sees many alleviations, of which imagination, sketching under
the influence of the dread of death, takes no account. He finds
himself, in this new predicament, the absorbing object of all
interests and all solicitude and affection. It is not in human
nature, that this should not call up complacent emotions and
slumbering affections from their secret cells. The subsequent
progress towards the last moment brings an imperceptibly increasing
insensibility, manifested by drowsiness and sleep. Of those, who
preserve the exercise of their faculties entire to the last, many
instances are recorded of persons, who had shown the most unmanly
dread of death in their health, that have met dissolution with the
calmness of perfect self-possession. Of the rest, the greater
number die with little more apparent pain and struggle, than
accompany the act of sleeping. The greater freshness, vigor and
nervous irritability of young people and children cause that most
of the exceptions are of this description. In a great number of
cases, which I have witnessed, I have paused in doubt, whether the
person had yielded his last sigh, or not, after he had actually
deceased. To soften the last infliction, nature almost invariably
veils it under a low delirium, or absolute unconsciousness.
4. It is impossible to imagine a more obvious and unquestionable
principle of philosophy, than that every reasoning faculty of our
nature must declare to us, loudly and unequivocally, and with an
influence as strong as reason can command, that it is wisdom, nay,
the dictate of the least portion of common sense, to dread, to
resist, to repine, to groan, as little as possible, in view of an
endurance absolutely inevitable. If it be hard to sustain when met
with a fearless, resigned and unmurmuring spirit, it must certainly
be still harder, when we are obliged to bend our necks to it with
the excruciating addition of shrinking fear, dreadful anticipation
and ineffectual struggles to evade it, and with murmurs and groans,
at finding the inutility of these efforts. Innumerable examples
prove to us, that nature has kindly endowed us with reason and
mental vigor to such an extent, that, under the influence of
right motive and training, no possible form of suffering can be
presented, over which this power may not manifest, and has not
manifested a complete triumph.
Of these innumerable examples, it is only necessary to cite those
of the martyrs, of all forms of religion. These prove farther,
that this undaunted self-possession, in every conceivable shape
and degree of agony, was not the result of a rare and peculiar
temperament, a want of sensibility, or the possession of uncommon
physical courage; that it was not because there was no perception
of danger, or susceptibility of pain; this magnanimity, this
impassibility to fear and pain and death has been exhibited in
nearly equal degrees by people of every age, each sex and all
conditions. Let the proper motive be supplied, let the martyr have
had the common influence of the training of his faith, and the
consequence failed not. All the shades and varieties of natural and
mental difference of character were noted in the deportment of the
sufferers. But they were alike in the stern proof of a courage,
which defied death. The fact is proved by them, as strongly as
moral fact can be proved, that the mind of every individual might
find in itself native self-possession and vigor, to enable it to
display an entire ascendency over fear, pain and death.
Nor does this fact rest solely for support on the history of
martyrs, or sufferers at an _Auto da fé_, or by torture in any of
its forms. We could find examples of it in every department of
history, and every view of human character. The red men of our
wilderness, as we have elsewhere seen, are still more astonishing
illustrations of this fact--I say astonishing, because the timid
and effeminate white man shivers, and scarcely credits his senses,
as he sees the young Indian warrior smoking his pipe, singing
his songs, boasting of his victories and uttering his menaces,
when enveloped in a slow fire, apparently as unmoved, as reckless
and unconscious of pain, as if sitting at his ease in his own
cabin. All, that has been found necessary, by this strange
people, to procure this heroism, is, that the children, from
boyhood, should be constantly under a discipline, every part and
every step of which tends directly to shame and contempt at the
least manifestation of cowardice, in view of any danger, or of a
shrinking consciousness of pain in the endurance of any suffering.
