I do not know; yet the longings and yearnings of my soul cry out always
for immortality. I seem to hope always that somewhere in the universe
there is stored away a great pity that responds to the longings and
yearnings of my soul, and stands ready to help me when the earth fades
away from sight and the shadows fall thick and deep around me. I do not
know. The desire in my soul is father to my trembling hope, and hope may
pass away when life goes out into the unknown and my body of clay is
left to crumble and decay and disintegrate and go back to the original
elements.
There will be a physical change, the light and heat and movement will
go out of my body, like the light blown out in a vacant house when the
inhabitants move away. But whither goes the inhabitants that now dwell
within me when the lights are blown out and the doors locked and sealed
with the eternal lock that will not open to the key of time, I do not
know.
In my sober contemplation of all that lies before, it seems to me that
love and justice and mercy and hope are of ephemeral existence if they
last only while the light is in the body. And I ask myself: “Is there
no life and light and mercy and hope and pity beyond these things we
feel and hear and see? Are we to suffer injustice during life that will
never be righted for us? Are we to love, and lose the object of our love,
and never find it again? Are these bright minds of ours, so capable
of dreaming such beautiful dreams, to be brought to the very highest
possible heights of intelligence, and then suddenly be snuffed out, like
blowing the lighted flame from a candle, leaving all in darkness and
gloom?”
I do not know. The prophets and philosophers were only men, with
yearnings and longings like my own, and as weak and helpless to pull
aside the curtains and peep into the future as I find myself. And yet I
am not satisfied to die forever; for I do know that there is an eternity
for all these things existing in space. Space is eternity itself. The
human mind can not picture a condition when worlds and planets and space
will be no more. Nothing can come from nothing, neither can matter pass
into nothing and leave no trace behind. The length of the universe is
eternity, and so is the width and the breadth. It can not pass away and
leave but a hole, for even a hole must have sides and dimensions.
I do not know; perhaps the ox in the field knows more about immortality
than man, perhaps less, perhaps nothing at all. It would not need to know
much about it to outstrip me in knowledge on this one particular subject.
He may have longings and yearnings, the same as me, for how shall the ox
receive his share of justice and equity if he passes away with this life
and is known no more?
I do not know; justice must surely mean the same rewards for the ox as it
means for man, for how can simple justice discriminate between animals,
and still remain simple justice? And the man who is willing to grasp
an immortality that discriminates between him and the ox, is neither
merciful, charitable, nor just. Immortality must surely embrace all the
living creatures, or part of life would be left behind, and immortality
would be incomplete and imperfect. God must be the God of all. If the ox
is an inferior creature, the fault lies with the creator and not with the
created thing. If there is no justice and mercy for the ox, then justice
and mercy have limits, and God is not so powerful to save his creatures
as he is to create them.
I do not know; my faith in immortality may be the child of my hopes and
longings. If I am always to be I always was in existence somewhere. I am
positively certain that I know of no evidence to prove a past existence,
for hope does not lead backward. Hope points always ahead, from where
the winds of the future are always blowing. I know that I desire to live
always, to think always, to hope always, to love on and on forever and
ever.