586 



THE HUMAN BODY 



not live to die, but live prepared to die. Life has its duties and 

 its legitimate pleasures, and we better play our part by attending 

 to the fulfilment of the one and the enjoyment of the other, than 

 by concentrating a morbid and paralyzing attention on the in- 

 evitable, with the too frequent result of producing indifference 

 to the work which lies at hand for each. Our organs and faculties 

 are not talents which we may justifiably leave unemployed; each 

 is bound to do his best with them, and so to live that he may most 

 utilize them. An active, vigorous, dutiful, unselfish life is a good 

 preparation for death; when that time, at which we must pass 

 from the realm controlled by physiological laws, approaches, when 

 the hands tremble and the eyes grow dim, when "the grasshopper 

 shall be a burden and desire shall fail," then, surely, the conscious- 

 ness of having quitted us like men in the employment of our 

 faculties while they were ours to use, will be no mean consolation. 



