of cherub heads forming a glory of welcome around her as she enters
the higher world, be more significant than this actual fact--so simply
told--of a saintly woman in dying hearing “_beautiful voices, and the
children’s the loudest_”? Of course, like all the rest, it may have
been only a physiological phenomenon, a purely subjective impression;
but it is at least remarkable that a second sense should thus be under
the same glamour, and that again we have to confront, in the case of
_hearing_ as of _sight_, the anomaly of the (real or supposed) presence
of the beautiful and the delightful, instead of the terrible and the
frightful, while Nature is in the pangs of dissolution. Does the brain,
then, unlike every known instrument, give forth its sweetest music as
its chords are breaking?
Instances like those recorded in this paper might, I believe, be
almost indefinitely multiplied, were attention directed to them, and
the experience of survivors more generally communicated and recorded.
Reviewing them, the question seems to press upon us, Why should
we _not_ thus catch a glimpse of the spiritual world through that
half-open portal wherein our dying brother is passing? If the soul of
man exist at all after the extinction of the life of the body, what is
more probable than that it should begin at the very instant when the
veil of the flesh is dropping off to exercise those spiritual powers
of perception which we must suppose it to possess (else were its whole
after-life a blank), and to become conscious of other things than those
of which our dim senses can take cognizance? If it be not destined to
an eternity of solitude (an absurd hypothesis), its future companions
may well be recognized at once, even as it goes forth to meet them. It
seems indeed almost a thing to be expected that some of them should
be ready waiting to welcome it on the threshold. Is there not, then,
a little margin for hope, if not for any confident belief, that our
fondest anticipations will be verified; nay, that the actual experience
of many has already verified them? May it not be that, when that hour
comes for each of us which we have been wont to dread as one of
parting and sorrow,--
“The last long farewell on the shore
Of this rude world,”
ere we “put off into the unknown dark”,--we may find that we only leave
for a little time the friends of earth to go straight to the embrace of
those who have long been waiting for us to make perfect for them the
nobler life beyond the grave? May it not be that our very first dawning
sense of that enfranchised existence will be the rapture of reunion
with the beloved ones whom we have mourned as lost, but who have been
standing near, waiting longingly for our recognition, as a mother may
watch beside the bed of a fever-stricken child, till reason reillumines
its eyes, and with outstretched arms it cries “Mother.”
There are doubtless some to whom it would be very dreadful to think of
thus meeting on the threshold of eternity the wronged, the deceived,
the forsaken. But for most of us, God be thanked, no dream of
celestial glory has half the ecstasy of the thought that in dying we
may meet--and _meet at once_, before we have had a moment to feel the
awful loneliness of death--the parent, wife, husband, child, friend of
our life, soul of our soul, whom we consigned long ago with breaking
hearts to the grave. Their “beautiful” forms (as that dying lady
beheld her brother and sister) entering our chamber, standing beside
our bed of death, and come to rejoin us for ever,--what words can
describe the happiness of such a vision? It _may_ be awaiting us all.
There is even, perhaps, a certain probability that it is actually the
natural destiny of the human soul, and that the affections which alone
of earthly things can survive dissolution will, like magnets, draw the
beloved and loving spirits of the dead around the dying. I can see no
reason why we should not indulge so ineffably blessed a hope. But, even
if it be a dream, the faith remains, built on no such evanescent and
shadowy foundation, that there is One Friend,--and He the best,--in
whose arms we shall surely fall asleep, and to whose love we may trust
for the reunion, sooner or later, of the severed links of sacred human
affection.
FOOTNOTES:
[36] There is an argument which, I believe, now influences more or less
consciously the minds of many intelligent persons against the belief in
the immortal life. It amounts to this: Granted that there is a God, and
that he is absolutely benevolently disposed toward mankind, it does not
follow (as commonly assumed) that He will bestow immortality on man,
because _it is quite possible that there may be an inherent absurdity
and contradiction in the idea of an immortal finite creature_,--it may,
in short, be no more within the scope of divine power to create an
immortal man than to make a triangle with the properties of a circle.
If we could be first assured that the thing were _possible_, then
arguments derived from the justice and goodness of the Deity might be
valuable, as affording us ground for believing that He will do that
possible thing. But, while it remains an open question whether we are
not talking actual nonsense when we speak of an ever-living created
being, such reflections on the moral attributes of God are beside the
mark. No justice or goodness can be involved in doing that which, in
the nature of things, is impossible.
