Though called the King of Terrors, death is not necessarily terrifying. There is no need of destroying the fear of death, if no such fear exists.
The writer of these lines never knew what it was to be afraid of the death-change, though always afraid of pain. In childhood, when but four years old, his little brother, two years younger, was buried. The older boy was forced, as the custom then was, into an ill-fitting and uncomfortable suit of mourning, which made the funeral a trying season; but the awkward suit was never worn again, and the bereavement left no special sadness in the surviving brother's thoughts. The mother always said that she had never known her elder son to express or show a particle of fear at the change called death, at whose mention mankind so often trembles, and from whose presence humanity shrinks. The inference is, that fear of death is largely, if not entirely, caused by false ideas about it; ideas fostered by superstition, and inculcated by ignorant religion,—religion which professes to
make a dying bed
Seem soft as downy pillows are,
