseeing dread it cries aloud in
sharp anguish. Thus precisely do we ourselves die when we pass from this
world to another existence, physically and mentally resenting the harsh
change, terrified because of our very ignorance of what is really
happening."

The physician paused, amid a deep hush that bore eloquent testimony to
the impressiveness of the thought to which he had given utterance.

"But the parallel does not end here," he resumed.

"When the infant is born, then for the first time does it see face to
face the divinity who through all the preceding stage of its existence
has protected it, warmed it, and nourished it. In the presence of its
mother it is in the presence of the God who has hitherto enveloped it,
wholly and completely, in His own divine being. So when we die will we
be face to face with the now unseen God who everywhere encompasses us,
beholding Him at first only with the dazzled vision and dim
half-consciousness of the new-born babe, but growing to know Him and to
love Him as we have