WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE WHETHER WE BELIEVE IN IMMORTALITY IF WE
LIVE AS WE SHOULD IN THIS LIFE?
1. How can one live as he should?
Some say, "What difference does it make whether we believe in
immortality, if we live as we should in this life?"
We also would ask a question. How can one live as he should if he
eliminates God and His plans? God planned a "whole" or He planned
nothing.
We willingly admit that some honest doubters have a larger share in
God's life than they realize. They have heard the message of truth and
love, and though confused as to its origin, they accept much of it as
binding upon their lives. In many things they conscientiously do God's
will without recognizing it as such. No one is so bad but that he
sometimes obeys God. The meanest man thinks some of God's thoughts after
Him, and makes some voluntary sacrifices. It may never occur to him,
however, that God has any part in the matter. Yet no one lives as he
should until he lives the highest type of life of which he is capable.
It is easily possible to be doing good in one direction while exerting
a baneful influence in another direction; and easier still to be
overlooking something of grave importance. Many well-meaning persons
pursue courses of action that work great harm to themselves and to
others in the long run. No one should flatter himself with the thought
that he has lived as well as he should, until he has lived as well as he
could. No man on the outside of a business can do what he would if he
were on the inside. A really good man must try to know God and the plans
of His kingdom from within; he must take daily orders; he should be
strictly honest toward God; he should feel the joy and enthusiasm that
come from partnership with God in a great enterprise. But this type of
good man will most likely feel sure of immortality. A lack of assurance
is a practical proof that something has gone wrong in the life; it may
be confusion or indifference, but more likely it is both.
2. The difference in social service
Unless we know what the superstructure is to be, it is impossible to lay
the right kind of a foundation. A good foundation for a bungalow would
not answer for a fifty-story skyscraper. And to put a skyscraper
foundation under a bungalow would be the most foolish waste of time and
money. Paul gave up everything that the average good citizen holds dear,
and spent his entire life in laying the nobler foundation. He believed
that the superstructure would be stupendous, and of eternal duration.
No sane person would live the life Paul lived unless he believed in
immortality. The same is true of Jesus. Here is a clear-cut and
portentous cleavage between good people who are Christians and good
people who are not Christians. I do not mean to intimate that a
patriotic agnostic would be any more reluctant than a believer to die
for his country. It is largely a question of what he considers is worth
while. A good sceptic is willing to help educate and civilize in a
general way, but he will put forth no effort to evangelize. He does not
realize the impossibility of civilizing a non-religious world. He would
permit the whole race to be non-religious like himself. He would send
all the billions yet to be born into the future life without any
knowledge of God or any spiritual achievement. His attitude would so
over-populate the future country with dwarfed and degraded people that
our missionary work in a future state, if we are permitted to undertake
it, would stagger a St. Paul. When we see the number and quality of our
neighbors over there we shall realize the enormity of our mistake. And
still they will come, the uncivilized and unchristianized descendants of
ancestors whom we neglected. Almost every civilized community in the
Christian world had its foundations laid by missionary effort; and it
has been kept civilized by a work very similar to that of missions. The
firmest ground of hope for the civilization of the race is in the
combined educational and religious work of missions. Darkness cannot
come to the light, but light may go to the darkness. The longer
missionary work is neglected the more of it will there be to do; and
that which we leave undone here will be accumulating for us over there.
