half-century for which this man has been behind prison bars. Into what a changed world he will come. What can he do? His friends are dead. His generation has passed. His own State does not know him. One would suppose he would almost want to commit some crime that would take him back to his home of fifty years. What can he do? Society punished him, now what will society do for him? There is no asylum for him. He knows nothing of the business methods of the day. He is a living dead man. Would it not have been more merciful for society by capital punishment to have made him a dead man fifty years ago?
(678)
There is a very real "death" other than the merely natural, as the following paragraph from the Scrap Book will show:
Emperor Francis Joseph's only surviving
brother, Archduke Louis Victor, was confined
a lunatic, in a mountain castle hidden
away in one of the remotest corners of the
Austrian Tyrol. He himself, to all intents,
is dead as far as the imperial family and the
great world at Vienna are concerned. (Text.)
(679)
Dead Valued More than Living—See Ancestor Worship.
Deafness—See Articulation.
DEATH
We are too stupid about death. We will not learn
How it is wages paid to those who earn,
How it is the gift for which on earth we yearn,
To be set free from the bondage to the flesh;
How it is turning seed-corn into grain,
How it is winning heaven's eternal gain,
How it means freedom evermore from pain,
How it untangles every mortal mesh.
We are so selfish about death. We count our grief
Far more than we consider their relief
Whom the great Reaper gathers in the sheaf,
No more to know the seasons' constant change;
And we forget that it means only life,
Life with all joy, peace, rest, and glory rife,
The victory won, and ended all the strife,
And heaven no longer far away or strange.
Their Lent is over, and their Easter won,
Waiting till over paradise the sun
Shall rise in majesty, and life begun
Shall grow in glory, as the perfect day
Moves on, to hold its endless, deathless sway.
—William Croswell Doane, The Outlook.
(680)
DEATH AS A SHADOW
Did not Jesus show us glimpses of what is behind the shadow into which our friends have gone?
My neighbor's lamp, across the way,
Throws dancing lights upon my wall;
They come and go in passing play,
And then the sudden shadows fall.
My friend's white soul through eyes and lips
Shone out on me but yesterday
In radiant warmth; now swift eclipse
Has left those windows cold and gray.
Ah, if I could but look behind
The still, dark barrier of that night,
And there-undimmed, unwavering-find
That life and love were all alight! (Text.)
—Charles Buxton Going, Munsey's Magazine.
(681)
DEATH-BED FAITH
John G. Paton tells in his autobiography of the death-bed of Nerwa, the converted chief of Aniwa.
On my last visit to Nerwa his strength
had gone very low, but he drew me near his
face and whispered, "Missi, my Missi, I am
glad to see you. You see that group of
young men? They came to sympathize with
me, but they never once have spoken the
name of Jesus, tho they have spoken about
everything else. They could not have
weakened me so if they had spoken about
Jesus! Read me the story of Jesus. Pray
for me to Jesus. No, stop, let us call them
and let me speak with them before I go!"
I called them all around him and he said,
"After I am gone let there be no bad talk,
no heathen ways. Sing Jehovah's songs and
pray to Jesus, and bury me as a Christian.
Take good care of my Missi, and help him
all you can. I am dying happy and going
to be with Jesus, and it was Missi that
showed me this way. And who among you
will take my place in the village school and
in the church? Who among you will stand
up for Jesus?" Many were shedding tears,
