Character and Conduct – 10 September – The Dead

MOST persons have died before they expire – died to all earthly longings, so that the last breath is only, as it were, the locking of the door of the already deserted mansion.   The fact of the tranquillity with which the great majority of dying persons await this locking of those gates of life through which its airy angels have been coming and going from the moment of the first cry, is familiar to those who have been often called upon to witness the last period of life.   Almost always there is a preparation made by Nature for unearthing a soul, just as on the smaller scale there is for the removal of a milk tooth.   The roots which hold human life to earth are absorbed before it is lifted from its place.   Some of the dying are weary, and want rest, the idea of which is almost inseparable, in the universal mind, from death.   Some are in pain, and want to be rid of it, even though the anodyne be dropped, as in the legend, from the sword of the Death-Angel.   And some are strong in faith and hope, so that, as they draw near the next world, they would fain hurry toward it, as the caravan moves faster over the sands when the foremost travellers send word along the file that water is in sight.   Though each little party that follows in a foot-track of its own will have it that the water to which others think they are hastening is a mirage, not the less has it been true in all ages, and for human beings of every creed which recognised a future, that those who have fallen, worn out by their march through the Desert, have dreamed at least of a River of Life, and thought they heard its murmurs as they lay dying.

The Professor at the Breakfast Table, O. W. HOLMES

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These quotes are from ‘Character and Conduct’ A selection of helpful thoughts from various authors arranged for daily reading.

Collected by Constance M Whishaw and first published in 1905 as a follow up to her volume of Daily Readings for members of the Being and Doing Guild who asked for an additional volume

In her preface Whishaw writes:

‘This collection of noble thoughts expressed by men and women of past and present ages who have endeavoured to leave the world a little better than they found it.’

It is my hope in publishing them here readers may be inspired to imitate the example of the authors.