PAGAN FEARLESSNESS OF DEATH.
Opinion of Mr. Huc, a Christian Priest, that it is their religion which makes Christians more fearful of death than the Chinese, ([746].)
2052. Parson Berg and Bishop McIlvaine unjustly represent the doctrines of futurity, held by Christians, as causing those who believe in eternal punishment—in the horrible hell described by Josephus, and sanctioned by the gospel, with the precarious notions of heaven derived from the same authority—to have less fear of death than deists, by them called infidels. But I have known many deists die, and certainly I have never seen any believer in Christianity meet death with more firmness than those who did not believe. Some of the last-mentioned class have died of painful complaints with the most admirable equanimity. But to illustrate the injustice of these reverend gentlemen in their undue assumption of the superior fearlessness of death of those persons who believe in the gospel over those who do not so believe, I will here quote a passage from the travels of a Christian missionary, which describes the equanimity with which the Chinese meet death. From the work of the French missionary, Mr. Huc, it will be seen that death is contemplated with far less fearful apprehension in China than in Christendom.
Observations of the Missionary, Mr. Huc, to whom reference has just been made.
2053. “In no other country than China, perhaps, could men be heard exchanging compliments on the subject of a coffin. People (in Christendom) are most shy of mentioning the lugubrious objects destined to contain the mortal remains of a relation or friend; and when death does enter the house, the coffin is got in in secresy and silence, in order to spare the feelings of the mourning family. But it is quite otherwise in China; there a coffin is simply an article of the first necessity to the dead, and of luxury and fancy to the living. In the great towns you see them displayed in the shops with all sorts of tasteful decorations, painted, and varnished, and polished, and trimmed up to attract the eyes of passengers, and give them the fancy to buy themselves one.
2054. “People in easy circumstances, who have money to spare for their pleasures, scarcely ever fail to provide themselves beforehand with a coffin to suit their own taste, and which they consider becoming; and, until the moment arrives for lying down in it, it is kept in the house; not as an article of immediate necessity, but as one that cannot fail to be consoling and pleasant to the eye in a nicely-furnished apartment.
2055. “For well-brought up children, it is a favourite method of expressing the fervour of their filial piety toward the authors of their being, a sweet and tender consolation for the heart of a son, to be able to purchase a beautiful coffin for an aged father or mother, and come in state to present the gift at the moment when they least expect such an agreeable surprise. If one is not sufficiently favoured by fortune to be able to afford the purchase of a coffin in advance, care is always taken before ‘saluting the world,’ as the Chinese say, a sick person shall at least have the satisfaction of casting a glance at his last abode; and if he is surrounded by at all affectionate relations, they never fail to buy him a coffin and place it by the side of his bed.
2056. “In the country, this is not always so easy, for coffins are not kept quite ready, and, besides, peasants have not such luxurious habits as townspeople. The only way, then, is to send for the carpenter of the place, who takes the measure of the sick person, not forgetting to observe to him that it must be made a little longer than would seem necessary, because one always stretches out a little when dead. A bargain is then made concerning the length and breadth, and especially the cost; wood is brought, and the workmen set about their task in the yard, close to the chamber of the dying person, who is entertained with the music of the saw and the other tools, while death is at work with him, preparing him to occupy the snug abode when it is ready.
2057. “All this is done with the most perfect coolness, and without the slightest emotion, real or affected. We have ourselves witnessed such scenes more than once, and it has always been one of the things that most surprised us in the manners of this extraordinary country. A short time after our arrival in the mission of the north, we were walking one day in the country with a Chinese seminarist, who had the patience to reply to all our long and tedious questions about the men and things of the Celestial Empire. While we were keeping up the dialogue as well as we could, in a mixture of Latin and Chinese, using a word of one or the other as we found occasion, we saw coming toward us a rather numerous crowd, who advanced in an orderly manner along a narrow path. It might have been called a procession.