The males, so trained, never fail to evidence the fruit of their
discipline. Sentenced to death, they almost invariably scorn to fly
from their sentence, when escape is in their power. If in debt,
they desire a reprieve, that they may hunt, until their debts
are paid. They then voluntarily return, and surrender themselves
to the executioner. Nothing is more common than for a friend to
propose to suffer for his friend, a parent for a child, or a child
for a parent. When the sufferer receives the blow, there is an
unblenching look, which manifests the presence of the same spirit,
that smokes with apparent unconcern amidst the crackling flames.
A proof, that this is the fruit of training, and not of native
insensibility, as others have thought, and as I formerly thought
myself, is that this contempt of pain and death is considered a
desirable trait only in the males. To fly, like a woman, like her
to laugh, and weep, and groan, are expressions of contempt, which
they apply to their enemies with ineffable scorn. The females,
almost excluded from witnessing the process of Spartan discipline,
by which the males acquire their mental hardihood, partake not of
the fruits of it, and with some few exceptions, are shrinking and
timid, like the children of civilization.
I know, that there will not be wanting those, who will condemn
alike the training and the heroism, as harsh, savage, unfeeling,
stoical and unworthy to be admitted, as an adjunct to civilization.
But no one will offer to deny, that the primitive Christian, put in
conflict with a hungry lion, that Rogers at the Smithfield stake,
that the young captive warrior, exulting, and chanting his songs
while enduring the bitterest agonies that man can inflict, in the
serene and sublime triumph of mind over matter, and spirit over the
body, is the most imposing spectacle we can witness, the clearest
proof we can contemplate, that we have that within us which is not
all of clay, nor all mortal; or doubt, that these persons endure
infinitely less physical pain, in consequence of their heroic
self-possession, than they would have suffered, had they met their
torture in paroxysms of terror, shrinking and self-abandonment.
However we may reason, however we may decry these views, as
savage, impracticable, unnatural and undesirable, the fact is,
that we all feel alike upon this subject. The thousands in a Roman
amphitheatre only evinced a trait, that belongs to our common
nature, when they instantly, and without consulting each other,
gave the signal to save that gladiator, who most clearly manifested
cool self-possession and contempt of death. After witnessing the
execution of a criminal, who shows courage, the spectators go away
describing, with animated gesture, and in terms of admiration, the
fearlessness of the fellow the moment before his death. We all
speak with unmingled satisfaction of the circumstance, in the death
of our friends, that they departed in the conscious dignity of
self-possession and hope. All readers are moved with one sensation,
as they read the record of the noble trait in the character of
Cæsar, gracefully folding himself in his mantle, after he had
received so many mortal thrusts. Few of us hear unmoved of the old
English patriot, who requested the executioner to support him up
the steps to the scaffold, adding that he would shift for himself
to get down; or of the other, who cried, as he stooped his head to
the block, _dulce et decorum est pro patria mori_! If I recollect,
it is Silliman, who gives the affecting notice of the last hours of
the duke of Richmond, the late governor general of Canada. Invested
with all conceivable circumstances to render life desirable, he
was bitten by a favorite dog in a rabid state; and died, in the
most excruciating tortures, of the terrible hydrophobia. When
the horrible paroxysm was felt by him to be approaching, he was
accustomed to nerve his sinking courage by these words; ‘Henry,
remember, that none of your ancestors were cowards.’ I give the
trait from recollection, but have heard substantially the same
account from other sources. This is the secret of the perverse
general admiration of warriors, and heroes, and great generals. It
is this principle in its blindness, which finds a niche of favor
in so many hearts for duellists. In a word, intrepidity, deny it
who may, is the trait which finds more universal favor with human
nature in general than any other. Why? Because we are weak and
frail beings, exposed to innumerable pains and dangers; and the
quality we most frequently need, is courage. Without it life is
a living death, a long agony of fear. With it, we die but once,
enduring at the most but a momentary pang, never anticipated, never
embittering a moment in advance with imaginary suffering.
We have no hesitation in affirming, that it would be no more
difficult to educate the coming generation of civilized people to
this spirit, than it is to impart it to the whole race of males
among the red men. However inferior we may count these people, in
comparison with ourselves in other respects, they have at least one
manifest advantage over us; they never torment themselves, because
they know they must die.