With what amazement non-missionary Christians will face their
accumulated missionary tasks in the future life! It is my impression
that fifty per cent of the Church members do not believe in missions;
that is to say, they do not believe in extending the religion of Jesus
if it involves any work or expense for them. They themselves will first
need to be saved, if they are to be like their Master and share any of
His vision and compassion. Then there is probably another twenty-five
per cent of professing Christians who believe but little in the
extension of the gospel. So between the agnostics and the
half-Christians, we are not doing a very good piece of social work
throughout the world. And this is true whether we have in mind the
future history of society on earth, or of society as it shall migrate to
our future home. Whether or not we have Christian assurance of God and
the future life makes a tremendous social difference both for this life
and for the life to come. Unless we are active and aggressive in the
work of extending the kingdom, every form of vice will thrive and
multiply in our most cultivated and civilized communities. What hope
then is there for benighted peoples where there is neither salt nor
leaven? My experience of thirty years in the ministry convinces me that
those who have their eyes on the whole earth, do several times as much
work for their home communities as do those who believe exclusively in
home missions. It is astonishing what narrow service so-called
broad-minded people can render, and what wide achievements can be
accomplished by so-called narrow-minded people. Observation will show
that it makes a vast difference in the kind and extent of social service
rendered if one believes in God and immortality.
3. The difference in personal preparation
We tell our young people entering high school that they should decide at
the outset whether they are going to college; and if possible which
college, as the entrance requirements of colleges differ. What should we
think of one who would ask, "Why need I bother my mind about a possible
college course in the future if I keep busy and learn something well?
What difference can it make?" Yet we grow weary with hearing the
question, "What difference does it make whether there is a future
existence if we live as we should in this life?" Do they suppose that it
is easier to make the freshman class in heaven than it is to make the
freshman class in college? I dare say the requirements are different,
but if heaven is worth going to the requirements can hardly be less
specific or exacting. Many people who never went to college are far
advanced in things pertaining to God and His kingdom, while some college
people do not know the a, b, c of religion. Their standing in a future
life cannot possibly be the same.
Like many others, I was brought up to be honest and hard-working from
the beginning. According to ordinary standards, I was living as I
should. Yet when I heard of college, and had hopes of going to one, a
subtle change came over my whole life. While the old duties were
performed in the old way, at the same time a complete revolution was
taking place within me. The imagination and will readjusted everything
to the new and larger sphere for which I hoped. Since no one thus far
had gone to college from our frontier community, some of the neighbors
thought me to be a foolish dreamer. What good would it do me anyway, was
what they wanted to know, since I was already good in "figgers"? When I
was probably fourteen years old, a young man told me of some one in
another township who was going to study Algebra. "What is that?" I
asked. "Well," he said, "it is something like Arithmetic, only they use
letters instead of figures." "Now that," I promptly told him, "sounds
foolish. Why aren't figures good enough?" "Ah," said the young man's
father, "Algebra is a mighty fine study! You have noticed that merchants
mark the price of their goods with letters. Now if you know Algebra they
can't cheat you." So I made up my mind then and there that I would study
Algebra.
My first experience with college catalogues, which came a little later,
was both interesting and amusing. I had often wondered what there could
possibly be to study beyond history, geography, and the three "R's." But
at last with a college catalogue in my hands here it was: De Amicitia,
De Corona, Trigonometry, etc. After reading pages of unheard-of and
unpronounceable words, I scarcely knew whether it was about something to
eat or something to wear. Theological terms seemed plain English by
comparison. In those primitive days it took one more year of preparation
to enter the classical course than it did the scientific. For that
reason alone I promptly decided to take the classical. Although I knew
nothing of what either course was really about or what it was good for,
yet I did not want to bear the stigma of any short cut. I wanted to
learn it "all."
Though it did not take long to learn what the college course was about,
yet it did take some good faithful application to prepare for entrance
examinations.
Many people take their religion as some lazy boys--found in every high
school--take their education. These boys have a very light regard for
college requirements. John is certain that he is as good a student as
Charles or a half dozen other fellows. He emphasizes the fact that a
"grind" like James is the most unpopular fellow in school. All
suggestions of future trouble fall on deaf ears. Every year train loads
of these fellows go to take their entrance "exams." Yes, they arrive at
heaven, or college, and may chance to see the lord of the institution.
