20 MEMOIROF 



appear from his own eloquent pen. The following 

 is an extract of a letter he addressed to a medical 

 friend, Dr. Judson, a surgeon in the navy of the 

 United States, who was at that time in the last 

 stage of consumption : 



" Germantoiun, December 25th, 1828. 

 In relation to dying, my dear friend, you talk like 

 a sick man, and just as I used to do, when very de- 

 spondent. Death is a debt we all owe to nature, and 

 must eventually ensue from a mere wearing out of 

 the machine, if not from disease. Nature certainly 

 has a strong abhorrence to this cessation of corpo- 

 real action, and all animals have a dread of death 

 who are conscious of its approach. A part of our 

 dread of death is purely physical, and is avoidable 

 only by a philosophical conviction of its necessity; 

 but the greater part of our dread, and the terrors 

 with which the avenues to the grave are surrounded, 

 are from another and a more potent source. * 'Tis 

 conscience that makes cowards of us all/ and forces 

 us by our terrors to confess, that we dread something 

 beyond physical dissolution, and that we are terrified 

 not at merely ceasing to breathe, but that we have 

 not lived as we ought to have done, have not effected 

 the good that was within the compass of our abili- 

 ties, and neglected to exercise the talents we pos- 

 sessed, to the greatest advantage. The only remedy 

 for this fear of death is to be sought by approaching 

 the Author of all things in the way prescribed by 

 himself, and not according to our own foolish imagi- 



