ASSOCIATIONS, SECULAR AND SACRED.
“By these mysterious ties, the busy power
Of Memory her ideal train preserves
Entire; or when they would elude her watch
Reclaims their fleeting footsteps from the waste
Of dark oblivion: thus collecting all
The living forms of being, to present
Before the curious aim of mimic art
Their longest choice: like Spring’s unfolded blooms
Exhaling sweetness, that the skilful bee
May taste at will, from their selected spoils,
To work her dulcet food.”
AKENSIDE.
ENDOWED as we are with a principle of suggestion—one of the most active
principles in the human mind, ministering greatly to the pleasures of
existence, and giving to men of enlarged intelligence the means of
various and extensive gratification—it is very natural, on looking at the
great event of the present year, to cluster round it in thought a number
of facts bearing in relation to it some kind of affinity. Even the
structure and its contents are not without suggestive interest, while the
great gatherings of the people to behold them excites the memory and
imagination, and brings out many a picture of things that have been or
that shall be. Associations are suggested, commercial and classical,
romantic and religious.
As a simple exposition of art, the Exhibition reminds us, in the first
place, of the Expositions of Art in the French metropolis, which at
intervals have taken place during the last fifty years. We go back to
the times of the first republic, when after the tragedies of the
revolution, and their dire effect on industry and commerce, it was felt
that some stimulus and encouragement were needed to revive them; and the
deserted palace of St. Cloud, under the superintendence of the Marquis
d’Avèze, was enriched and adorned with the productions of a people whose
tasteful ingenuity no social disorders could extinguish. The walls were
hung with costly draperies from the Gobelin manufactory—the floors were
covered with rich carpets from the looms of La Savonnerie, and, amassed
in profusion and arranged with skill, there was a display of the
variegated porcelain of Sevres, that hive of curious industry which
borders the spacious park of the palace we have mentioned. Succeeded by
a second Exposition at the Hotel d’Orsay, in the city of Paris, the two
were regarded by Napoleon,—who, though flushed with his early victories,
failed not to discern that war without commerce would but exhaust his
country,—as sufficient to warrant a third and greater attempt, and
accordingly the Temple of Industry, as it was called, was reared in the
Champ de Mars. It was of simple construction, adorned with oriflames,
and the victorious tricolours of the first Italian campaign, and within
the walls there were exhibited for three days, some of the most beautiful
works of art the country could supply. The temper of that great nation
at the juncture was candidly expressed by the prime minister: “Our
manufactures are the arsenals which will supply us with the weapons most
fatal to the British power;” and as we read his words we rejoice in the
far different relations of the two empires now, and the pleasant union
and amicable rivalry of our Gallic neighbours with ourselves in the
present enterprise. Other Expositions followed, but the ninth, under
Louis Philippe, in the magnificent Place de la Concorde, in the year
1839, eclipsed them all; and as the gratified monarch gazed on the
trophies of French ingenuity and skill, he exclaimed, “These are the true
victories which cause no tears to flow.” Nor can we, while these
imposing scenes in the French capital and its neighbourhood pass before
us, forget the humble attempts made in our own country in connexion with
our valuable Mechanics’ Institutions, to exhibit in some of our large
towns, especially Manchester and Leeds, the products of native industry.
They are worthy of honourable and grateful remembrance, as indications of
that indomitable and individual spirit of enterprise, which is one of the
secrets of our commercial prosperity.
