"The nerves are so completely and
instantaneously destroyed," he explained, "that they have
no time to convey a painful impression." But then if
this be so, what becomes of all the martyrs at the
stake, and the victims of Red Indians, and other poor
folk over whose sufferings and constancy we have
wondered? It may be that Providence is not only not
cruel itself, but will not allow man to be cruel either.
Do your worst, and it will step in with a "No, I won't
allow this poor child of mine to be hurt"; and then comes
the dulling of the nerve and the lethargy which takes the
victim out of the reach of the tormentor. David
Livingstone under the claws of the lion must have looked
like an object lesson of the evil side of things, and yet
he has left it upon record that his own sensations were
pleasurable rather than otherwise. I am well convinced
that if the newly-born infant and the man who had just
died could compare their experiences, the former would
have proved to be the sufferer. It is not for nothing
that the first thing the newcomer into this planet does
is to open its toothless mouth and protest energetically
against fate.
Cullingworth has written a parable which makes a
paragraph for our wonderful new weekly paper.
"The little cheese mites held debate," he says,
"as to who made the cheese. Some thought that they
had no data to go upon, and some that it had come
together by a solidification of vapour, or by the
centrifugal attraction of atoms.
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