The Hour Before the Dawn. 115 



anguish for friends departed, for self departing from the 

 joys of life ! Dread of death is the spur which will drive 

 men to the achievement of prolonged life. 



Over all the past and the present hangs a pall, shot 

 only by the bright intuitive hope that death is not a final 

 law. With the Romans Mors was a goddess in black 

 robes, with ravenous teeth, hovering on sable wings over 

 the whole theater of life, darting hither and thither, 

 snatching its prey. The imagery comports with the 

 Roman character. 



With the Greeks Thanatos was a god whose reign men 

 mourn, whose mission is to nip the joy of life and blast 

 the well-springs of hope. At his approach they shrank 

 and cried, " Eheu ! Eheu ! " The conception is charac- 

 teristic of beauty-loving Hellas. Her children ever shrank 

 from that cold, dark realm where there was no sun. The 

 despairing cry of Electra utters the Hellenic sentiment 

 touching death. Burdened as was their faith with the 

 tenets of Egypt, death was still to them the end of pleas- 

 ure, the tomb of joy. The Greek poets sometimes sym- 

 bolized Death and Sleep as brothers, twin boys, lying 

 asleep in the arms of their mother, Night; and again 

 Death as a winged boy with sad, white brow and inverted 

 torch; at his feet a butterfly. These last were poetic 

 fancies rather than popular conceptions. 



The Hebraic portraiture of death was a solemn and 

 august angel, flying forth from God, armed with a sharp 



