THE FUTURE THAT AWAITS US.
IN all ages of the world, and in all parts of it, mankind have earnestly
desired to learn the fate that awaited them when they had “shuffled off
this mortal coil;” and those pretending to be their instructors have
built up different systems which have stood in the stead of knowledge,
and more or less satisfied the bulk of the people. The interest on this
subject is, at the present period, in the most highly civilized portions
of the globe, less than it has been at any preceding one. The great
proportion of us live for this world alone, and think very little of the
next: we are in too great a hurry of pleasure or business to bestow any
time on a subject of which we have such vague notions—notions so vague,
that, in short, we can scarcely by any effort of the imagination bring
the idea home to ourselves; and when we are about to die, we are seldom
in a situation to do more than resign ourselves to what is inevitable,
and blindly meet our fate; while, on the other hand, what is generally
called the religious world is so engrossed by its struggles for power
and money, or by its sectarian disputes and enmities, and so narrowed
and circumscribed by dogmatic orthodoxies, that it has neither
inclination nor liberty to turn back or look around, and endeavor to
gather up from past records and present observation such hints as are
now and again dropped in our path, to give us an intimation of what the
truth may be. The rationalistic age, too, out of which we are only just
emerging, and which succeeded one of gross superstition, having settled,
beyond appeal, that there never was such a thing as a ghost—that the
dead never do come back to tell us the secrets of their prison-house,
and that nobody believes such idle tales but children and old
women—seemed to have shut the door against the only channel through
which any information could be sought. Revelation tells us very little
on this subject—reason can tell us nothing; and if Nature is equally
silent, or if we are to be deterred from questioning her from the fear
of ridicule, there is certainly no resource left us but to rest
contented in our ignorance, and each wait till the awful secret is
disclosed to ourselves.
A great many things have been pronounced untrue and absurd, and even
impossible, by the highest authorities of the age in which they lived,
which have afterward, and indeed within a very short period, been found
to be both possible and true. I confess myself, for one, to have no
respect whatever for these dogmatic denials and affirmations, and I am
quite of opinion that vulgar incredulity is a much more contemptible
thing than vulgar credulity. We know very little of what _is_, and still
less of what may be; and till a thing has been proved, by induction,
logically impossible, we have no right whatever to pronounce that it is
so. As I have said before, _a priori_ conclusions are perfectly
worthless; and the sort of investigation that is bestowed upon subjects
of the class of which I am treating, something worse—inasmuch as they
deceive the timid and the ignorant, and that very numerous class which
pins its faith on authority and never ventures to think for itself, by
an assumption of wisdom and knowledge, which, if examined and analyzed,
would very frequently prove to be nothing more respectable than
obstinate prejudice and rash assertion.
For my own part, I repeat, I insist upon nothing. The opinions I have
formed, from the evidence collected, may be quite erroneous; if so, as I
seek only the truth, I shall be glad to be undeceived, and shall be
quite ready to accept a better explanation of these facts, whenever it
is offered to me: but it is in vain to tell me that this explanation is
to be found in what is called imagination, or in a morbid state of the
nerves, or an unusual excitement of the organs of color and form, or in
imposture; or in all these together. The existence of all such sources
of error and delusion I am far from denying, but I find instances that
it is quite impossible to reduce under any one of those categories, as
we at present understand them. The multiplicity of these instances,
too—for, not to mention the large number that are never made known or
carefully concealed, if I were to avail myself liberally of cases
already recorded in various works, many of which I know, and many others
I hear of as existing, but which I can not conveniently get access to, I
might fill volumes (German literature abounds in them)—the number of
the examples, I repeat, even on the supposition that they are not facts,
would of itself form the subject of a very curious physiological or
psychological inquiry. If so many people in respectable situations of
life, and in apparently a normal state of health, are capable of either
such gross impostures, or the subjects of such extraordinary spectral
illusions, it would certainly be extremely satisfactory to learn
something of the conditions that induce these phenomena in such
abundance; and all I expect from my book at present is, to induce a
suspicion that we are not quite so wise as we think ourselves; and that
it might be worth while to inquire a little seriously into reports,
which may perchance turn out to have a deeper interest for us than all
those various questions, public and private, put together, with which we
are daily agitating ourselves.
I have alluded, in an earlier part of this work, to the belief
entertained by the ancients that the souls of men, on being disengaged
from the bodies, passed into a middle state, called Hades, in which
their portions seemed to be neither that of complete happiness nor of
insupportable misery. They retained their personality, their human form,
their memory of the past, and their interest in those that had been dear
to them on earth. Communications were occasionally made by the dead to
the living: they mourned over their duties neglected and their errors
committed; many of their mortal feelings, passions, and propensities,
seemed to survive; and they sometimes sought to repair, through the
instrumentality of the living, the injuries they had formerly inflicted.
In short, death was merely a transition from one condition of life to
another; but in this latter state, although we do not see them condemned
to undergo any torments, we perceive that they are not happy. There are,
indeed, compartments in this dark region: there is Tartarus for the
wicked, and the Elysian fields for the good, but they are comparatively
thinly peopled. It is in the mid-region that these pale shades abound,
consistently with the fact that here on earth, moral as well as
intellectual mediocrity is the rule, and extremes of good or evil the
exceptions.
With regard to the opinion entertained of a future state by the Hebrews,
the Old Testament gives us very little information; but what glimpses we
do obtain of it appear to exhibit notions analogous to those of the
heathen nations, inasmuch as that the personality and the form seem to
be retained, and the possibility of these departed spirits revisiting
the earth and holding commune with the living is admitted. The request
of the rich man, also, that Lazarus might be sent to warn his brethren,
yet alive, of his own miserable condition, testifies to the existence of
these opinions; and it is worthy of remark that the favor is denied, not
because its performance is impossible, but because the mission would be
unavailing—a prediction which, it appears to me, time has singularly
justified.
Altogether, the notion that in the state entered upon after we leave
this world, the personality and form are retained, that these shades
sometimes revisit the earth, and that the memory of the past still
survives, seems to be universal; for it is found to exist among all
people, savage and civilized: and if not founded on observation and
experience, it becomes difficult to account for such unanimity on a
subject which I think, speculatively considered, would not have been
productive of such results; and one proof of this is, that those who
reject such testimony and tradition as we have in regard to it, and rely
only on their own understandings, appear to be pretty uniformly led to
form opposite conclusions. They can not discern the mode of such a
phenomenon; it is open to all sorts of scientific objections, and the
_cui bono_ sticks in their teeth.
This position being admitted, as I think it must be, we have but one
resource left, whereby to account for the universality of this
persuasion—which is, that in all periods and places, both mankind and
womankind, as well in health as in sickness, have been liable to a
series of spectral illusions of a most extraordinary and complicated
nature, and bearing such a remarkable similarity to each other in regard
to the objects supposed to be seen or heard, that they have been
universally led to the same erroneous interpretation of the phenomenon.
It is manifestly not impossible that this may be the case; and if it be
so, it becomes the business of physiologists to inquire into the matter,
and give us some account of it. In the meantime, we may be permitted to
take the other view of the question, and examine what probabilities seem
to be in its favor.
