n the lifeless form the cast of its agonizing pain, and augur
from that an eternity of sorrow. But fortunately, in reality we can only
feel pain as long as we possess "life." In a sense, therefore, death is
a blessing.

After all, the severest pains of death lie in the brains of the living.
The mind is capable of suffering in one moment all that a lifetime can
repay with pleasure, and no joy is sufficient in value to compensate you
for enduring an irreparable loss.

The conditions that existed before our birth are identical with the
conditions that will exist at our death. As we knew no life and felt no
pain before our birth, we shall know no life and feel no pain after our
death.

Death is no longer the enigma of life. Living is its problem. The sting
of death has been removed. We know death's destiny, and no longer fear
its consequences. The only suffering attached to death now is the
injustice of its time of coming, the reluctance of parting with loved
ones, and the loss of the opportunity to attain. Well might I say with
Shakespeare, that:

"Cowards die many times before their death;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come."

The most despicable characters of human life are those who prey upon
credulous persons when in the face of death and shrouded with the fear
of its uncertainty, picturing to those persons horrible and frightening
tales of an eternity of torture.

What unspeakable misery must those whose religious conviction has so
terrified death and its aftermath, especially when it is intensified and
horrified through the mouthpiece of ignorant priests, suffer in
consequence of death.

Oh, what a fearful sting must be there!

Just think what this poor, vast, credulous multitude pay, with the sweat
of their brows and the bend of their backs, to enrich these moral beasts
in exchange for their ignorant and terrifying mumblings, that rob the
deluded ones of every fiber of courage and every thought of perfect
peace and rest.

It is while living that death possesses its sting and anguish. Anyone
that seeks tribute from the dying, or from the living for services on
behalf of the dead, is a damnable moral scoundrel and a cunning rascal.

To those whose minds have been poisoned from childhood with this
religious convic