But some one calls them in to test their Latin eyesight, and another to
determine their mathematical vision, and if their power of penetration
is not sufficient for college subjects, back they go. This is a tragic
experience for the lads, to be sure, yet they must learn that promotion
means fitness. I have known of young men entering the academy of the
college town because they were ashamed to go back home. They were good
fellows, but they lacked college fitness. Think of a good sensible
fellow who has never studied arithmetic going to college! And then think
of a good sort of person going to heaven who has never acquired the
spiritual insight to know God! A man in college who is mathematically
blind, and a man in heaven who is God blind! If one thinks of God as a
visible Ghost in heaven, he will overlook many of the essentials until
the pitiful disillusionment comes. And if he thinks of the future home
as a doll's heaven, he will make no thorough preparation for entrance.
When a young girl was once lured to a very superstitious church, a
friend said to me:
"Well, what difference does it make--we are all going to the same
place." But when I asked her if she would be willing to send her
daughter to a poor day school or to some wretched music teacher, she had
never thought but what that was different. Everything but religion must
be properly taught; how that is taught does not matter, "because we all
are going to the same place." On that basis, if all were going to live
in New York City, I suppose it would make no difference what kind of
superstition they were taught. The expectation of joining a higher and
holier society after this life cuts as deeply into my present life plans
and purposes as did the expectation of going to college when I was a
frontier lad. No matter how upright and industrious one is in the
ordinary affairs of life, take away the hope of college or the hope of
a future life, and it makes a difference at a thousand vital points.
I once intercepted a stone mason who was building a wall where the
specifications called for a window. He was not at all inclined to be
convinced of his error. After reading the specifications again he said,
"I am right." "But," I replied, "you are confused as to directions."
Then he appealed to a weather vane on a near-by steeple. When I informed
him that the church had been moved and that the points of the compass
were entirely wrong, he pulled down the wall that he had so perfectly
built. He did not ask what difference it made so long as he was doing a
good piece of masonry. He was glad to get the wall down before the
superintendent saw it.
If, now, we go on the assumption that God has no plans in what He is
building, then we must conclude that He is the most ridiculous person
that ever went into the construction business. The shock of
disillusionment when it comes, as it is bound to do, will be tremendous.
It is one of my greatest sorrows that so many of my friends are building
solid masonry in their lives where God's specifications call for
windows; and windows where there should be solid masonry. The windows in
the life of Jesus all looked out on the side of love and eternity. The
light of a heavenly kingdom was always streaming into His soul.
We make the same mistake in building our cities and social institutions.
They but vaguely represent the human temple called for in God's
specifications. And the farther we depart from the plan the more
difficult it will be to return to it. Paul told some of the people of
his day that they might escape with their lives as from a burning
building, but that what they had built contrary to the divine pattern
would be reduced to ashes.
I once knew a merchant who had twenty acres of new land broken and
planted with onion sets. A temporary house was built to care for a dozen
or more workmen. The ground was pulverized to ashes, the onions were
planted, and the weeds were kept down so that none ever appeared from
the road. It was a fine piece of work. The men toiled, the onions grew
and finally blossomed, and the field presented an attractive sight. But
alas! the merchant had purchased winter-onion sets, and in all that
field there was not one bulb to reward him for his pains. What
difference did it make--he and his men surely did some good work?
Many there are who flourish like that field during the days of their
strength; but when they ripen there is no bulb, nothing to garner. One
of these men with the meaning of life exhausted at sixty remarked to me
that one was too old when he had passed forty.
A short time before his death Washington Gladden was a guest in my home.
As he sat in an easy chair after dinner speaking of other days, and
especially as he spoke of his sainted wife, I noticed how old he had
grown. Though his body had about run its course, yet the light of his
soul had not been dimmed. In my heart I said, "What a dear old man you
are, Dr. Gladden. You are nearly all soul!" He had kept the faith. And
it had made a difference; for him, for me, and for all the world. While
the old man sat there and conversed with the family, the light of his
soul sent a shining ray
"Far down the future's broadening way."