The Exhibition is a great Bazaar. It is, to a considerable extent, based
on the true principle of such establishments. That principle is one of
classification, and therefore the term Bazaar is incorrectly applied to
certain marts in the metropolis which are but heterogeneous clusters of
shops under a common roof. The original principle is a classification of
products according to the trades to which they belong; here it is a
classification of products according to the countries from which they are
received. The Bazaar, as essentially oriental, carries us away to Cairo
and Constantinople, to Persian towns and Indian cities. We find
ourselves in the crowded alley of some vaulted building, with shops of a
similar kind presenting goods of the same general description, lining
either side the way. Provisions, wares, and fabrics, both mean and
gorgeous, rude and ornamented, simple and ornate, are piled or spread
forth to please and entice the passer-by, while, in some cases, the moody
Turk, who sits cross-legged amidst his stores, smoking his pipe, is so
absorbed in the enjoyment of that soporific luxury, that he seems hardly
to care about attending to the wants of his customers. In Persia, we are
told, the buildings are of rich appearance, decorated with paintings,
particularly under the domes, with portraits of hunters and heroes, and
pictures of animals, real or imaginary. Generally in the East these
markets are places of immense resort, including the characteristics of an
exchange, a news room, a debating theatre, a promenade, and a rendezvous
for idlers. The gaiety of oriental costume affords a marked feature in
the promiscuous assemblages, while the noise of many voices, in various
tongues and dialects, is like the echo of that strange confusion of
sounds once heard on the plains of Shinar. In this respect the mixed
scenes and various languages in the Hyde Park Bazaar will be less
surprising to the Eastern visitors than to the people of the West. It
will seem to them the augmented and multiplied counterpart of one of
their own busy markets—a city-like mart, an immense assemblage of shops
beneath one crystal roof—and embosoming in the midst of it a pleasure
garden, with great trees, and fresh flowers, and gushing fountains—the
whole the work, as they might think, of some of their most famous
magicians.
The spirit of industrial activity and commercial competition creates all
these scenes, and as we trace them to their source we cannot help
noticing the desire of acquisition, one of the original principles of
human nature, which often and most generally kindles and keeps that
spirit alive. The desire of gain, regulated by justice and generosity,
is to be distinguished from that love of money which is so strongly
reprobated in the best of books, as “the root of all evil;” but it cannot
be denied that the innate acquisitiveness of man which may be trained up
into a virtue is too apt to sink down into a vice. Influenced by a moral
feeling, especially by those considerations which Christianity suggests,
and by those precepts which Christianity enjoins, this principle prompts
individuals to gather only that they may prudently appropriate a
befitting portion, and generously distribute the rest; but apart from
these checks and guides, and stimulated by the sordid passions of man’s
fallen soul, the natural tendency to acquire, in a multitude of cases,
degenerates into the sin of covetousness, which is idolatry, and he who
makes haste to be rich becomes a worshipper of Mammon. Nor can we here
omit to notice what a wonderful spring of human energy; what a motive to
exertion has the material wealth of this world ever proved; how, perhaps,
even beyond the highest prizes of warlike ambition, it has more
frequently and continuously agitated the surface of society, and moved it
from its lowest depths. It has been like a strong east wind sweeping
over the world from the earliest ages, and keeping the sea of civilized
life in constant commotion. As we read the history of commerce, and
think of the mercantile cities of antiquity, Tyre, Corinth, Alexandria,
and the rest—as we trace the stream onwards through the middle ages, by
the way of Amalfi, Venice, and Genoa;—as we descend to latter times, and
touch on Amsterdam, Bruges, and Louvain, and then come home and muse on
the rise and rivalry, the progress and changes of the great centres of
commerce in our own country;—as we pause in each place to look at the
busy traffic going on within them, to the crowded quays, the well-stored
warehouses, the mart of the trader, the shop of the artisan;—as we see
groups of merchants, mechanics, and mariners;—as we listen to the buzz of
many lips, and the noise of unfurled sails, and vessels loosened from
their moorings, the tramp of men piling up bales of goods, the click of
the shuttle and clangour of the anvil, we have an impressive illustration
of the high estimate of that material wealth, which it is the object of
all this energetic activity to produce and preserve. Percival’s
description of the pearl fishery at Ceylon—itself a branch of most
profitable traffic, and exhibiting a scene of bustle akin to that of an
oriental bazaar—may be regarded as a parable of the great world-mart we
are thinking of, and of the precious prize which the thousands who throng
it all covet to obtain. Several thousands of people of different
colours, countries, casts, and occupations, continually passing and
re-passing in a busy crowd: the vast numbers of small tents and huts
erected on the shore, with the bazaar or market-place; the vast numbers
of jewellers, brokers, merchants of all colours and all descriptions,
both natives and foreigners, who are occupied in some way or other with
the pearls, some separating and assorting them, others weighing and
ascertaining their number and value, while others are hawking them about,
or drilling and boring them for future use; “all these circumstances tend
to impress the mind with the value and importance of _that object which
can of itself create this scene_.” On reading this description it
suggests another parable, a holy one from the holiest of lips. “The
Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a merchant seeking goodly pearls: who,
when he hath found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he
had and bought it.”
