ho, amidst the distressful
struggles of the frame, ask, "Where is thy sting, O death?" Should not
wisdom, one might urge, avail to combat the blind terrors of the organic
nature? Nay, much more than wisdom, should religion have so little power
to protect her friends against the assaults springing from the dust? Or,
what is the same thing, does it not depend upon the preceding condition
of the soul, as to how she accepts the alterations of the processes of
life?

Now, this is an irrefragable truth. Philosophy, and still more a mind
courageous and elevated by religion, are capable of completely weakening
the influence of the animal sensations which assault the soul of one in
pain, and able, as it were, to withdraw it from all coherence with the
material. The thought of God, which is interwoven with death, as with
all the universe, the harmony of past life, the anticipation of an
ever-happy future, spread a bright light over all its ideas; while night
is drawn round the soul of him who departs in folly and in unbelief. If
even involuntary pangs force themselves upon the Christian and wise man
(for is he less a human being?), yet will he resolve the sensations of
his dissolving frame into happiness:--

The soul, secured in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the war of elements,
The wreck of matter, and the crash of worlds.

It is precisely this unwonted cheerfulness on the part of those who
are mortally sick which has often a physical reason at the basis, and
which has the most express significance for the practical physician.
It is often found in conjunction with the most fatal symptoms of
Hippocrates, and without being attributable to any bygone crisis. Such
a cheerfulness is of bad import. The nerves, which during the height of
the fever have been most sharply assailed, have now lost sensation; the
inflamed members, it is well known, cease to smart as soon as they are
destroyed; but it would be a hapless thought to rejoice that the time of
burning pain were passed and gone. Stimulus fails before the dead
nerves, and a deathly indolence belies future healing. The soul finds
herself under the illusion of a pleasant sensation, because she is free
from a long-enduring painful one. She is free from pain, not because the
tone of h