Meantime, whatever may be thought of a sudden



THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH. 175

death as a mere variety ia the modes of dying, where
death in some shape is inevitable — a question which,
equally in the Roman and the Christian sense, will be
variously answered according to each man's variety of
temperament — certainly, upon one aspect of sudden
death there can be no opening for doubt, that of all
agonies incident to man it is the most frightful, that of
all martyrdoms it is the most freezing to human sen-
sibilities — namely, where it surprises a man under
circumstances which offer (or which seem to offer)
some hurried and inappreciable chance of evading it.
