William C. Gray, LL.D., editor of The Interior, Chicago, from whose Camp-Fire Musings I have previously quoted, was a man of splendid powers. By his manner of life he demonstrated as fully as any person possibly could how wisely and naturally old age can be taken on, and how easily the crown can be torn from the brow of the King of Terrors.

Once I spent an hour with Dr. Gray, only a few months before he closed the affairs of this life. He knew on that bright summer morning that he was marked for an early calling home. But he chatted as cheerfully and as amusingly as though his successful life might be prolonged indefinitely. He was a brave soul. He not so much as cast a hint in any manner that an incurable ailment held mastery over him, or that he should soon bid farewell to The Interior and its thousands of readers with whom he had been so pleasantly associated for thirty years. In the Thirty-first Musing, written at eventide, he leaves this message for the consolation of the living:

"A woodsman brought us a present of a little fawn. We cared for it tenderly, but to-day I found it sleeping, and when I thought to waken it, it slept on. Its slender limbs were cold, and I sought to warm them. Placing my hand to its side, its little heart was fluttering like a bird. Its sleep was deep and painless. Why, even this child of the forest, nameless, aimless, with no higher object in living than to live, is so cared for that its life goes out in peaceful repose.

"Is this what men call the King of Terrors? Is this drifting away that which men look forward to with dread? For indeed, it shall come to us in no other way than it came to this innocent fawn - a fluttering heart, benumbed limbs, fading light, voices, however near, seeming to come from afar, and at last silence and perfect repose. We need not regard death as a personage of much consequence. Who is he? No body but the Lord's liveried servant standing at the door to swing it open. There is no more reason why we should fear him than his prototype at the door of the home of a friend. There we do not think of the usher. We see the light in the broad windows, forms behind the lace curtains, and catch a strain of music, a whiff of flowers, and hear the continuous sound of many voices, and we feel by anticipation the clasp of greeting, and see smiling faces of welcome. What has the black-plumed porter to do with us but open the door?

"The habit of regarding one's self as young becomes a fixed habit, and it continues until rudely broken by some irresistible evidence that it has outlasted' its time. But the conviction once admitted to its place, one becomes accustomed to the new situation, and begins to enjoy the prerogatives of old age. There is usually, strange to say, greater confidence in the stability and security of life than when young. This comes of experience. The aging person sees his kindred passing away one by one, his old acquaintances going or gone - and he unconsciously loses the instinctive sense of personal danger. He acquires a feeling of exemption from the common fate. Possibly this is providential preparation, so that our last years may not be marred by fear of that which is inevitable and not distant - that clouds and premature darkness and chilly and dismal rains may not overshadow our setting sun. This freedom from care about death is not the result of an intellectual condition, but only a placid habit of mind. Very few people, as they come near the change, experience any fear of it. Death is a process of nature, and is gradual, gentle, and painless."

No moralist, whether in ancient or modem times, has dwelt more beautifully, or with more common sense on old age than Cicero. He did not live to be an old man, having been taken off by Mark Antony's soldiers in December, 43 B.C. But as the great orator approached his sixtieth year he discussed the subject of old age and death very gracefully in one of his Dialogues. I can find space only for a brief quotation:

"Spring represents the time of youth and gives promise of the future fruits; the remaining seasons are intended for plucking and gathering in those fruits. Now the harvest of old age, as I have often said, is the recollection and abundance of blessings previously secured. In truth everything that happens agreeably to nature is to be reckoned among blessings. And what is more agreeable to nature as for an old man to die? Old men die as the exhausted fire goes out, spontaneously, without the exertion of any force; a state which to me indeed is so delightful that the nearer I approach to death, I seem as it were to be getting in sight of land, and at length after a long voyage to be just coming into harbor."

Schiller says that death must be a blessing because it is universal. This is the rational view of it. Dr. Samuel Johnson lived in mortal dread of dying, but when he lay on his deathbed in 1784, at the age of seventy-five, his hypochondria, which had bothered him all his life, vanished. The King of Terrors was only a phantom, and the great lexicographer, essayist, and poet, fell asleep like a tired child.

There is much beauty in the sentiment on death expressed by Henry Ward Beecher after he had become what the world calls an old man. Death had no terrors for him, and once he said: "When I die, do not place crepe - the emblem of gloom - on the house, but rather hang a basket of flowers at the door as an emblem that a soul has passed from death unto life." And again he said: "To me the gate to the grave is the pearly gate. Death, to me, is no slamming door of darkness, behind which sprites gibber to frighten men. I abhor all the monuments which represent grief as a child of midnight nursed by sorrows that the night breeds. Dying is translation."

There is a picture of the character of L. Allen Gilbert's "Vanity," which, viewed at a distance of three or four yards, has a frightful face, livid and ghastly. But there is a hideous fascination about it that impresses the beholder and draws him closer to it. On approaching the picture, the hideousness disappears, and the face, which at a long view was repulsive, is found to be the face of an angel. It is a picture of death, and the purpose of the artist was to impress the idea that the terror of death is an apprehension.

Death may not be pleasant in prospect but it should afford us much peace of mind to know that in reality dying has no sting. Physicians who have seen many persons pass out of life, have testified that while some of them have been violently opposed to dying, they never saw one who was afraid of death in the sense of terror or apprehension.

From a practical point of view we find that death is analogous to sleep. Just as one who is tired by the burden and heat of the day quietly falls asleep at evening time, so one whose life's work is well done and whose condition otherwise is normal, peacefully passes into sleep at the close of his earthly day. Among the last words spoken by Frances E. Willard were these: "How beautiful to be with God." And it is recorded that a distinguished physician, when on his deathbed, calmly whispered: "I wish I could hold a pen and write down what a delightful thing it is to die." It is said that it was never intended that a natural death in old age should be anything but peaceful.

That noted English dramatic writer, William Mountford, is beautifully quaint in expressing his view of old age and death. He calls the years of old age, stalls in the cathedral of life in which aged persons can sit and listen and be patient till the service is over, and in which they may get themselves ready to say "Amen," at the last, with all their hearts and souls and strength.