But we are told that the actual possession of this spirit would
produce such a recklessness of life, that the great ends of
Providence would be defeated; and people would expose themselves
to death with so little concern, that the race would waste away
and become extinct. We never need combat a theory, an abstract
opinion, when the case can be settled by a fact. Is it so with the
warriors of the red men? On the contrary, can another people be
found so wary, so adroit to evade, or resist danger, so fertile
in expedients to save life? The coward of their number meets the
death he would fly; and the intrepid warrior puts forth all the
resources of his instinctive sagacity, all his keen and practised
discernment, to discover the best means of evasion. If he must meet
that death, which his skill cannot evade, nor his powers resist, he
instantly settles down upon the resource of his invincible heroism
of endurance.
In fact, one of the direct fruits of the intrepidity we would
wish to see universal, is, that it will give its possessor all
possible chances for preserving health and life. It saves him from
the influence of fear, a passion among the most debilitating, and
adverse to life, of any to which our nature is subject. Braced by
his courage, he passes untouched amidst a contagious epidemic, to
which the timid and apprehensive nature falls a victim. In danger
it gives him coolness and self-command, to discover, and avail
himself of all his chances of wise resistance, or probable escape.
In sickness, he has all the aids to recover, which nature allows,
in being delivered from the most dangerous symptom in innumerable
maladies, the debilitating persuasion of the patient, that he shall
not rise from his sickness. In a word, the direct reverse of the
charge is the fact. The wise and enlightened fearlessness, which
I consider it so important to acquire, is in every way as much
the preserver of life, as it is indispensable to happiness; as
cowardice proverbially runs in the face of the hideous monster that
it creates.
5. The fact, that an evil is felt to be alleviated, which is shared
in common with all around us, has been generally recognised, though
this perverted sympathy has been traced to the basest selfishness,
by a humiliating analysis of our nature, which I have neither space
nor inclination to develope. We all know, that the same person, who
is most beneficent, most active in his benevolence, and large in
his wishes to do good, would shrink from a great calamity, which
he saw himself destined to encounter, for the first and the last
among his whole race. But inform him, that by an impartial award
he shares it in common with all his kind, and you reconcile him at
once to his lot. Whether the spirit of his resignation in this case
be pure, or polluted in its origin, it is not my present purpose
to inquire. It is sufficient to be assured, that there is such a
feeling deeply inherent in human nature. The suffering patient, as
he lays himself down to part from all friends, to be severed from
all ties, to see the green earth, the bright sun, and the visible
heavens no more, and to be conscious, that the everlasting circle
of ages will continue its revolutions without ever bringing him
back to the forsaken scene, cannot repine, that he has been put
upon this bitter trial alone. He must be deeply conscious, view
it in what aspect he may, that it presents no new harshness nor
horror to him. Of all the countless millions, that have passed
away, and been replaced by others, like the vernal leaves, death
has stood before every solitary individual of the mighty mass,
the same phantom king of terrors. Each has contemplated the same
inexorable, irreversible award, been held in the same suspense
of hopes, and fears, and compelled to endure the same struggles.
Looking upon the immense mortal drama of ages, the actors seem
slowly and imperceptibly to enter, and depart from the scene. But
in the lapse of one short age, the hopes, fears, loves and hatreds
of all the countless millions have vanished, to be replaced by
those of another generation. The heart swells at the recollection
how much each of these mortals must have endured, in this stern and
inevitable encounter, as measured by our own suffering in the same
case. It is only necessary for the patient to extend his vision
a few years in advance of his own decease; and his friends, his
children, his visitants, all that surround him, will in their turn
recline on the same bed. Who cannot feel the palpable folly of
repining at an evil shared with all, that have been, are, or will
be!
‘Not to thy eternal resting place,
Shalt thou retire alone: * *
* * Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world, with kings,
The powerful of the earth, the wise, the good,
Fair forms and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills,
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods, rivers, that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks,
That make the meadows green, and, poured round all,
Old ocean’s gray and melancholy waste,
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man.’
6. Philosophers and moralists will readily admit, that the only
easy and adequate remedy for the fear of death is the hope of
immortality. On the other hand, they, whose vocation it is to
question and decry the aids, which reason and philosophy offer
in the case, as sullen, cold, stoical, will not deny, that
‘innumerable’ examples have been offered in all countries, and
in all time, of men, who, in virtue of no higher discipline
than that of reason and philosophy, have met death with such
unshrinking and invincible firmness, as could hardly have been
rendered more illustrious by any additional motives. They have
shown, beyond all question, that nature has furnished us with a
power of resistance, which, when rightly called forth, enables
us to triumph over fear and death. The pagans of ancient story,
the unbelieving of christian lands, the red men of our forests,
offer us demonstrations to any extent. I am aware, in what places
this simplest of all truths is weakly denied. Those, for whom I
write, are of the number who exact the truth; and I have no fear to
declare it; nor would I contend for a moment with such as deny this
fact.
But I am not the less sensible, that the triumph, in these cases,
is bitter and painful. It can only be obtained by a violence done
to instinctive nature, connected with innumerable revulsions
and horrors, and to all those ineffable clingings to earth, and
shrinkings from the first step into the unknown land, that are
partly the heritage of nature, and partly the result of the
concurrent influence of all our institutions. It is a violence
to all the passions, affections, hopes and fears fostered by the
earth. But the victory has been wrought, and can be wrought, even
though the bosom, in which it is wrought become as of iron.
But the same triumph is won by the hope of immortality, by a
process, simple, easy, natural, in entire consonance with the most
tender affections and lively sympathies of flesh and blood. We lie
down in pain and agony, with a spirit of easy endurance, if we have
a confident persuasion that, during the night, we shall have shaken
off the cause of our sufferings, and shall rise to renewed health
and freshness in the morning. Death can bring little terror to him,
who believes that its darkness will instantly be replaced by the
light of another scene: and that the separation from friends in the
visible land, is only rejoining the more numerous group, who have
already become citizens of the invisible country.
To what extent am I the subject of this hope myself; and whence
do I derive my belief? These are questions which affection will
ask; and the answers, if devoid of interest _now_, will not be so
when the _memory of things that were shall come over the mind of
the reader like a cloud_, and when read as the thoughts of one,
who, during his whole sojourn, felt and reflected intensely upon
those subjects; and who will then himself have passed away to the
experience of all that which is here matter of discussion. Those
most dear to me will know what relations I sustained to these
subjects, during the best part of my life; and will not be without
solicitude to know my final thoughts upon them; thoughts, purified
at least from all stain of party interest and _esprit du corps_,
and put forth in the simple consciousness of my own convictions,
however they may be powerless to produce belief in the mind of
any other. With the fierce war cry of sects in religion, in their
acrimonious and never ending contests about abstract terms without
a meaning, their combats about the vague and technical phrases of
formulas of faith, I have long since had nothing to do. For many
years they have rung on my ear like the distant thunder of clouds
that have passed by. To the denunciations of those, who assume
to hold all truth imprisoned in their articles of confession, if
I might hope the distinction of receiving them, I am perfectly
callous. Neither would I desire to add another book to the millions
of volumes of polemic theology which already exist, and which have
as little bearing upon the knowledge, virtue and happiness of the
age, as the last year’s snow.
We are, after all, unconsciously influenced, and that in no slight
degree, by authority, however humble may be its claims, as a test
of truth. How did such a person believe on such a point? Many a
young aspirant suspends his opinion, until he hears; and settles
into fixed persuasion afterwards. How many are there, in christian
lands especially, who have never had a wandering or unbelieving
doubt of the soul’s immortality float over their minds? How many,
who have had no terrene and gross ideas, influenced by seeing the
tenement of flesh, by which all that was called the mind and the
soul stood visible to the eye, and tangible to the thought, yielded
up to consumption and decay? This is a question which no one can
answer for another. For myself, I believe unhesitatingly, and with
no stain of doubt, that I shall, in some way, exactly provided for
by Him who made me, exist after death, as simply conscious, that
I am the same person, as I am now in the morning, that I slept
at night. Do I derive this conviction from books and reasonings?