Now, of course, there is a little confusion here between a _future_
life--a mere _post-mortem_ addition of so many years or centuries to
this mortal existence--and an _immortal life_, which, it is assumed,
will continue either in a series of births and deaths or in one
unbroken life forever and ever. In the former idea, no one can find
any self-contradiction. It is only the latter notion of immortality,
strictly so described, which is suspected of involving a contradiction.
Practically, however, the two ideas must stand or fall together; for
almost every argument for the survival of the soul after death bears
with double force against its extinction at any subsequent epoch of its
existence.
Taking then the future life of a man as, to all intents and purposes,
the immortal life, we are bound to confront the difficulty,--“What
right have we to assume that immortality and creaturehood are
compatible the one with the other?”
_A priori_ argument on such a matter is altogether futile. We know
and can reason literally nothing about it. For anything we could urge
_antecedent to the observation of a man’s actual state_, it was,
apparently, just as probable that he could not be made immortal as
that he could be made so by any conceivable power in the universe. But
we are not quite in the position of lacking all such _a posteriori_
assistance to our judgment. We can see how God has actually constituted
the human race, and the problem is consequently modified to this: “Are
there any signs or tokens that _man_ is meant for something more than
a mere mundane existence?” It is obvious that, if immortality were an
attribute which in the nature of things he could never share, nothing
in his mental or moral constitution would have been made with any
reference to such an unattainable destiny. If, on the other hand, there
be in his nature evidences of a purpose extending beyond the scope
of this life, and stretching out into the limitless perspective of
eternity, then we are authorized to draw the inference that the Author
of his being planned for him a future existence, and, of course, knew
that he might enjoy that divine heritage.
Here, then, the argument lies in manageable shape before us. It is
true we only see a small portion of humanity, as it has yet been drawn
out; but just as mathematicians can determine, from any three given
points, the nature of the curve to which they belong, so we have enough
indications to guide us to a conclusion respecting the character of our
race. In every department of our nature, save our perishable bodies,
we find something which seems to point beyond our threescore years
and ten,--something inconsistent with the hypothesis that those years
complete our intended existence. Our busy intellects, persistently
wrestling with the mysteries of eternity; our human affections craving
for undying love; our sense of justice, born of no past experience of a
reign of Astrea, but resolutely prophesying, _in spite_ of experience,
a perfect judgment hereafter; the measureless meaning which moral
distinctions carry to our consciences; the unutterable longing of our
spirits for union (not wholly unattained even here) with the living
God, the Father of spirits,--all these things seem to show that we are
built, so to speak, on a larger scale than that of our earthly life.
The foundations are too deep and wide, the corner-stones are by far too
massive, if nothing but the Tabernacle of a day be the design of the
Architect. In brief, then, we may admit freely that, for aught we know,
“God could not give to a triangle the properties of a circle,” and
yet, nevertheless, hold our faith undisturbed, since we find that the
line which His hand has actually drawn _is a_ CURVE _already_,--a few
degrees of the circumference of a stupendous circle.
[37] There is an insect, the Lunar Sphinx Moth, which exhibits, in
its first stage, not only the usual prevision for its security while
in the helpless chrysalis state, but a singular foresight of its own
requirements when it shall have become a winged moth. Having made, by
eating its way _upward_ through the pith of a willow, an appropriate
hiding-place, it finds itself with its head in a position in which,
were it to become a moth, it could never push itself down, and escape
at the aperture below. The little creature accordingly, before it
goes to sleep, laboriously turns round, and places its head near the
entrance, where, as a moth, it will make its happy exit into the fields
of air. There seems something curiously akin in the unaccountable
foresight of this insect, of a state of existence it has never
experienced, and the vague and dim sentiment of immortality, common to
mankind since the days of the cave-dwellers of the Stone Age.
“_A VERITABLE HAND-BOOK OF NOBLE LIVING._”
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A YEAR OF MIRACLE.
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Transcriber’s Notes
Page 91: “consummation of nonenity” changed to “consummation of
nonentity”
Page 127: In the footnote, “performed her tasl” changed to “performed
her task”