There is a period, which frequently lasts for several hours, during which, life having completely left the body, it is already a corpse which is under the eyes of the spectators, and yet that corpse still moves and speaks. But the soul which survives in the body, really dead, is not the soul of the terrestrial man, but of the superhuman being. The dying person has the consciousness, and perhaps even the prevision of the ineffable happiness which awaits him in that new world upon whose threshold he is standing, and he expresses his happiness by his words and looks. In a sigh of supreme joy he exhales his last breath. This extraordinary state, in which the dying are partly on earth, and partly in the new world to which they are destined, explains the touching eloquence, the sublime words which sometimes come from their feeble lips. An uneducated poor man will express himself upon his death-bed with eloquence incomprehensible to those who are listening to him. It also explains the prophecies, justified by subsequent events, which have been uttered by the dying. They have a knowledge of things of which, in their ordinary condition as belonging to the human species, they could not possibly have had any notion. Therefore, we ought to treasure up their last words with pious care, and scrupulously fulfil the wishes which they express.
In Moldavia, when a peasant has escaped death in a severe illness, after having been on the brink of the grave, his friends press around his bed to ask him what he had seen in the other world, and what news he has for them from their dead relatives. Then the poor invalid interprets his visions for them as well as he can.
A modern writer, who has left some small books on spiritualist philosophy, M. Constant Savy, relates in his "Pensées et Méditations," an extraordinary dream which he had when he was, apparently, at the point of death. We transcribe this curious and interesting document from M. Pezzani's work:—
"I felt very ill," writes Constant Savy, "I had no strength, it seemed to me that my life was making efforts to resist death, but in vain, and that it was about to escape. My soul detached itself little by little from the matter spread all over my frame; I felt it retiring from all those parts with which it is so intimately united, and, as it were, concentrating itself upon one single point, the heart, and a thousand obscure, cloudy thoughts about my future life occupied me. Little by little nature faded from before me, taking irregular and strange forms, I almost lost the faculty of thinking, I only retained that of feeling, and this feeling was all love, love of God and of the beings whom I had most cherished in Him; but I could not manifest this love; my soul, withdrawn to one single point in my body, had almost ceased to have any relation with it, and could no longer command it. My soul experienced some distractions still, caused by the pain of the body, and the grief of those who surrounded me, but these distractions were slight, like the pains and the perceptions which caused them. My life was now attached to matter by one only of the thousand links which had formerly bound it, and I was about to expire.
"Suddenly, no doubt to mark the passage from this life to the other, there came a thick darkness, to which succeeded a brilliant light. Then, O my God! I saw Thy day, that daylight I had so much desired! I saw them, all assembled together, those beings whom I had so dearly loved, who had inspired me during my life in this world after they had left me, and who had seemed to me to dwell in my soul, or float about me. They were all there, full of joy and happiness. They were waiting for me, they welcomed me with delight. It seemed to me that I completed their life and that they completed mine! But what a difference was there in the happiness I now felt from the sensations of the world I left! I cannot describe them! They were penetrating without being impetuous; they were mild, calm, full, unmixed, and yet they admitted the hope of a yet greater happiness!
"I did not see Thee, my God! Who can see Thee? But I loved Thee more than I had loved Thee in this world! I comprehended Thee better, felt Thee more strongly, the traces of Thee which are everywhere, and on everything, appeared more plain and bright to me, I experienced such admiration and astonishment as I had never hitherto known, I saw more distinctly a portion of the wonders of Thy creation. The bowels of the earth hid no more secrets from me, I saw their depths, I saw the insects and other creatures which dwell in them, the mines known to men, and undiscovered by them, the secret ways and channels of the earth. I reckoned its age in its bosom as one counts that of a tree in the heart of its trunk; I saw all the water-courses which feed the seas; I saw the reflux of these waters, and it was like the motion of the blood in a man's body; from the heart to the extremities, from the extremities to the heart; I saw the depths of the volcanoes; I understood the motions of the earth and its relations with the stars, and, just as if the earth had been turned round before my eyes that I might be made to admire Thy greatness, O my God! I saw all countries with their various inhabitants, and their different customs, I saw every variety of my species, and a voice said to me: 'Like thyself, all these men are the image of the Creator; like thyself, they are ever journeying towards God, and conscious of their progress!' The thickness of the forests, the depth of the seas could not hide anything from my eyes; I had power to see everything, to admire all, and I was happy in my happiness, in the happiness of the dear objects of my tender love. Our joys were in common. We felt ourselves united by our former affections which had now become much more deep, and by the love of God: we drew happiness from one and the same source; we were but one, we each and all enjoyed this happiness, which was far too great to be expressed. I am silent now, that I may feel it more deeply."[22]
It is easy for us to verify to ourselves the fact that men who are condemned by nature to a premature death, are endowed with a great serenity of mind. This moral condition is, in our opinion, an indication that they have the presentiment or even the anticipated possession of the new life which awaits them after death. Why are consumptive people so gentle and sensitive? We believe it is because, being already half out of this world, they are partially endowed with the moral attributes of superhuman beings. They are, as it is well known, always confident in their destinies, they make projects of happiness, and for the future, when their last hour is striking, they feel hope and joy when the by-standers are thinking of their burial. It is customary to explain this anomaly by saying that persons in consumption do not understand the gravity of their illness, but we believe that they have, on the contrary, a confused notion of their state, that nature reveals to them the approach of an existence of cloudless happiness, and that it is this secret conviction which gives them hope and confidence in the future. The future which they foresee is not of this world, but the future of the heavens. This applies not to consumptive persons only. Every man destined to die young seems to be marked with that inner stamp of the soul which lends him now a gentle and charming melancholy, anon vivacity or sensibility which his parents admire, and which is too often only an indication that he is not to remain with them. The charming qualities of many young people are often only the precursors of their death.
"When they have so much intellect, children have brief lives," says Casimir Delavigne. "Whom the gods love, die young," said the Greeks.
Let us, then, not fear death; but await it, not as the end of our existence, but as its transformation. Let us learn by the purity of our life, by our virtues, by the culture of our faculties, by our knowledge, by the exercise of the religion of our ancestors, to prepare ourselves for the critical moment of that natural revolution which shall usher us into a blessed sojourn in the ethereal spheres on the day after death.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] Quoted by M. Pezzani, in his "Pluralité des Existences de l'âme," pp. 261-263.