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half-century for which this man has been behind prison bars. Into what a changed world he will come. What can he do? His friends are dead. His generation has passed. His own State does not know him. One would suppose he would almost want to commit some crime that would take him back to his home of fifty years. What can he do? Society punished him, now what will society do for him? There is no asylum for him. He knows nothing of the business methods of the day. He is a living dead man. Would it not have been more merciful for society by capital punishment to have made him a dead man fifty years ago?

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There is a very real "death" other than the merely natural, as the following paragraph from the Scrap Book will show:

Emperor Francis Joseph's only surviving brother, Archduke Louis Victor, was confined a lunatic, in a mountain castle hidden away in one of the remotest corners of the Austrian Tyrol. He himself, to all intents, is dead as far as the imperial family and the great world at Vienna are concerned. (Text.)

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Dead Valued More than Living—See .

Deafness—See.

DEATH

We are too stupid about death. We will not learn How it is wages paid to those who earn, How it is the gift for which on earth we yearn, To be set free from the bondage to the flesh; How it is turning seed-corn into grain, How it is winning heaven's eternal gain, How it means freedom evermore from pain, How it untangles every mortal mesh.

We are so selfish about death. We count our grief Far more than we consider their relief Whom the great Reaper gathers in the sheaf, No more to know the seasons' constant change; And we forget that it means only life, Life with all joy, peace, rest, and glory rife, The victory won, and ended all the strife, And heaven no longer far away or strange.

Their Lent is over, and their Easter won, Waiting till over paradise the sun Shall rise in majesty, and life begun Shall grow in glory, as the perfect day Moves on, to hold its endless, deathless sway.

—, The Outlook.

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DEATH AS A SHADOW

Did not Jesus show us glimpses of what is behind the shadow into which our friends have gone?

My neighbor's lamp, across the way, Throws dancing lights upon my wall; They come and go in passing play, And then the sudden shadows fall.

My friend's white soul through eyes and lips Shone out on me but yesterday In radiant warmth; now swift eclipse Has left those windows cold and gray.

Ah, if I could but look behind The still, dark barrier of that night, And there-undimmed, unwavering-find That life and love were all alight! (Text.)

—, Munsey's Magazine.

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DEATH-BED FAITH

John G. Paton tells in his autobiography of the death-bed of Nerwa, the converted chief of Aniwa.

On my last visit to Nerwa his strength had gone very low, but he drew me near his face and whispered, "Missi, my Missi, I am glad to see you. You see that group of young men? They came to sympathize with me, but they never once have spoken the name of Jesus, tho they have spoken about everything else. They could not have weakened me so if they had spoken about Jesus! Read me the story of Jesus. Pray for me to Jesus. No, stop, let us call them and let me speak with them before I go!" I called them all around him and he said, "After I am gone let there be no bad talk, no heathen ways. Sing Jehovah's songs and pray to Jesus, and bury me as a Christian. Take good care of my Missi, and help him all you can. I am dying happy and going to be with Jesus, and it was Missi that showed me this way. And who among you will take my place in the village school and in the church? Who among you will stand up for Jesus?" Many were shedding tears,