uddenness of his
murder, not of the murder itself, but of its suddenness, which
left him no opportunity to save his soul: "Sleeping, was I by a
brother's hand Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,

11 Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, p. 489.

Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd; No reckoning made, but sent to
my account With all my imperfections on my head."

Hamlet, urged by supernatural solicitings to vengeance, finds his
murderous uncle on his knees at prayer. Stealing behind him with
drawn sword, he is about to strike the fatal blow, when the
thought occurs to him that the guilty man, if killed when at his
devotions, would surely go to heaven; and so he refrains until a
different opportunity. For to send to heaven the villain who had
slain his father,

"That would be hire and salary, not revenge. He took my father
grossly full of bread, With all his crimes broad blown, as flush
as May; And how his audit stands who knows save Heaven? But, in
our circumstance and course of thought, 'Tie heavy with him. And
am I then revenged To take him in the purging of his soul, When he
is fit and season'd for his passage? No; but when he is drunk,
asleep, enraged, Or in the incestuous pleasures of his bed, At
gaming, swearing, or about some act That has no relish of
salvation in't: Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
And that his soul may be as damn'd and black As hell, whereto it
goes."

This, though poetry, is a fair representation of the mediaval
faith held by all Christendom in sober prose. The same train of
thought latently underlies the feelings of most Protestants too,
though it is true any one would now shrink from expressing it with
such frankness and horrible gusto. But what else means the minute
morbid anatomy of death beds, the prurient curiosity to know how
the dying one bore himself in the solemn passage? How commonly, if
one dies without physical anguish, and with the artificial
exultations of a fanatic, rejoiceful auguries are drawn! if he
dies in physical suffering, and with apparent regret, a gloomy
verdict is rendered! It is superstition, absurdity, and injustice,
all. Not the accidental physical conditions, not the transient
emotions, with which one passes from the earth, can decide his
fate, but the real good or evil of his soul, the genuine fitness
or unfitness of his soul, his soul's inherent merits of bliss or
bale. There is no time nor power in the instant of death, by any
magical legerd