Wandering far back into the regions of classic antiquity, the finger of
association points to Olympia and her games, those Greek celebrations of
which such graphic sketches are preserved in the triumphal odes of
Pindar. Though “the immediate object of these meetings was the
exhibition of various trials of strength and skill, which from time to
time were multiplied so as to include almost every mode of displaying
bodily activity, they became subservient to the interests of genius and
taste, of art and literature.” Statues were reared to the memory of
successful combatants, “and the most eminent poets willingly lent their
aid on such occasions, especially to the rich and great. And thus it
happened that sports, not essentially different from those of our village
green, gave birth to master-pieces of sculpture, and called forth the
sublimest strains of the lyric muse.” “The scene of the Olympic Festival
was during the season a mart of busy commerce, where productions, not
only of manual but of intellectual labour, were exhibited and exchanged.
In this respect it served many of the same purposes which, in modern
times, are more effectually indeed answered by the press, in the
communication of thoughts, inventions, and discoveries, and the more
equable diffusion of knowledge.” {91} But these memorable institutions
are suggested to us in the way of resemblance, chiefly on account of the
vast and various concourse of persons which they periodically attracted.
At the time when the games returned, the banks of the Alpheus became a
centre of universal interest, and exhibited a pilgrim population typical
of a congregated world. The festival “was very early frequented by
spectators, not only from all parts of Greece itself, but from the Greek
colonies in Europe, Africa, and Asia, and this assemblage was not brought
together by the mere fortuitous impulse of private interest or curiosity,
but was in part composed of deputations, which were sent by most cities
as to a religious solemnity, and were considered as guests of the
Olympian god.” It is curious to observe—in contrast with the inclusion
of so many of the female sex in our gathering of the nations, the
circumstance illustrative of the different position of woman in society
in the old classic world—that, with the exception of the priestesses of
Ceres, and certain virgins, none but men, during the earlier periods of
Grecian history, were permitted to appear in Olympia at the time of those
national festivities. The history of this remarkable institution,
through the many ages in which Greece was the pattern and mirror of
artistic, intellectual, and social civilization, exhibited that
civilization in its rise, progress, and decay—its spring-tide freshness,
summer pride, and autumnal beauty. There might the hand of providence be
seen, disclosing, expanding, and then folding up forms of thought, modes
of association, and habits of life, which while they actually existed
gave much of their own impress to the foreigners who were gradually
familiarized with them, and will long continue, through the medium of
their history and their remains, to refresh the imagination, stimulate
the genius, chasten the taste, and arouse the emulation of mankind.
Other associations, which belonging to the mediæval ages may be grouped
together under the class of romantic, next occur to our minds, bringing
in procession before us a train of images nearer in point of time, but
more remote in point of resemblance. We think of the rich old
picturesque cities of Europe, which sprung up, after the fall of the
Roman Empire, in Spain, and France, and Germany, and the Netherlands, a
hardy and robust offspring, born in troublous times, cradled amidst
storms, thrown on the world in infancy to take care of themselves, and
gathering, like individuals, strength and nerve and wit and prudence from
this rough and irregular sort of training:—and forthwith the
quaint-looking narrow streets are seen crowded with flocks of foreign
visitors to drive a bargain in the bourse, or to barter their wool at the
staple, or to mingle in the amusements of some civic festival. And
amidst the concourse of merchants, and pedlars, and workmen may be seen
the knight and the squire, the monk and the minstrel.
“Quaint old towns of toil and traffic, quaint old towns of art and
song,
Memories haunt their pointed gables, like the rooks that round them
throng.
Through these streets so broad and stately, these obscure and dismal
lanes,
Walked of yore the master-singers chancing rude poetic strains.
From remote and sunless suburbs came they to the friendly guild,
Building nests in Fame’s great temple, as in spouts the swallows
build.”
