“I see that superstition ranks rife with you. We should consider it a much greater crime to permit a grovelling, decaying body to chain the spirit to earth and nothingness, than to sever the life which prevents it from seeking perfection in more congenial regions.” “I certainly do feel lamentably dense and ignorant while listening to you. I cannot, for instance, fathom your meaning when you say the spirit can seek perfection after death.” “The spirit never dies. The body is but the casing in which the spirit is given its greatest opportunities of seeking final glorification. As we acquire knowledge of every kind, and learn more and more to fathom the secrets which nature has so long guarded with such jealousy, so much nearer shall we be towards the ultimate perfection of the spirit which assimilates most nearly to Life-giver herself, and constitutes our ideal of final bliss. After the death of our material form, we still strive to reach our desired goal, but our progress, when disembodied, is not so rapid as while still inhabiting our earthly casing, and our ultimate arrival at the zenith of wisdom, purity, and bliss; in other words, Heaven, may be delayed for ages by a premature exit from this world. “Naturally, therefore, we try to prolong the healthy life of the body by all the arts in our power, knowing that it is given us as a special means of attaining Heavenly perfection. A diseased body inevitably affects the mind, and prevents it from soaring upwards. Therefore, we argue, one of the surest ways of reaching Heaven is to cultivate the health and perfection of the body. “If this material part of us, therefore, falls into permanent sickness, uselessness, and decay, it but serves to trammel the spirit, and hinder its further advancement. This we are not inclined to tolerate, and when the misfortune of physical wreck overtakes any of us, we liberate the spirit without any wasteful delay. A certain mineral extract, added to an ordinary dose of Schlafstrank, quietly and painlessly disposes of our physical existence, and sends the spirit on its way, rejoicing in its new found freedom.” “You mean that what we call chronic invalidism does not exist among you, simply because your people are in the habit of killing themselves as soon as health leaves them. It is one way of escaping earthly troubles. But are there not some exceedingly painful scenes when the conviction is forced home to anyone that it is becoming necessary to do this? Do you feel no horror of the passage from Here to the great Hereafter?”