When the body is about to die, that which can not die, and which, to
spare words, I will call THE SOUL, departs from it—whither? We do not
know: but, in the first place, we have no reason to believe that the
space destined for its habitation is far removed from the earth, since,
knowing nothing about it, we are equally entitled to suppose the
contrary; and, in the next, that which we call distance is a condition
that merely regards material objects, and of which a spirit is quite
independent, just as our thoughts are, which can travel from here to
China, and back again, in a second of time.
Well, then, supposing this being to exist somewhere—and it is not
unreasonable to suppose that the souls of the inhabitants of each planet
continue to hover within the sphere of that planet, to which, for
anything we can tell, they may be attached by a magnetic
attraction—supposing it to find itself in space, free of the body,
endowed with the memory of the past, and consequently with a
consciousness of its own deserts, able to perceive that which we do not
ordinarily perceive, namely, those who have passed into a similar state
with itself—will it not naturally seek its place among those spirits
which most resemble itself, and with whom, therefore, it must have the
most affinity? On earth, the good seek the good, and the wicked the
wicked: and the axiom that “like associates with like,” we can not doubt
will be as true hereafter as now. “In my Father’s house there are many
mansions,” and our intuitive sense of what is fit and just must needs
assure us that this is so. There are too many degrees of moral worth and
of moral unworth among mankind, to permit of our supposing that justice
could be satisfied by an abrupt division into two opposite classes. On
the contrary, there must be infinite shades of desert; and, as we must
consider that that which a spirit enters into on leaving the body is not
so much a _place_ as a _condition_, so there must be as many degrees of
happiness or suffering as there are individuals, each carrying with him
his own heaven or hell. For it is a vulgar notion to imagine that heaven
and hell are _places_; they are states; and it is in ourselves we must
look for both. When we leave the body, we carry them with us: “As the
tree falls, so it shall lie.” The soul which here has wallowed in
wickedness or been sunk in sensuality, will not be suddenly purified by
the death of the body: its moral condition remains what its earthly
sojourn has trained it to, but its means of indulging its propensities
are lost. If it has had no godly aspirations here, it will not be drawn
to God there; and if it has so bound itself to the body that it has
known no happiness but that to which the body ministered, it will be
incapable of happiness when deprived of that enjoyment. Here we see at
once what a variety of conditions must necessarily ensue—how many
comparatively negative states there must be between those of positive
happiness or positive misery!
We may thus conceive how a soul, on entering upon this new condition,
must find its own place or state; if its thoughts and aspirations here
have been heavenward, and its pursuits noble, its conditions will be
heavenly. The contemplation of God’s works, seen not as by our mortal
eyes, but in their beauty and their truth and ever-glowing sentiments of
love and gratitude—and, for aught we know, good offices to souls in
need—would constitute a suitable heaven or happiness for such a being;
an incapacity for such pleasures, and the absence of all others, would
constitute a negative state, in which the chief suffering would consist
in mournful regrets and a vague longing for something better, which the
untrained soul, that never lifted itself from the earth, knows not how
to seek; while malignant passions and unquenchable desires would
constitute the appropriate hell of the wicked; for we must remember,
that although a spirit is independent of those physical laws which are
the conditions of matter, the moral law, which is indestructible,
belongs peculiarly to it—that is, to the spirit—and is inseparable
from it.
We must next remember, that this earthly body we inhabit is more or less
a mask, by means of which we conceal from each other those thoughts
which, if constantly exposed, would unfit us for living in community;
but when we die, this mask falls away, and the truth shows nakedly:
there is no more disguise; we appear as we are—spirits of light, or
spirits of darkness;—and there can be no difficulty, I should think, in
conceiving this, since we know that even our present opaque and
comparatively inflexible features, in spite of all efforts to the
contrary, will be the index of the mind; and that the expression of the
face is gradually moulded to the fashion of the thoughts. How much more
must this be the case with the fluent and diaphanous body which we
expect is to succeed the fleshly one!
Thus, I think, we have arrived at forming some conception of the state
that awaits us hereafter: the indestructible moral law fixes our place
or condition; affinity governs our associations; and the mask under
which we conceal ourselves having fallen away, we appear to each other
as we are;—and I must here observe, that in this last circumstance must
be comprised one very important element of happiness or misery; for the
love of the pure spirits for each other will be for ever excited, by
simply beholding that beauty and brightness which will be the
inalienable expression of their goodness;—while the reverse will be the
case with the spirits of darkness; for no one loves wickedness, in
either themselves or others, however we may practise it. We must also
understand, that the words “dark” and “light”—which, in this world of
appearance, we use metaphorically to express good and evil—must be
understood literally when speaking of that other world where everything
will be seen as it is. Goodness is truth, and truth is light—and
wickedness is falsehood, and falsehood is darkness; and so it will be
seen to be. Those who have not the light of truth to guide them, will
wander darkly through this valley of the shadow of death; those in whom
the light of goodness shines will dwell in the light, which is inherent
in themselves. The former will be in the kingdom of darkness—the latter
in the kingdom of light. All the records existing of the blessed spirits
that have appeared, ancient or modern, exhibit them as robed in light,
while their anger or sorrow is symbolized by their darkness. Now, there
appears to me nothing incomprehensible in this view of the future; on
the contrary, it is the only one which I ever found myself capable of
conceiving or reconciling with the justice and mercy of our Creator. He
does not punish us—we punish ourselves: we have built up a heaven or a
hell to our own liking, and we carry it with us. The fire that for ever
burns without consuming, is the fiery evil in which we have chosen our
part; and the heaven in which we shall dwell, will be the heavenly peace
which will dwell in us. We are our own judges and our own chastisers.
And here I must say a few words on the subject of that apparently (to
us) preternatural memory which is developed under certain circumstances,
and to which I alluded in a former chapter. Every one will have heard
that persons who have been drowned and recovered, have had—in what
would have been their last moments, if no means had been used to revive
them—a strange vision of the past, in which their whole life seemed to
float before them in review; and I have heard of the same phenomenon
taking place, in moments of impending death, in other forms. Now, as it
is not during the struggle for life, but immediately before
insensibility ensues, that this vision occurs, it must be the act of a
moment; and this renders incomprehensible to us what is said by the
seeress of Prevorst, and other somnambules of the highest order, namely,
that the instant the soul is freed from the body, it sees its whole
earthly career in a single sign: it knows that it is good or evil, and
pronounces its own sentence. The extraordinary memory occasionally
exhibited in sickness, where the link between the soul and the body is
probably loosened, shows us an adumbration of this faculty.
But this self-pronounced sentence we are led to hope is not final; nor
does it seem consistent with the love and mercy of God that it should be
so. There must be few, indeed, who leave this earth fit for heaven; for,
although the immediate frame of mind in which dissolution takes place is
probably very important, it is surely a pernicious error, encouraged by
jail chaplains and philanthropists, that a late repentance and a few
parting prayers can purify a soul sullied by years of wickedness. Would
we at once receive such a one into our intimate communion and love?
Should we not require time for the stains of vice to be washed away and
habits of virtue to be formed? Assuredly we should! And how can we
imagine that the purity of heaven is to be sullied by that approximation
which the purity of earth would forbid? It would be cruel to say, and
irrational to think, that this late repentance is of no avail; it is
doubtless so far of avail, that the straining upward and the heavenly
aspirations of the parting soul are carried with it, so that when it is
free, instead of choosing the darkness it will flee to as much light as
is in itself, and be ready, through the mercy of God and the ministering
of brighter spirits, to receive more. But in this case, as also in the
innumerable instances of those who die in what may be called a negative
state, the advance must be progressive; though, wherever the desire
exists, I must believe that this advance is possible. If not, wherefore
did Christ, after being “put to death in the flesh,” go and “preach to
the spirits in prison”? It would have been a mockery to preach salvation
to those who had no hope; nor would they, having no hope, have listened
to the preacher.
I think these views are at once cheering, encouraging, and beautiful;
and I can not but believe, that were they more generally entertained and
more intimately conceived, they would be very beneficial in their
effects. As I have said before, the extremely vague notions people have
of a future life prevent the possibility of its exercising any great
influence upon the present. The picture, on one side, is too revolting
and inconsistent with our ideas of Divine goodness to be deliberately
accepted; while, with regard to the other, our feelings somewhat
resemble those of a little girl I once knew, who, being told by her
mother what was to be the reward of goodness if she were so happy as to
reach heaven, put her finger in her eye and began to cry, exclaiming,
“Oh, mamma, how tired I shall be singing!”
The question which will now naturally arise, and which I am bound to
answer, is, how have these views been formed? and what is the authority
for them? And the answer I have to make will startle many minds when I
say, that they have been gathered from two sources; first and chiefly
from the state in which those spirits appear to be, and sometimes avow
themselves to be, who, after quitting the earth, return to it and make
themselves visible to the living; and, secondly, from the revelations of
numerous somnambules of the highest order, which entirely conform in all
cases, not only with the revelations of the dead, but with each other. I
do not mean to imply, when I say this, that I consider the question
finally settled as to whether somnambules are really clear-seers or only
visionaries; nor that I have by any means established the fact that the
dead do sometimes actually return; but I am obliged to beg the question
for the moment, since, whether these sources be pure or impure, it is
from them the information has been collected. It is true that these
views are extremely conformable with those entertained by Plato and his
school of philosophers, and also with those of the mystics of a later
age; but the latter certainly, and the former probably, built up their
systems on the same foundation; and I am very far from using the term
_mystics_ in the opprobrious, or at least contemptuous, tone in which it
has of late years been uttered in this country; for, although abounding
in errors, as regarded the concrete, and although their want of an
inductive _methodology_ led them constantly astray in the region of the
real, they were sublime teachers in that of the ideal; and they seem to
have been endowed with a wonderful insight into this veiled department
of our nature.
It may be here objected, that we only admire their insight, because,
being in entire ignorance of the subject of it, we accept raving for
revelation; and that no weight can be attached to the conformity of
later disclosures with theirs, since they have no doubt been founded
upon them. As to the ignorance, it is admitted; and, simply looking at
their views, as they stand, they have nothing to support them but their
sublimity and consistency; but, as regards the value of the evidence
afforded by conformity, it rests on very different grounds; for the
reporters from whom we collect our intelligence are, with very few
exceptions, those of whom we may safely predicate, that they were wholly
unacquainted with the systems promulgated by the Platonic philosophers,
or the mystics either, nor, in most instances, had ever heard of their
names; for, as regards that peculiar somnambulic state which is here
referred to, the subjects of it appear to be generally very young people
of either sex, and chiefly girls; and, as regards ghost-seeing, although
this phenomenon seems to have no connection with the age of the seer,
yet it is not usually from the learned or the cultivated that we collect
our cases, inasmuch as the apprehension of ridicule on the one hand, and
the fast hold the doctrine of spectral illusions has taken of them on
the other, prevent their believing in their own senses, or producing any
evidence they might have to furnish.
And here will be offered another subtle objection, namely, that the
testimony of such witnesses as I have above described is perfectly
worthless; but this I deny. The somnambulic states I allude to, are such
as have been developed, not artificially, but naturally; and often,
under very extraordinary nervous diseases, accompanied with catalepsy,
and various symptoms far beyond feigning. Such cases are rare, and, in
this country, seem to have been very little observed, for doubtless they
must occur, and when they do occur they are very carefully concealed by
the families of the patient, and not followed up or investigated as a
psychological phenomenon by the physician; for it is to be observed
that, without questioning, no revelations are made; they are not, as far
as I know, ever spontaneous. I have heard of two such cases in this
country, both occurring in the higher classes, and both patients being
young ladies; but, although surprising phenomena were exhibited,
interrogation was not permitted, and the particulars were never allowed
to transpire.
No doubt there are examples of error and examples of imposture, so there
are in everything where room is to be found for them; and I am quite
aware of the propensity of hysterical patients to deceive, but it is for
the judicious observers to examine the genuineness of each particular
instance; and it is perfectly certain and well established by the German
physiologists and psychologists, who have carefully studied the subject,
that there are many above all suspicion. Provided, then, that the case
be genuine, it remains to be determined how much value is to be attached
to the revelations, for they may be quite honestly delivered, and yet be
utterly worthless—the mere ravings of a disordered brain; and it is
here that conformity becomes important, for I can not admit the
objection that the simple circumstance of the patients being diseased
invalidates their evidence so entirely as to annul even the value of
their unanimity, because, although it is not logically impossible that a
certain state of nervous derangement should occasion all somnambules, of
the class in question, to make similar answers, when interrogated
regarding a subject of which, in their normal condition, they know
nothing, and on which they have never reflected, and that these answers
should be not only consistent, but disclosing far more elevated views
than are evolved by minds of a very superior order which _have_
reflected on it very deeply—I say, although this is not logically
impossible, it will assuredly be found, by most persons, an hypothesis
of much more difficult acceptance than the one I propose; namely, that
whatever be the cause of the effect, these patients are in a state of
clear-seeing, wherein they have “more than mortal knowledge;” that is,
more knowledge than mortals possess in their normal condition: and it
must not be forgotten, that we have some facts confessed by all
experienced physicians and physiologists, even in this country, proving
that there are states of disease in which preternatural faculties have
been developed, such as no theory has yet satisfactorily accounted for.
But Dr. Passavent, who has written a very philosophical work on the
subject of vital magnetism and clear-seeing, asserts, that it is an
error to imagine that the ecstatic condition is merely the product of
disease. He says, that it has sometimes exhibited itself in persons of
very vigorous constitutions, instancing Joan of Arc, a woman, whom
historians have little understood, and whose memory Voltaire’s
detestable poem has ridiculed and degraded, but who was, nevertheless, a
great psychological phenomenon.
The circumstance, too, that phenomena of this kind are more frequently
developed in women than in men, and that they are merely the consequence
of her greater nervous irritability, has been made another objection to
them—an objection, however, which Dr. Passavent considers founded on
ignorance of the essential difference between the sexes, which is not
merely a physical but a psychological one. Man is more productive than
receptive. In a state of perfectibility, both attributes would be
equally developed in him; but in this terrestrial life, only imperfect
phases of the entire sum of the soul’s faculties are so. Mankind are but
children, male or female, young or old; of man, in his totality, we have
but faint adumbrations, here and there.
Thus the ecstatic woman will be more frequently a seer, instinctive and
intuitive; man, a doer and a worker; and as all genius is a degree of
ecstasy or clear-seeing, we perceive the reason wherefore in man it is
more productive than in woman, and that our greatest poets and artists,
in all kinds, are of the former sex, and even the most remarkable women
produce but little in science or art; while on the other hand, the
feminine instinct, and tact, and intuitive seeing of truth, are
frequently more sure than the ripe and deliberate judgment of man; and
it is hence that solitude and such conditions as develop the passive or
receptive at the expense of the active, tend to produce this state, and
to assimilate the man more to the nature of the woman; while in her they
intensify these distinguishing characteristics; and this is also the
reason that simple and child-like people and races are the most frequent
subjects of these phenomena.
It is only necessary to read Mozart’s account of his own moments of
inspiration, to comprehend not only the similarity, but the positive
identity, of the ecstatic state with the state of genius in activity.
“When all goes well with me,” he says—“when I am in a carriage, or
walking, or when I can not sleep at night, the thoughts come streaming
in upon me most fluently: whence, or how, is more than I can tell. What
comes, I hum to myself as it proceeds. Then follow the counterpoint and
the clang of the different instruments; and, if I am not disturbed, my
soul is fixed, and the thing grows greater, and broader, and clearer;
and I have it all in my head, even when the piece is a long one; and I
see it like a beautiful picture—not hearing the different parts in
succession as they must be played, but the whole at once. That is the
delight! The composing and the making is like a beautiful and vivid
dream; but this hearing of it is the best of all.”
What is this but clear-seeing, backward and forward, the past and the
future? The one faculty is not a whit more surprising and
incomprehensible than the other, to those who possess neither; only we
see the material product of one, and therefore believe in it. But, as
Passavent justly observes, these coruscations belong not to genius
exclusively—they are latent in all men. In the highly-gifted this
divine spark becomes a flame to light the world withal; but even in the
coarsest and least-developed organizations, it may and does momentarily
break forth. The germ of the highest spiritual life is in the rudest,
according to its degree, as well as in the highest form of man we have
yet seen;—he is but a more imperfect type of the race, in whom this
spiritual germ has not unfolded itself.
Then, with respect to our second source of information, I am quite aware
that it is equally difficult to establish its validity; but there are a
few arguments in our favor here, too. In the first place, as Dr. Johnson
says, though all reason is against us, all tradition is for us; and this
conformity of tradition is surely of some weight, since I think it would
be difficult to find any parallel instance of a universal tradition that
was entirely without a foundation in truth; for with respect to
witchcraft, the belief in which is equally universal, we now know that
the phenomena were generally facts, although the interpretations put
upon them were fables. It may certainly be objected that this universal
belief in ghosts only arises from the universal prevalence of spectral
illusions; but if so, as I have before observed, these spectral
illusions become a subject of very curious inquiry; for, in the first
place, they frequently occur under circumstances the least likely to
induce them, and to people whom we should least expect to find the
victims of them; and, in the second, there is a most remarkable
conformity here, too, not only between the individual cases occurring
among all classes of persons, who had never exhibited the slightest
tendency to nervous derangement or somnambulism, but also between these
and the revelations of the somnambules. In short, it seems to me that
life is reduced to a mere phantasmagoria, if spectral illusions are so
prevalent, so complicated in their nature, and so delusive as they must
be if all the instances of ghost-seeing that come before us are to be
referred to that theory. How numerous these are, I confess myself not to
have had the least idea, till my attention was directed to the inquiry;
and that these instances have been equally frequent in all periods and
places we can not doubt, from the variety of persons that have given in
their adhesion, or at least that have admitted, as Addison did, that he
could not refuse the universal testimony in favor of the reappearance of
the dead, strengthened by that of many credible persons with whom he was
acquainted. Indeed, the testimony in favor of the facts has been at all
periods too strong to be wholly rejected; so that even the materialists,
like Lucretius and the elder Pliny, find themselves obliged to
acknowledge them; while, on the other hand, the extravagant admissions
that are demanded of us by those who endeavor to explain them away,
prove that their disbelief rests on no more solid foundation than their
own prejudices. I acknowledge all the difficulty of establishing the
facts—such difficulties as indeed encompass few other branches of
inquiry; but I maintain that the position of the opponents is still
worse, although, by their high tone and contemptuous laugh, they assume
to have taken up one that, being fortified by reason, is quite
impregnable, forgetting that the wisdom of man is pre-eminently
“foolishness before God,” when it wanders into this region of unknown
things;—forgetting, also, that they are just serving this branch of
inquiry, as their predecessors, whom they laughed at, did physiology;
concocting their systems out of their own brains, instead of the
responses of nature—and with still more rashness and presumption, this
department of her kingdom being more inaccessible, more incapable of
demonstration, and more entirely beyond our control; for these spirits
will not “come when we do call them;”—and I confess it often surprises
me to hear the very shallow nonsense that very clever men talk upon the
subject, and the inefficient arguments they use to disprove what they
know nothing about. I am quite conscious that the facts I shall adduce
are open to controversy: I can bring forward no evidence that will
satisfy a scientific mind; but neither are my opponents a whit better
fortified. All I do hope to establish is, not a proof, but a
presumption; and the conviction I desire to awaken in people’s minds is,
not that these things _are_ so, but that they _may be_ so, and that it
is well worth our while to inquire whether they are or not.
It will be seen that these views of a future state are extremely similar
to those of Isaac Taylor, as suggested in his physical theory of another
life—at least, as far as he has entered upon the subject;—and it is
natural that they should be so, because he seems also to have been a
convert to the opinion that “the dead do sometimes break through the
boundaries that hem in the ethereal crowds; and if so, as if by
trespass, may in single instances infringe upon the ground of common
corporeal life.”
Let us now fancy this dispossessed soul entering on its new career,
amazed, and no more able than when it was in the body to accommodate
itself at once to conditions of existence for which it was unprepared.
If its aspirations had previously been heavenward, these conditions
would not be altogether new, and it would speedily find itself at home
in a sphere in which it had dwelt before; for, as I have formerly said,
a spirit must be where its thoughts and affections are, and the soul,
whose thoughts and affections had been directed to heaven, would only
awaken after death into a more perfect and unclouded heaven. But imagine
the contrary of all this. Conceive what this awakening must be to an
earth-bound spirit—to one altogether unprepared for its new
home—carrying no light within it—floating in the dim obscure—clinging
to the earth, where all its affections were garnered up: for where its
treasure is, there shall it be also. It will find its condition evil,
more or less, according to the degree of its moral light or darkness,
and in proportion to the amount of the darkness will be its incapacity
to seek for light. Now, there seems nothing offensive to our notions of
the Divine goodness in this conception of what awaits us when the body
dies. It appears to me, on the contrary, to offer a more comprehensible
and coherent view than any other that has been presented to me; yet the
state I have depicted is very much the hades of the Greeks and Romans.
It is the middle state, on which all souls enter—a state in which there
are many mansions; that is, there are innumerable states—probably not
permanent, but ever progressive or retrograde; for we can not conceive
of any moral state being permanent, since we know perfectly well that
ours is never so; it is always advancing or retroceding. When we are not
improving, we are deteriorating; and so it must necessarily be with us
hereafter.
Now, if we admit the probability of this middle state, we have removed
one of the great objections which are made to the belief in the
reappearance of the dead: namely, that the blest are too happy to return
to the earth, and that the wicked have it not in their power to do so.
This difficulty arises, however, very much from the material ideas
entertained of heaven and hell—the notion that they are places instead
of states. I am told that the Greek word _hades_ is derived from
_æides_, _invisible_; and that the Hebrew word _scheôl_, which has the
same signification, also implies a state, not a place, since it may be
interpreted into _desiring_, _longing_, _asking_, _praying_. These words
in the Septuagint are translated _grave_, _death_, and _hell_; but
previously to the Reformation they seem to have borne their original
meaning—that is, the state into which the soul entered at the death of
the body. It was probably to get rid of the purgatory of the Roman
Church, which had doubtless become the source of many absurd notions and
corrupt practices, that the doctrine of a middle state or hades was set
aside: besides which, the honest desire for reformation, in all
reforming churches, being alloyed by the _odium theologicum_, the
purifying besom is apt to take too discursive a sweep, exercising less
modesty and discrimination than might be desirable, and thus not
uncommonly wiping away truth and falsehood together.
Dismissing the idea, therefore, that heaven and hell are places in which
the soul is imprisoned, whether in bliss or woe, and supposing that, by
a magnetic relation, it may remain connected with the sphere to which it
previously belonged, we may easily conceive that, if it have the memory
of the past, the more entirely sensuous its life in the body may have
been, the closer it will cling to the scene of its former joys; or even
if its sojourn on earth were not a period of joy, but the contrary,
still, if it have no heavenward aspirations, it will find itself, if not
in actual wo, yet aimless, objectless, and out of a congenial element.
It has no longer the organs whereby it perceived, communicated with, and
enjoyed, the material world and its pleasures. The joys of heaven are
not its joys; we might as well expect a hardened prisoner in Newgate,
associating with others as hardened as himself, to melt into ecstatic
delight at the idea of that which he can not apprehend! How helpless and
inefficient such a condition seems! and how natural it is to us to
imagine that, under such circumstances, there might be awakened a
considerable desire to manifest itself to those yet living in the flesh,
if such a manifestation be possible! And what right have we, in direct
contradiction to all tradition, to assert that it is not? We may raise
up a variety of objections from physical science, but we can not be sure
that these are applicable to the case; and of the laws of spirit we know
very little, since we are only acquainted with it as circumscribed,
confined, and impeded, in its operations, by the body; and whenever such
abnormal states occur as enable it to act with any degree of
independence, man, under the dominion of his all-sufficient reason,
denies and disowns the facts.
That the manifestation of a spirit to the living, whether seen or heard,
is an exception, and not the rule, is evident; for, supposing the desire
to exist at all, it must exist in millions and millions of instances
which never take effect. The circumstances must therefore no doubt be
very peculiar, as regards both parties in which such a manifestation is
possible. What these are, we have very little means of knowing; but, as
far as we do know, we are led to conclude that a certain magnetic
rapport or polarity constitutes this condition, while, at the same time,
as regards the seer, there must be what the prophet called the “opening
of the eye,” which may perhaps signify the seeing of the spirit without
the aid of the bodily organ—a condition which may temporarily occur to
any one under we know not what influence, but which seems, to a certain
degree, hereditary in some families.
The following passage is quoted from Sir William Hamilton’s edition of
Dr. Reid’s works, published in 1846:—
“No man can show it to be impossible to the Supreme Being to have given
us the power of perceiving external objects, without any such
organs”—that is, our organs of sense. “We have reason to believe that
when we put off these bodies, and all the organs belonging to them, our
perceptive powers shall rather be improved than destroyed or impaired.
We have reason to believe that the Supreme Being perceives everything in
a much more perfect manner than we do, without bodily organs. We have
reason to believe that there are other created beings endowed with
powers of perception more perfect and more extensive than ours, without
any such organs as we find necessary;” and Sir William Hamilton adds the
following note:—
“However astonishing, it is now proved beyond all rational doubt that in
certain abnormal states of the nervous organism, perceptions are
possible through other than the ordinary channels of the sense.”
Of the existence of this faculty in nature, any one, who chooses, may
satisfy himself by a very moderate degree of trouble, provided he
undertake the investigation honestly; and this being granted, another
objection, if not altogether removed, is considerably weakened. I allude
to the fact that, in numerous reported cases of ghost-seeing, the forms
were visible to only one person, even though others were present, which,
of course, rendered them undistinguishable from cases of spectral
illusion, and indeed unless some additional evidence be afforded, they
must remain so still, only we have gained thus much, that this objection
is no longer unanswerable; for whether the phenomenon is to be referred
to a mutual rapport, or to the opening of the spiritual eye, we
comprehend how one may see what others do not. But really, if the seeing
depended upon ordinary vision, I can not perceive that the difficulty is
insurmountable; for we perfectly well know that some people are endowed
with an acuteness of sense, or power of perception, which is utterly
incomprehensible to others; for, without entering into the disputed
region of clear-seeing, everybody must have met with instances of those
strange antipathies to certain objects, accompanied by an extraordinary
capacity for perceiving their presence, which remain utterly
unexplained. Not to speak of cats and hares, where some electrical
effects might be conceived, I lately heard of a gentleman who fainted if
he were introduced into a room where there was a raspberry tart; and
that there have been persons endowed with a faculty for discovering the
proximity of water and metals, even without the aid of the divining
rod—which latter marvel seems to be now clearly established as an
electrical phenomenon—will scarcely admit of further doubt.
A very eminent person, with whom I am acquainted, possessing extremely
acute olfactory powers, is the subject of one single exception. He is
insensible to the odor of a beanfield, however potent: but it would
surely be very absurd in him to deny that the beanfield emits an odor,
and the evidence of the majority against him is too strong to admit of
his doing so.
Now, we have only the evidence of a minority with regard to the
existence of certain faculties not generally developed, but surely it
argues great presumption to dispute their possibility. We might, I
think, with more appearance of reason, insist upon it that my friend
_must_ be mistaken, and that he does smell the beanfield, for we have
the majority against him there most decidedly. The difference is, that
nobody cares whether the odor of the beanfield is perceptible or not:
but if the same gentleman asserted that he had seen a ghost, beyond all
doubt his word would be disputed.
Though we do not know what the conditions are that develop the faculty
of what St. Paul calls the discerning of spirits, there is reason to
believe that the approach of death is one. I have heard of too many
instances of this kind, where the departing person has been in the
entire possession of his or her faculties, to doubt that in our last
moments we are frequently visited by those who have gone before us; and
it being admitted by all physiologists that preternatural faculties are
sometimes exhibited at this period, we can have no right to say that
“the discerning of spirits” is not one of them.
There is an interesting story recorded by Beaumont, in his “World of
Spirits,” and quoted by Dr. Hibbert with the remark that no reasonable
doubt can be placed on the authenticity of the narrative, as it was
drawn up by the bishop of Gloucester from the recital of the young
lady’s father; and I mention it here, not for any singularity attending
it, but first, because its authenticity is admitted, and next, on
account of the manner in which—so much being granted—the fact is
attempted to be explained away:—
“Sir Charles Lee, by his first lady, had only one daughter, of which she
died in childbirth; and when she was dead, her sister, the Lady Everard,
desired to have the education of the child, and she was very well
educated till she was marriageable, and a match was concluded for her
with Sir W. Parkins, but was then prevented in an extraordinary manner.
Upon a Thursday night, she thinking she saw a light in her chamber after
she was in bed, knocked for her maid, who presently came to her, and she
asked why she left a candle burning in her room. The maid answered that
she had left none, and that there was none but what she had brought with
her at that time. ‘Then,’ she said, ‘it must be the fire;’ but that, her
maid told her, was quite out, adding she believed it was only a dream,
whereupon Miss Lee answered that it might be so, and composed herself
again to sleep. But, about two of the clock, she was awakened again, and
saw the apparition of a little woman between her curtains and her
pillow, who told her she was her mother, that she was happy, and that,
by twelve of the clock that day, she should be with her. Whereupon, she
knocked again for her maid, called for her clothes, and when she was
dressed, went into her closet, and came not out again till nine, and
then brought out with her a letter, sealed, to her father, carried it to
her aunt, the Lady Everard, told her what had happened, and desired that
as soon as she was dead it might be sent to him. The lady thought she
was suddenly fallen mad, and therefore sent presently away to Chelmsford
for a physician and surgeon, who both came immediately, but the
physician could discern no indication of what the lady imagined, or of
any indisposition of her body; notwithstanding, the lady would needs
have her let blood, which was done accordingly; and when the young woman
had patiently let them do what they would with her, she desired that the
chaplain might be called to read prayers; and when the prayers were
ended, she took her guitar and psalm-book, and sat down upon a chair
without arms, and played and sung so melodiously and admirably, that her
music-master, who was then there, admired at it. And near the stroke of
twelve, she rose and sat herself down in a great chair with arms, and
presently fetching a strong breathing or two, she immediately expired,
and was so suddenly cold as was much wondered at by the physician and
surgeon. She died at Waltham, in Essex, three miles from Chelmsford, and
the letter was sent to Sir Charles, at his house in Warwickshire; but he
was so afflicted at the death of his daughter, that he came not till she
was buried; but when he came, he caused her to be taken up, and to be
buried with her mother, at Edmonton, as she desired in her letter.”
This circumstance occurred in the year 1662, and is, as Dr. Hibbert
observes, “one of the most interesting ghost-stories on record;” yet he
insists on placing it under the category of spectral illusions, upon the
plea that, let the physician (whose skill he arraigns) say what he
would, her death within so short a period proves that she must have been
indisposed at the time she saw the vision, and that probably “the
languishing female herself might have unintentionally contributed to the
more strict verification of the ghost’s prediction,” concluding with
these words: “All that can be said of it is, that the coincidence was a
_fortunate one_; for, without it, the story would probably never have
met with a recorder,” &c., &c.
Now, I ask if this is a fair way of treating any fact, transmitted to us
on authority which the objector himself admits to be perfectly
satisfactory—more especially as the assistants on the occasion appear
to have been quite as unwilling to believe in the _supernatural_
interpretation of it as Dr. Hibbert could have been himself, had he been
present; for what more could he have done than conclude the young lady
to be mad, and bled her?—a line of practice which is precisely what
would be followed at the present time, and which proves that they were
very well aware of the sensuous illusions produced by a disordered state
of the nervous system; and with respect to his conclusion that the
“languishing female” contributed to the verification of the prediction,
we are entitled to ask, where is the proof that she was languishing? A
very clever watchmaker once told me that a watch may go perfectly well
for years, and at length stop suddenly, in consequence of an organic
defect in its construction, which only becomes perceptible, even to the
eye of a watchmaker, when this effect takes place; and we do know that
many persons have suddenly fallen dead immediately after declaring
themselves in the best possible health: and we have therefore no right
to dispute what the narrator implies, namely, that there were no
sensible indications of the impending catastrophe.
There was either some organic defect or derangement in this lady’s
physical economy, which rendered her death inevitable at the hour of
noon, on that particular Thursday, or there was not. If there was, and
her certain death was impending at that hour, how came she acquainted
with the fact? Surely it is a monstrous assumption to say that it was “a
fortunate coincidence,” when no reason whatever is given us for
concluding that she felt otherwise than perfectly well! If, on the
contrary, we are to take refuge in the supposition that there was no
death impending, and that she only died of the fright, how came
she—feeling perfectly well, and, in this case, we have a right to
conclude _being_ perfectly well—to be the subject of such an
extraordinary spectral illusion? And if such spectral illusions can
occur to people in a good normal state of health, does it not become
very desirable to give us some clearer theory of them than we have at
present?
But there is a third presumption to which the skeptical may have
recourse, in order to get rid of this well-established, and therefore
very troublesome fact, namely, that Miss Lee _was_ ill, although
unconscious of it herself, and indicating no symptoms that could guide
her physician to an enlightened diagnosis; and that the proof of this is
to be found in the occurrence of the spectral illusion; and that this
spectral illusion so impressed her that it occasioned the precise
fulfilment of the imaginary prediction—an hypothesis which appears to
me to be pressing very hard on the spectral illusion; for it is first
called upon to establish the fact of an existing indisposition of no
slight character, of which neither patient nor physician was aware, and
it is next required to kill the lady with unerring certainty, at the
hour appointed, she being, according to the only authority we have for
the story, in a perfectly calm and composed state of mind! for there is
nothing to be discerned in the description of her demeanor but an entire
and willing submission to the announced decree, accompanied by that
pleasing exaltation, which appears to me perfectly natural under the
circumstances; and I do not think that anything we know of human
vitality can justify us in believing that life can be so easily
extinguished. But to such straits people are reduced, who write with a
predetermination to place their facts on a Procrustean bed till they
have fitted them into their own cherished theory.
In the above-recorded case of Miss Lee, the motive for the visit is a
sufficient one; but one of the commonest objections to such narrations,
is the insignificance of the motive when any communication is made, or
there being apparently no motive at all, when none is made. Where any
previous attachment has subsisted, we need seek no further for an
impelling cause; but in other cases this impelling cause must probably
be sought in the earthly rapport still subsisting and the urgent desire
of the spirit to manifest itself and establish a communication where its
thoughts and affections still reside; and we must consider that,
provided there be no law of God prohibiting its revisiting the earth,
which law would of course supersede all other laws, then, as I have
before observed, where its thoughts and affections are it must be also.
What is it but our heavy material bodies that prevents us from being
where our thoughts are? But the being near us, and the manifesting
itself to us, are two very different things, the latter evidently
depending on conditions we do not yet understand.
As I am not writing a book on vital magnetism, and there are so many
already accessible to everybody who chooses to be informed on it, I
shall not here enter into the subject of _magnetic rapport_, it being, I
believe, now generally admitted, except by the most obstinate skeptics,
that such a relation can be established between two human beings. In
what this relation consists, is a more difficult question, but the most
rational view appears to be that of a magnetic polarity, which is
attempted to be explained by two theories—the dynamical and the
ethereal, the one viewing the phenomena as simply the result of the
transmission of forces, the other hypothetizing an ether which pervades
all space and penetrates all substance, maintaining the connection
between body and soul, and between matter and spirit. To most minds this
latter hypothesis will be the most comprehensible; on which account,
since the result would be the same in either case, we may adopt for the
moment; and there will then be less difficulty in conceiving that the
influence or ether of every being or thing, animate or inanimate, must
extend beyond the periphery of its own terminations: and that this must
be eminently the case where there is animal life, the nerves forming the
readiest conductors for this supposed imponderable. The proofs of the
existence of this ether are said to be manifold, and more especially to
be found in the circumstances that every created thing sheds an
atmosphere around it, after its kind; this atmosphere becoming, under
certain conditions, perceptible or even visible, as in the instances of
electric fish, &c., the fascinations of serpents, the influence of human
beings upon plants, and _vice versa_; and finally, the phenomena of
animal magnetism, and the undoubted fact, to which I myself can bear
witness, that the most ignorant girls, when in a state of somnambulism,
have been known to declare that they saw their magnetiser surrounded by
a halo of light; and it is doubtless this halo of light, that, from
their being strongly magnetic men, has frequently been observed to
surround the heads of saints and eminently holy persons: the temperament
that produced the internal fervor, causing the visible manifestation of
it. By means of this ether, or force, a never-ceasing motion and an
inter-communication are sustained between all created things, and
between created things and their Creator, who sustains them and creates
them ever anew, by the constant exertion of his Divine will, of which
this is the messenger and the agent as it is between our will and our
own bodies; and without this sustaining will, so exerted, the whole
would fall away, dissolve, and die; for it is the life of the universe.
That all inanimate objects emit an influence, greater or less, extending
beyond their own peripheries, is established by their effects on various
susceptible individuals, as well as on somnambules; and thus there exist
a universal polarity and rapport, which are however stronger between
certain organisms; and every being stands in a varying relation of
positive and negative to every other.
With regard to these theories, however, where there is so much obscurity
even in the language, I do not wish to insist; more especially as I am
fully aware that this subject may be discussed in a manner much more
congruous with the dynamical spirit of the philosophy of this century:
but, in the meanwhile, as either of the causes alluded to is capable of
producing the effects, we adopt the hypothesis of an all-pervading ether
as the one most easily conceived.
Admitting this, then, to be the case, we begin to have some notion of
the _modus operandi_ by which a spirit may manifest itself to us,
whether to our internal universal sense, or even to our sensuous organs;
and we also find one stumbling-block removed out of our way, namely,
that it shall be visible or even audible to one person and not to
another, or at one time and not at another; for by means of this ether,
or force, we are in communication with all spirit, as well as with all
matter; and since it is the vehicle of will, a strong exertion of will
may reinforce its influence to a degree far beyond our ordinary
conceptions: but man is not acquainted with his own power, and has,
consequently, no faith in his own will: nor is it probably the design of
Providence, in ordinary cases, that he should. He can not therefore
exert it; if he could, he “might remove mountains.” Even as it is, we
know something of the power of will in its effect on other organisms, as
exhibited by certain strong-willed individuals; also in popular
movements; and more manifestly in the influence and far-working of the
magnetizer on his patient. The power of will, like the seeing of the
spirit, is latent in our nature, to be developed in God’s own time; but
meanwhile, slight examples are found, shooting up here and there, to
keep alive in man the consciousness that he is a spirit, and give
evidence of his Divine origin.
What especial laws may appertain to this supersensuous domain of nature,
of course we can not know, and it is therefore impossible for us to
pronounce how far a spirit is free, or not free, at all times to
manifest itself; and we can, therefore, at present, advance no reason
for these manifestations not being the rule instead of the exception.
The law which restrains more frequent intercourse may, for anything we
know to the contrary, have its relaxations and its limitations, founded
in nature; and a rapport with, or the power of acting on, particular
individuals, may arise from causes of which we are equally ignorant.
Undoubtedly, the receptivity of the corporeal being is one of the
necessary conditions, while, on the part of the incorporeal, the will is
at once the cause and the agent that produces the effect; while
attachment, whether to individuals or to the lost joys of this world, is
the motive. The happy spirits in whom this latter impulse is weak, and
who would float away into the glorious light of the pure moral law,
would have little temptation to return, and at least would only be
brought back by their holy affections, or desire to serve mankind. The
less happy, clinging to their dear corporeal life, would hover nearer to
the earth; and I do question much whether the often-ridiculed idea of
the mystics, that there is a moral _weight_, as well as a moral
_darkness_, be not founded in truth. We know very well that even these
substantial bodies of ours are, to our own sensations (and, very
possibly, if the thing could be tested, would prove to be in fact),
lighter or heavier, according to the lightness or heaviness of the
spirit—terms used figuratively, but perhaps capable of a literal
interpretation; and thus the common idea of _up_ and _down_, as applied
to heaven or hell, is founded in truth, though not mathematically
correct, we familiarly using the words _up_ and _down_ to express
_farther_ or _nearer_, as regards the planet on which we live.
Experience seems to justify this view of the case; for, supposing the
phenomena I am treating of to be facts, and not spectral illusions, all
tradition shows that the spirits most frequently manifested to man have
been evidently not in a state of bliss; while, when bright ones appeared
it has been to serve him; and hence the old persuasion, that they were
chiefly the wicked that haunted the earth, and hence, also, the
foundation for the belief that not only the murderer but the murdered
returned to vex the living, and the just view, that in taking away life
the injury is not confined to the body, but extends to the surprised and
angry soul, which is—
“Cut off, even in the blossom of its sin,
Unhouselled, disappointed, unaneled;
No reckoning made, but sent to its account
With all its imperfections on its head.”
It seems also to be gathered from experience, that those whose lives
have been rendered wretched, “rest not in their graves;” at least,
several accounts I have met with, as well as tradition, countenance this
view; and this may originate in the fact that cruelty and ill-usage
frequently produce very pernicious effects on the mind of the sufferer,
in many instances inspiring, not resignation or a pious desire for
death, but resentment, and an eager longing for a fair share of earthly
enjoyment. Supposing, also, the feelings and prejudices of the earthly
life to accompany this dispossessed soul—for, though the liberation
from the body inducts it into certain privileges inherent in spirit, its
moral qualities remain as they were (“as the tree falls, so it shall
lie”)—supposing, therefore, that these feelings, and prejudices, and
recollections, of its past life, are carried with it, we see at once why
the discontented spirits of the heathen world could not rest till their
bodies had obtained sepulture, why the buried money should torment the
soul of the miser, and why the religious opinions, whatever they may
have been, believed in the flesh, seem to survive with the spirit. There
are two remarkable exceptions, however, and these are precisely such as
might be expected. Those who, during their corporeal life, have not
believed in a future state, return to warn their friends against the
same error. “There is another world!” said the brother of the young lady
who appeared to her in the cathedral of York, on the day he was drowned;
and there are several similar instances recorded. The belief that this
life “is the be-all and the end-all here,” is a mistake that death must
instantly rectify. The other exception I allude to is, that that
toleration, of which, unfortunately, we see much less than is desirable
in this world, seems happily to prevail in the next; for, among the
numerous narrations I meet with, in which the dead have returned to ask
the prayers or the services of the living, they do not seem, as will be
seen by-and-by, to apply by any means exclusively to members of their
own church. The _attrait_ which seems to guide their selection of
individuals is evidently not of a polemical nature. The pure worship of
God, and the inexorable moral law, are what seem to prevail in the other
world, and not the dogmatic theology which makes so much of the misery
of this.
There is a fundamental truth in all religions: the real end of all is
morality, however the means may be mistaken, and however corrupt,
selfish, ambitious, and sectarian, the mass of their teachers may and
generally do become; while the effect of prayer—in whatever form, or to
whatever ideal of the Deity it may be offered, provided that offering be
honestly and earnestly made—is precisely the same to the supplicant and
in its results.
I have reserved the following story, which is not a fiction, but the
relation of an undoubted and well-attested fact, till the present
chapter, as being particularly applicable to this branch of my
subject:—
Some ninety years ago, there flourished in Glasgow a club of young men,
which, from the extreme profligacy of its members, and the
licentiousness of their orgies, was commonly called the “Hell-Club!”
Besides their nightly or weekly meetings, they held one grand annual
saturnalia, in which each tried to excel the other in drunkenness and
blasphemy; and on these occasions there was no star among them whose
lurid light was more conspicuous than that of young Mr. Archibald B——,
who, endowed with brilliant talents and a handsome person, had held out
great promise in his boyhood, and raised hopes, which had been
completely frustrated by his subsequent reckless dissipations.
One morning, after returning from this annual festival, Mr. Archibald
B—— having retired to bed, dreamed the following dream:—
He fancied that he himself was mounted on a favorite black horse, that
he always rode, and that he was proceeding toward his own house—then a
country-seat embowered by trees, and situated upon a hill, now entirely
built over, and forming part of the city—when a stranger, whom the
darkness of night prevented his distinctly discerning, suddenly seized
his horse’s rein, saying, “You must go with me!”
“And who are you?” exclaimed the young man, with a volley of oaths,
while he struggled to free himself.
“That you will see by-and-by!” returned the other, in a tone that
excited unaccountable terror in the youth, who, plunging his spurs into
his horse, attempted to fly. But in vain: however fast the animal flew,
the stranger was still beside him, till at length, in his desperate
efforts to escape, the rider was thrown; but instead of being dashed to
the earth, as he expected, he found himself falling—falling—falling
still, as if sinking into the bowels of the earth.
At length, a period being put to this mysterious descent, he found
breath to inquire of his companion, who was still beside him, whither
they were going: “Where am I? where are you taking me?” he exclaimed.
“To hell!” replied the stranger, and immediately interminable echoes
repeated the fearful sound, “To hell!—to hell!—to hell!”
At length a light appeared, which soon increased to a blaze; but,
instead of the cries, and groans, and lamentings, which the terrified
traveller expected, nothing met his ear but sounds of music, mirth, and
jollity; and he found himself at the entrance of a superb building, far
exceeding any he had seen constructed by human hands. Within, too, what
a scene! No amusement, employment, or pursuit of man on earth, but was
here being carried on with a vehemence that excited his unutterable
amazement. “There the young and lovely still swam through the mazes of
the giddy dance! There the panting steed still bore his brutal rider
through the excitements of the goaded race! There, over the midnight
bowl, the intemperate still drawled out the wanton song or maudlin
blasphemy! The gambler plied for ever his endless game, and the slaves
of Mammon toiled through eternity their bitter task; while all the
magnificence of earth paled before that which now met his view!”
He soon perceived that he was among old acquaintances, whom he knew to
be dead, and each he observed was pursuing the object, whatever it was,
that had formerly engrossed him; when, finding himself relieved of the
presence of his unwelcome conductor, he ventured to address his former
friend Mrs. D——, whom he saw sitting, as had been her wont on earth,
absorbed at loo, requesting her to rest from the game, and introduce him
to the pleasures of the place, which appeared to him to be very unlike
what he had expected, and, indeed, an extremely agreeable one. But, with
a cry of agony, she answered that there was no rest in hell; that they
must ever toil on at those very pleasures: and innumerable voices echoed
through the interminable vaults, “There is no rest in hell!”—while,
throwing open their vests, each disclosed in his bosom an ever-burning
flame! These, they said, were the pleasures of hell: their choice on
earth was now their inevitable doom! In the midst of the horror this
scene inspired, his conductor returned, and at his earnest entreaty,
restored him again to earth; but, as he quitted him, he said,
“Remember!—in a year and a day we meet again!”
At this crisis of his dream, the sleeper awoke, feverish and ill; and,
whether from the effect of his dream, or of his preceding orgies, he was
so unwell as to be obliged to keep his bed for several days, during
which period he had time for many serious reflections, which terminated
in a resolution to abandon the club and his licentious companions
altogether.
He was no sooner well, however, than they flocked around him, bent on
recovering so valuable a member of their society; and having wrung from
him a confession of the cause of his defection, which, as may be
supposed, appeared to them eminently ridiculous, they soon contrived to
make him ashamed of his good resolutions. He joined them again, resumed
his former course of life, and when the annual saturnalia came round, he
found himself with his glass in his hand at the table—when the
president, rising to make the accustomed speech, began with saying,
“Gentlemen, this being leap-year, it is a year and a day since our last
anniversary,” &c., &c. The words struck upon the young man’s ear like a
knell; but, ashamed to expose his weakness to the jeers of his
companions, he sat out the feast, plying himself with wine even more
liberally than usual, in order to drown his intrusive thoughts; till, in
the gloom of a winter’s morning, he mounted his horse to ride home. Some
hours afterward, the horse was found, with his saddle and bridle on,
quietly grazing by the roadside, about half way between the city and Mr.
B——’s house; while, a few yards off, lay the corpse of his master!
Now, as I have said in introducing this story, it is no fiction: the
circumstance happened as here related. An account of it was published at
the time, but the copies were bought up by the family. Two or three,
however, were preserved, and the narrative has been reprinted.
The dream is evidently of a symbolical character, and accords in a very
remarkable degree with the conclusions to be drawn from the sources I
have above indicated. The interpretation seems to be, that the evil
passions and criminal pursuits which have been indulged in here, become
our curse hereafter. I do not mean to imply that the ordinary amusements
of life are criminal—far from it. There is no harm in dancing, nor in
playing at loo either; but if people make these things the whole
business of their lives, and think of nothing else, cultivating no
higher tastes, nor forming no higher aspirations, what sort of
preparation are they making for another world? I can hardly imagine that
anybody would wish to be doing these things to all eternity, the more
especially that it is most frequently _ennui_ that drives their votaries
into excesses, even here; but if they have allowed their minds to be
entirely absorbed in such frivolities and trivialities, surely they can
not expect that God will, by a miracle, suddenly obliterate these tastes
and inclinations, and inspire them with others better suited to their
new condition! It was their business to do that for themselves, while
here; and such a process of preparation is not in the slightest degree
inconsistent with the enjoyment of all manner of harmless pleasures; on
the contrary, it gives the greatest zest to them; for a life, in which
there is nothing serious—in which all is play and diversion—is, beyond
doubt, next to a life of active, persevering wickedness, the saddest
thing under the sun! But let everybody remember that we see in nature no
violent transitions; everything advances by almost insensible steps—at
least everything that is to endure: and therefore to expect that because
they have quitted their fleshly bodies, which they always knew were but
a temporary appurtenance, doomed to perish and decay, they themselves
are to undergo a sudden and miraculous conversion and purification,
which is to elevate them into fit companions for the angels of heaven,
and the blessed that have passed away, is surely one of the most
inconsistent, unreasonable, and pernicious errors, that mankind ever
indulged in!