Fenimore Cooper, “The Prairie.”
At the usual evening hour the chapel bell began to toll, and Thomas Newcome’s hands outside the bed feebly beat a tune, and just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little and quickly said, “Adsum,” and fell back. It was the word we used at school when names were called, and lo, he, whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name, and stood in the presence of the Master.
Thackeray, “The Newcomes.”
And as he looked around, she saw how Death the consoler,
Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it forever.
Longfellow, “Evangeline.”
In the Greek Anthology, likening Death to a healer of pain and sorrow is expressed in an epigram of Agathias:
Why fear ye Death, the parent of repose,
That puts an end to penury and pain?
His presence once, and only once, he shows,