"It's their trade, ma'am," said Mr. Stackpole,--"it's their trade! I wonder if it ever occurs to them to include themselves in that petition."
"There wasn't the slightest effort made in anything he said or prayed for,--and one would have thought that would have been so natural!--there was not the least endeavour to do away with that superstitious fear of death which is so common--and one would think it was the very occasion to do it;--he never once asked that we might be led to look upon it rationally and calmly.--It's so unreasonable, Mr. Stackpole--it is so dissonant with our views of a benevolent Supreme Being--as if it could be according to his will that his creatures should live lives of tormenting themselves--it so shews a want of trust in his goodness!"
"It's a relic of barbarism, ma'am," said Mr. Stackpole;--"it's a popular delusion--and it is like to be, till you can get men to embrace wider and more liberal views of things."
"What do you suppose it proceeds from?" said Mr. Carleton, as if the question had just occurred to him.
"I suppose, from false notions received from education, sir."
"Hardly," said Mr. Carleton;--"it is too universal. You find it everywhere; and to ascribe it everywhere to education would be but shifting the question back one generation."
"It is a root of barbarous ages," said Mr. Stackpole,--"a piece of superstition handed down from father to son--a set of false ideas which men are bred up and almost born with, and that they can hardly get rid of."
"How can that be a root of barbarism, which the utmost degree of intelligence and cultivation has no power to do away, nor even to lessen, however it may afford motive to control? Men may often put a brave face upon it and shew none of their thoughts to the world; but I think no one capable of reflection has not at times felt the influence of that dread."
"Men have often sought death, of purpose and choice," said Mr. Stackpole dryly and rubbing his chin.
"Not from the absence of this feeling, but from the greater momentary pressure of some other."