“I beheld the pageants splendid that adorned those days of old;
Stately dames like queens attended, knights who bore the fleece of
gold;
Lombard and Venetian merchants, with deep laden argosies;
Ministers from twenty nations, more than royal pomp and ease.” {94}
And, then, Venice is seen, rising out of the sea—a “mazy dream of marble
palaces, old names, fair churches, strange costumes, while the canals are
like the silver threads, the bright unities of one of sleep’s well-woven
visions.” Within that great city—the modern Tyre, her history full of
warnings pointed at pride, cupidity, ambition, and tyranny—are seen her
merchant princes, with strangers from other lands, “Greek, Armenian,
Persian,” meeting together in busy excited crowds to look on the wares
and treasures supplied by her richly freighted ships; nor can we help
glancing at the annual festival of that commercial republic, when, to use
the words of Rogers,—
“The fisher came
From his green islet, bringing o’er the waves
His wife and little one, the husbandman
From the far land, with many a friar and nun,
And village maiden, her first flight from home,
Crowding the common ferry. All arrived:
And in his straw the prisoner turned and listened;
So great the stir in Venice. Old and young
Thronged her three hundred bridges.”
And then these cities disappear, and give place to some curiously carved
chapel—a gem of architecture—within whose dim aisles there gather groups
of pilgrims from far-off places, to pay their vows and offer their gifts
at the shrine of a popular saint. Walsingham and Canterbury show eager
and zealous worshippers, coming from distant towns and other lands, to
kneel with ignorant and superstitions reverence on the altar steps, and
to help by their genuflexions to deepen the indentations on the wave-like
surface of the floor. And then again our thoughts wander away to
Mediterranean ports, and pilgrims are seen gathering there to go forth on
a more formidable expedition to the Holy Land, and as the vessel weighs
anchor, the old church hymn, the _Veni Creator_, chanted by the sailors,
is heard stealing over the waters, as they spread their canvass to the
wind. Nor can we forget that even these gatherings, with all their
superstition, folly, waste of time, and pernicious moral influence,
nevertheless enlarged the circle of human knowledge, and the domains of
civilization, and corrected errors in geography, and wore away prejudices
between race and race, and promoted the interests of commerce and
navigation; and, towards the latter part of the mediæval age,
contributed, by the knowledge which many of those who visited Rome
acquired respecting its corrupt and licentious court, to create and swell
that deep tide of anti-papal feeling which preceded the Lutheran
reformation and promoted it when it came. Far greater crowds than ever
are seen, in the eleventh century, embarking: in the richly painted
galleys of Genoa and Venice, on their way to the East. Zeal for the
Crusades was the very spirit of the times, fanned in some instances and
kindled in others by the eloquence of Peter the Hermit. Europe
precipitated itself into Asia, and multitudes who marched on foot, as
well as those who crossed the Mediterranean, appeared on the plains of
Palestine. Rarely has our world, which has so often witnessed the
gathering of armed men, seen such a host as met the eye of our Richard
Cœur de Lion when he reached Acre. “Around the city spread the camp of
the besiegers, a collection of warriors from every country in Europe,
with their separate and appropriate standards. The walls of the place
were manned by its resolute defenders, urging their active engines of
warlike defence. Beyond, at a visible distance, the powerful army of
Saladin appeared covering the hills and plains: their tents radiating
with the gorgeous colours so precious to Turkish taste.” The Crusades
wasted an immense amount of wealth, sacrificed human life to an awful
extent, and were productive of intense misery in various forms. But, as
in the case of all great gatherings of the human race for a common
purpose, the evils were in the main temporary, the good produced
permanent. They did on a large scale what pilgrimages did on a small
one. They tended to undermine the system of feudalism and to sow seeds
of liberty. Men were waked as by a thunder-clap from the slumber of
centuries. A movement was produced in society, the impulse of which
never died away, for from that era European affairs underwent a change;
intellectual, moral, political, religious life began afresh to throb
through the Western world, and never since have men completely gone to
sleep again.
Transported in imagination to Palestine, the eye travels from the
processions and crusades of former days to assemblages in modern times,
animated by a like spirit of superstition; and among scenes of this kind
such a picture as the following occurs on the banks of the Jordan, by the
fountain of Elisha, detaining the fancy by its poetical interest, while,
as an expression of blind and misguided feeling improperly termed
religious, it fills with melancholy reflections the mind which has been
enlightened by true piety. “I estimated the number of persons encamped
upon the plain before Jericho at 2,500, including a singular variety of
languages and costumes. There was scarcely a people under heaven among
whom Christianity is professed without its representatives here. There
were Copts, Greeks, Armenians, Catholics, Protestants from Abyssinia,
Egypt, Asia Minor, Turkey, Greece, Malta, Italy, France, Spain, Austria,
Poland, Prussia, Russia, Great Britain, America, and I believe all or
nearly all other Christian lands. Cossacks were very numerous, and were
distinguished for their equipages and personal bearing among a motley
assemblage, which could hardly claim to be less than semi-barbarous.
