It seems to be the idea of some, that there is something very salutary in a spiritual point of view in the knowledge of the fact, that death is certain and near. That it is more alarming and awakens more emotion than the mere idea of danger, I allow; but that it is more apt to produce right views and feelings is by no means satisfactorily proved. Even if it be true, that the certainty of death is more likely to secure decisive action in regard to the interests of eternity, a decision under such circumstances is by no means so worthy of confidence as one which is arrived at when the hope of recovery is not wholly extinguished. To test this, take as an example the feeling of resignation. When death is seen to be absolutely certain, its very certainty is apt to induce a sort of calm semi-fatalism, which has the appearance of true submission, and is often mistaken for it through the charity and fondness of friendship. But when the result is seen to be uncertain, if there be amid all the balancing of the mind between hope and fear a willingness to acquiesce in the supreme will, there is good reason to believe that the patient has a true Christian resignation. There was much force in the remark of a patient, who had for some days had the certain expectation of death, but who had at length experienced so much relief, that there was some ground for hope. “I am glad,” said she, “that this relief has occurred, even if I do not recover; for now I can fairly test the reality of my submission. I can put life and death together, and examine my wishes and desires in regard to them.” There is one disease in which the disposition to hope is so marked, that Dr. Good enumerates it among its symptoms. I refer to consumption. In some cases, it is true, this symptom does not appear, but despondency for the most part prevails. But this arises either from a morbid sensitiveness of the nervous system, or from a diseased condition of the digestive organs. When neither of these circumstances exists, and the disease is uncomplicated with other maladies, the tendency to hope is so strong as often to resist the force of the most decisive evidence. Nothing is more common than to hear a consumptive patient say, “Doctor, if you will only cure this cough, I shall be well,” as if the cough were only a slight matter, and its continuance was rather provoking than dangerous. I once saw a physician deceiving himself to the last week of his life with the idea, that his disease was in the stomach and liver, when there was the most palpable evidence that the lungs, and the lungs only, were diseased. This tendency to hope is beautifully alluded to in a poetical sketch of consumption by an anonymous author: