reason for allowing special emphasis to this act simply because through
misfortune it became his final act. Nor, on the other hand, if it were
no accident, but one of his _habitual_ transgressions, will it be
the more habitual or the more a transgression because some sudden
calamity, surprising him, has caused this habitual transgression to be
also a final one. Could the man have had any reason even dimly to
foresee his own sudden death, there would have been a new feature in
his act of intemperance--a feature of presumption and irreverence, as
in one that, having known himself drawing near to the presence of God,
should have suited his demeanour to an expectation so awful. But this
is no part of the case supposed. And the only new element in the man's
act is not any element of special immorality, but simply of special
misfortune.

The other remark has reference to the meaning of the word _sudden_.
Very possibly Caesar and the Christian Church do not differ in the way
supposed,--that is, do not differ by any difference of doctrine as
between Pagan and Christian views of the moral temper appropriate to
death; but perhaps they are contemplating different cases. Both
contemplate a violent death, a _Biathanatos_--death that is
_biaios_, or, in other words, death that is brought about, not by
internal and spontaneous change, but by active force having its origin
from without. In this meaning the two authorities agree. Thus far they
are in harmony. But the difference is that the Roman by the word
"sudden" means _unlingering_, whereas the Christian Litany by
"sudden death" means a death _without warning_, consequently
without any available summons to religious preparation. The poor
mutineer who kneels down to gather into his heart the bullets from
twelve firelocks of his pitying comrades dies by a most sudden death in
Caesar's sense; one shock, one mighty spasm, one (possibly _not_