This was no mean opportunity to study customs and costumes, when a walk
of two or three minutes brought under your inspection the Egyptian dining
upon an onion and a doura cake, the Syrian with his hands full of curds,
the Armenian feasting on pickled olives or preserved dates, the Cossack
devouring huge pieces of boiled mutton, and the European and American
seated around a box, serving the purpose of a table, covered with the
usual variety of meats and drinks demanded by the pampered appetite of
civilized man. As it grew dark, a multitude of fires was kindled
throughout the camp and in the grove adjoining, which threw their strong
glare upon these very characteristic curious groups, and gave the fullest
effect to the picturesque scene. The red caps, the huge turbans, the
vast flaunting robes of striped silk or scarlet, the coarse shaggy jacket
and bag trousers of the Cossacks, the venerable huge beards and bare feet
and legs of the orientals, all seemed part and parcel of the human beings
who lay nestled together upon the ground like domestic animals, or moved
about the illuminated area, thus varying and multiplying by every
possible change of light and shade the phases and hues of all that
appears grotesque and fantastic to an eye accustomed to the graver modes
of the western world.”
And now that a chain of rather wild but not uninteresting suggestions has
brought us to the Holy Land, other thoughts, sacred and divine, bind us
there for a while, strengthened by the sight of many a foreign and
home-born visitor among the actual crowd, within and about the great
Crystal Palace, unmistakably of Israelitish origin, the descendants of
the men who possessed the country in her better days. And there, on the
summit of Moriah, stands an edifice devoted neither to war nor wealth, to
the advancement of art or to the gratification of pleasure, but to the
service of the God of the whole earth. “A mountain of snow,” it seemed
to the Roman Titus, “fretted with golden pinnacles.” But, with an
attractiveness surpassing that of material beauty, it revealed itself to
the lingering eyes of large companies at their holy feasts two thousand
years ago, as they at length touched the summit of some one of “the
mountains which stood round about Jerusalem.” They came over hill and
dale, through mountain pass and by river stream, singing the songs of
Zion, and rehearsing glorious things spoken of the city of God. At many
a cottage door, and village border, and city gate, groups of Israelites
young and old, with smiling faces and beating hearts, fell into the
augmenting crowd; which, as it rolled on, resembled the “swelling of
their own Jordan.” They came “upon horses, and in chariots, and in
litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to the holy mountain.”
Thither “the tribes went up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony
of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord.” There was “little
Benjamin with their ruler, the princes of Judah and their council, the
princes of Zebulun, and the princes of Naphtali.” They entered “through
the gates into the city.” The Jew from “Dan” met the Jew from
“Beersheba,” and he who dwelt “by the haven of ships,” saluted his
brother from “the other side of the river.” Lover and friend,
acquaintance and “kindred according to the flesh,” fell upon one
another’s necks and kissed each other. The old man with his “staff in
his hand for very age” saw “his children’s children and peace upon
Israel.” The “streets of the city were full of boys and girls playing in
the streets thereof.” “There was a voice of noise from the city—a voice
from the temple.” “They went up to the house of the Lord.” The priests
were “clothed with salvation, the saints shouted for joy.” “The singers
went before, the players on instruments followed after, among them the
damsels playing with timbrels.” “They praised his name in the dance, and
sang praise unto him with the timbrel and the harp.” They “brought an
offering and came into his courts.” “They came to the altar of God.”
“They compassed it round about.” They beheld “the beauty of the Lord,
and inquired in his temple.”
