136 SKETCHES OF GEEAT TRUTHS

the craze for this title is also passing, and
the pendulum swings rather the other way
in the desire to put death out of our mind.
It has always seemed to me so absurd to call
it morbid because one speaks of death and
because one desires to know something of that
passing over, which to many of us must mean a
new life, a turning point in the long chain of
lives. The fact, of course, is that to very many of
us this physical body represents life, life here on
the physical plane as the totality of life and the
end of life. "We may not say this in so many
words, but our actions, our thoughts and words
prove it to be so. Our attitude to death will be
guided by our attitude to this life, if we believe
this to be the one and only life in which
we swim or sink, an.d in which we have
our one chance to gain a heaven or a hell,
then indeed is death a dire disaster, for in it
all hope is gone, all chance lost, if so be that
we have failed to make the best of our opportu-
nities here. Who in fact has ever accomplished
that ? But If, as the Divine Wisdom points
out, the life here is but a short span in the
long list of lives of eternity, and death is
but the shedding of an outer garment, then is
death almost a relief, for, are not very many of