iv — Section 354

Teach me to live that I may dread

The grave as little as my bed.

This is from the evening hymn which all respectable children are taught.  It sounds well, but it is immoral.

Our own death is a premium which we must pay for the far greater benefit we have derived from the fact that so many people have not only lived but also died before us.  For if the old ones had not in course of time gone there would have been no progress; all our civilisation is due to the arrangement whereby no man shall live for ever, and to this huge mass of advantage we must each contribute our mite; that is to say, when our turn comes we too must die.  The hardship is that interested persons should be able to scare us into thinking the change we call death to be the desperate business which they make it out to be.  There is no hardship in having to suffer that change.

Bishop Ken, however, goes too far.  Undesirable, of course, death must always be to those who are fairly well off, but it is undesirable that any living being should live in habitual indifference to death.  The indifference should be kept for worthy occasions, and even then, though death be gladly faced, it is not healthy that it should be faced as though it were a mere undressing and going to bed.