One year stands out in the history of those gatherings before which every
other fades. Then _our_ passover was slain. Then the day of the world’s
pentecost was fully come, and great was the gathering. The multitude
without the gates who were assembled to gaze on that spectacle before
which, at its close, “the sun was darkened,” saw an inscription, in the
threefold language, of which there was a pregnant meaning that Pilate
little thought of—“It was written in Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew,” the
three great languages then spoken on the earth. Men who had used these
languages from infancy were there. Representatives of the world were
there—the Roman centurion was there—Simon the Cyrenian was there
{103}—multitudes of the Jews were there. And as they deciphered that
strange writing, the various tongues in which the title of the Divine
Sufferer was expressed was a sign that in Him, the Roman, Greek, and
Israelite would find a Saviour and a Lord. The three languages “which
like gold threads bind up the history of the ancient world,” were here
beautifully entwined to tell the teeming crowd of one for whose coming
all the changes in the story of their respective nations had, in the
comprehensive working of Divine providence, prepared. The cross of
ignominy, at the sight of which they shuddered, was the threshold he must
needs pass to enter his kingdom and ascend his throne, there to sway over
them a sceptre at whose touch their hearts would bow and be rid of the
burden of sin and guilt,—while their mutual antipathies would melt away,
and He who had brought them peace would make them one for ever. “The
Roman, powerful but not happy—the Greek distracted with the inquiries of
an unsatisfying philosophy—the Jew bound hand and foot with the chain of
a ceremonial law,” would find in Christ crucified the power of God and
the wisdom of God; and, in the superscription of his accusation, read
wondrous words of “peace, pardon, and love,” to all the dwellers upon
earth. {104}
Seven weeks afterwards and again there was a gathering. “They were all
with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from
heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where
they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as
of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the
Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave
them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men,
out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the
multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man
heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and
marvelled, saying one to another, Are not all these which speak
Galilæans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were
born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in
Mesopotamia, and in Judæa, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia,
and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and
strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear
them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.”
“And the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.
And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking
bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and
singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the
people.” Then was the beginning of that ingathering of souls which the
Redeemer of the world predicted when he uttered those amazing words: “I,
if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me.” Then he
began, and still he continues that infinitely gracious work, in the
accomplishment of which he unites a fallen and divided race together by
uniting them to himself. The moral world has been, as it were, riven by
an earthquake—consumed by an internal fire—and he undertakes to reunite
and restore it. He employs his cross as the point around which the whole
mass of regenerated humanity is to collect: indeed, by the simple virtue
of that cross, he accomplishes the change, and constitutes it the axis on
which the “new earth” shall rest and revolve. The attraction is
invisibly going on, and the successful issue shall be at length
developed. To him shall the gathering of the people be. They shall come
not as captives, but as those who choose his service “to worship before
him in his holy mountain.” “The abundance of the sea shall be converted;
the forces of the Gentiles shall come.” They shall “fly as a cloud and
as doves to their windows.” “The isles shall wait” on him. “The ships
of Tarshish first, to bring his sons from afar.” “He will gather all
nations and tongues, and they shall come and see his glory.” “He shall
set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of
Israel. The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of
Judah shall be cut off. Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall
not vex Ephraim.” Thus the divided world shall be made one in a way
infinitely transcending the ambitious dreams of an Alexander or Napoleon.
The moral dispersion, of which that at Babel was the type, shall be
reversed; men shall be united in religion and love: and the lines of
human interest, like the radii of a circle, concentrating in spiritual
obedience and the glory of Christ, shall no longer confusedly and in
strife cross each other as they do now, and ever must, while a base
selfishness makes each man his own centre.
Lifted into this mood of feeling, so much loftier than that with which we
began the chapter, we cannot close without turning a reverential gaze on
other gatherings, in that state of being on whose precincts we and all
the multitudes around us every moment tread. There is the gathering in
the grave, “the silent waiting-hall where Adam meeteth with his
children.” “The chief ones of the earth, the kings of the nations,” are
“brought down there and the worm is spread over them, and the worms cover
them.” And “there the rich and the poor meet together.” “The small and
the great are there.” Who can count the sands on the sea shore—and who
can cast up the number of the dead? Vast as it is already, the concourse
in the great city of the grave shall in a few short years receive
accessions of myriads more. The multitudes who crowd the streets of the
Great Metropolis, in their way to the Palace of Industry, and all whom
they represent in distant lands, will ere long descend to the “place of
their fathers’ sepulchres.” This globe, as it sails round the sun,
carries in its deep hold many a costly thing; but the dust of its buried
generations is a freightage more precious than gold or silver!
Along with this there is the gathering of souls into invisible realms.
