Life’s starkest reality is death. And death is the great moment of truth. In the words of Elder Bruce R. McConkie, death is “a subject which strikes dread- even terror- into the hearts of most men. It is something we fear, of which we are sorely afraid, and from which most of us would flee if we could.” (CR, October 1976, p. 157.) Even the most hardened atheists and the most illusive agnostics face what they believe to be the end with fear and trembling. Sherem, in the knowledge that he is about to face his God, seeks to purge his soul of duplicity.