I am by no means sure that I do; though the gospel assuredly
speaks directly to my heart. I do ready homage to the talents and
learning of Clarke, Locke, Paley, Channing and a cloud of reasoning
witnesses, of whom every Christian may well be proud; and, most of
all, to the profound and admirable Butler.
I hear the author of our faith directly declaring a resurrection
and immortality. A single assertation from such a source were
enough. But I find him reasoning, and insisting less upon the
fact, than I should have expected, had he intended to implant it
in the mind, as it were a truth, chiefly to be apprehended by the
understanding. It seems to me that he so discusses it, as one who
was aware that it was already inwoven in the sentiments and hearts
of his hearers, vague, dark, without moral consequence, it may be;
but an existing sentiment, taken for granted, upon which he might
predicate his doctrines, as upon a thousand other facts, which we
can clearly perceive, he considers already admitted by his hearers.
Let a man walk in the fields on a June morning after night showers.
Let him seat himself for meditation on the hill-side, under the
grateful canopy of foliage. Let him ask himself to embody his
conceptions of the divinity, and to give form and place to the
Author of the glorious scene outstretched before him. He may have
just risen from reading the admirable demonstrations of Clarke,
and the astronomical sermons of Chalmers. He may concentrate his
conceptions by a fixedness of study, that may amount to pain. He
may bewilder his faculties, in attempting to embody something,
that his thoughts and reasonings can grasp. I know not what the
powers of others can achieve in this case. But I know, by painful
experiment, what mine cannot. I ask my understanding and reasoning
powers about this glorious Being. They inform me that it is a
subject that comes not within their purview. They can follow
the chain of reasoning, see that every link is complete, and the
demonstration irresistible. But when they wish to avail themselves
of their new truth, they have no distinct idea either of premises
or conclusion. It has evaporated in the analysis.
I ask my heart, or the source of my moral sentiment, be it what it
may, the same question. The grateful verdure, the matin freshness,
the glad voices, the aroma of flowers, the earth, the rolling
clouds, the sun, all the lamps, that will burn in the firmament by
night, my own happy consciousness in witnessing this impressive
scene, cry out _a God_. To my heart, it is the first, the simplest,
most obvious thought, presenting itself, it seems to me, as soon
as the consciousness of my own existence; certainly susceptible of
as little doubt. I have no need to define, analyze, embody. The
moment I attempt to do it, my thoughts are vague and unsettled. I
yield myself to the conviction. My heart swells with gratitude,
confidence, love. So good, so beneficent a Being can do nothing but
good, in this or any other world, to him who loves and trusts him,
and strives to obey his laws.
My most treasured hopes of immortality are from the same source.
Will this conscious being, capable of such remote excursions into
the two eternities between which its existence is suspended, live
beyond the present life? Not a particle of matter, for ought
that appears, can be annihilated. Will the nobler thoughts, the
warmer affections perish, as though they had not been? We ask
our senses, and they can give us no hope. The body lives, and we
speak of it as including the conscious being. We see it die, pass
under the empire of corruption, molder, and incorporate with its
kindred elements. The sensible evidence, that the person exists,
is entirely destroyed. The most insatiate appetite of our natures,
however, craves continued existence, and ceases not to seek for
it. The inquirer after immortality cannot but be in earnest in
this pursuit. The arguments of the venerable sages of old are
spread before him. From the soul’s nature, from the unity of
consciousness, the incorruptibility of thought, the everlasting
progress, of which our faculties are capable, the strong and
unquenchable desire of posthumous fame, the sacredness of earthly
friendships, and similar arguments, they strove to establish, on
the basis of reasoning, the conviction of immortality.