o human infirmity,
than exacted from human piety. And, however _that_ may be, two remarks
suggest themselves as prudent restraints upon a doctrine, which else _may_
wander, and _has_ wandered, into an uncharitable superstition. The first
is this: that many people are likely to exaggerate the horror of a sudden
death, (I mean the _objective_ horror to him who contemplates such a
death, not the _subjective_ horror to him who suffers it,) from the false
disposition to lay a stress upon words or acts, simply because by an
accident they have become words or acts. If a man dies, for instance,
by some sudden death when he happens to be intoxicated, such a death is
falsely regarded with peculiar horror; as though the intoxication were
suddenly exalted into a blasphemy. But _that_ is unphilosophic. The man
was, or he was not, _habitually_ a drunkard. If not, if his intoxication
were a solitary accident, there can be no reason at all for allowing
special emphasis to this act, simply because through misfortune it became
his final act. Nor, on the other hand, if it were no accident, but one of
his _habitual_ transgressions, will it be the more habitual or the more a
transgression, because some sudden calamity, surprising him, has caused
this habitual transgression to be also a final one? Could the man have had
any reason even dimly to foresee his own sudden death, there would have
been a new feature in his act of intemperance--a feature of presumption and
irreverence, as in one that by possibility felt himself drawing near to the
presence of God. But this is no part of the case supposed. And the only new
element in the man's act is not any element of extra immorality, but simply
of extra misfortune.

The other remark has reference to the meaning of the word _sudden_. And it
is a strong illustration of the duty which for ever calls us to the stern
valuation of words--that very possibly Caeesar and the Christian church do
not differ in the way supposed; that is, do not differ by any difference
of doctrine as between Pagan and Christian views of the moral temper
appropriate to death, but that they are contemplating different cases.
Both contemplate a violent death; a [Greek: biathanatos]--death that
is [Greek: biaios]: but the difference is--that the Roman by the word
"sudden" means an _unlingering_ death: whereas the Christian Litany
by "sudden" means a death _without warning_, consequently without any
available summons to religious p