It is consonant with reason and revelation, that we should believe in the
conscious existence of minds after their separation from the body. While
the mortal remains are preserved by Divine Providence for a mysterious
restoration to life at the last day, the immaterial and immortal spirit
enters into a separate condition of blessedness or woe, according to its
character in the present state of being. “Lazarus died, and was carried
by the angels to Abraham’s bosom.” “Absent from the body, present with
the Lord.” The emancipated souls of all the holy dead, through the
mediation of the blessed Redeemer, are gathered together in his immediate
presence where there is fulness of joy, and at his right hand where there
are pleasures for evermore. “To that state all the pious on earth are
tending; and if there is a law from whose operation none are exempt,
which irresistibly conveys their bodies to darkness and dust, there is
another not less certain and powerful which conducts their spirits to the
abodes of bliss, to the bosom of their Father and their God. The wheels
of nature are not made to roll backward, everything presses on to
eternity: from the birth of time an impetuous current has set in, which
bears all the sons of men towards that interminable ocean. Meanwhile
heaven is attracting to itself whatever is congenial to its nature: is
enriching itself by the spoils of earth, and collecting within its
capacious bosom whatever is pure, permanent, and divine; leaving nothing
for the last fire to consume but the objects and the slaves of
concupiscence: while everything which grace has prepared and beautified
shall be gathered and selected from the ruins of the world, to adorn that
Eternal City which hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine
in it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.” {110} And terrific is it to
think that as the multitude of the spirits of the just made perfect is
thus ever augmenting, so also is there an increase of the crowds of
fallen and lost beings in the abodes of despair. How many, it is to be
feared, are hastening on, by their course in this world, not to paradise,
but to prison—not to be with Christ, but to go with Judas to their own
place!
And beyond these scenes of awful interest there lies another of like
character, to be witnessed at the end of time by everyone who may look at
these pages, because it will be the gathering of the whole human race.
“The dead which are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of
man, and shall come forth.” The sea shall give up the dead which is in
it. Death and Hades shall deliver up the dead which are in them. The
dead, small and great, shall stand before God. The Son of man shall come
in his glory, with all the holy angels with him. Then shall he sit on
the throne of his glory. And before Him shall be gathered all nations.
“Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him.” To think
of all the multitudes who have ever lived upon the earth—all who are now
in heaven or hell—all who are existing like ourselves—all who are yet to
be born, assembled before the judgment-seat of Christ! No such an
aggregate of human beings can have ever met before. Compared with that
final one, even regarded simply in reference to numbers, every other
assemblage fades into insignificance. The solemn incidents of that day,
relating merely to the material globe and the works of men, as predicted
in the New Testament; the melting of the elements and the burning of the
earth really appear, upon reflection, less startling and impressive than
the vast concourse of mortals which shall then be seen. And, to add to
the wonder, all, with the exception of those who will be alive at the
coming of the Son of man, shall have passed through mysterious stages of
existence, through the hour of dissolution and the disembodied state, and
shall bring with them to the great tribunal some knowledge of the secrets
of eternity. Something anticipative of their future and everlasting
state they shall have experienced; so that, not in suspense, but with
certain hope or fixed despair, shall they meet their God. They will have
learned long before, that their moral history in this world had
determined their eternal history in the next: that if not twice born here
below—born of the Spirit as well as of nature—they must then die “the
second death.” Thoughts and emotions, remembrances and expectations,
such as in none of the world’s great gatherings have been or ever shall
be known, will then be felt. And, to complete this, the most affecting
of all the associations which our subject has suggested, the mind passes
on to contemplate the purpose and issue of the whole. Placed before the
great white throne, every man’s work shall be made manifest, the secrets
of all hearts shall be revealed, that the rectitude of the judge may be
seen in his final sentence of life or death. No human adjudication can
be comparable to that. “Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God
Almighty; just and true art thou in all thy ways, thou King of saints.”
The brightest of all visions next unfolds. A structure of peerless
beauty rises above the ruins of the world, and within its gates there
gather men from all lands, select but innumerable. “And I saw a new
heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were
passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city,
New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride
adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying,
Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, . . .
and be their God. And he showed me that great city, the holy
Jerusalem: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a
jasper stone, clear as crystal; and had a wall great and high, and had
twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels . . . And the twelve gates
were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street
of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. And the city
had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the
glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the
nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the
kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. And the
gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night
there. And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.
And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither
whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are
written in the Lamb’s book of life.”
Here let the reader lay down the book, and in devout silence muse on
these “four last things.”