Let that, however, be as it
may, two remarks suggest themselves as prudent restraints upon a
doctrine which else _may_ wander, and _has_ wandered, into an
uncharitable superstition. The first is this: that many people are
likely to exaggerate the horror of a sudden death from the disposition
to lay a false stress upon words or acts simply because by an accident
they have become _final_ words or acts. If a man dies, for
instance, by some sudden death when he happens to be intoxicated, such
a death is falsely regarded with peculiar horror; as though the
intoxication were suddenly exalted into a blasphemy. But _that_ is
unphilosophic. The man was, or he was not, _habitually_ a drunkard.
If not, if his intoxication were a solitary accident, there can be no
reason for allowing special emphasis to this act simply because through
misfortune it became his final act. Nor, on the other hand, if it were
no accident, but one of his _habitual_ transgressions, will it be
the more habitual or the more a transgression because some sudden
calamity, surprising him, has caused this habitual transgression to be
also a final one. Could the man have had any reason even dimly to
foresee his own sudden death, there would have been a new feature in
his act of intemperance--a feature of presumption and irreverence, as
in one that, having known himself drawing near to the presence of God,
should have suited his demeanour to an expectation so awful.
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