MORE THOUGHTS CONCERNING LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY.
_Clericus es? legito hæc. Laicus? legito ista libenter.
Crede mihi, invenies hic quod uterque voles._
D. DU-TR. MED.
If we look to the better part of the human race as well as the worse,
with regard to them also the ordinary term of human life will be found
the best that could have been appointed both for themselves and for
the purposes of society, the wisdom and the goodness of the ways of
Providence becoming evident in this, as in all other things upon which
our limited faculties are capable of forming a comprehensive
judgement.
The term is long enough for all we have to learn. Madame de Sevigné
said sportively, that she should be a very wise person if she could
but live about two hundred years: _je tâche tous les jours à profiter
de mes reflexions; et si je pouvois vivre seulement deux cents ans, il
me semble que je serois une personne bien admirable._ This the Doctor
thought might hold good in the case of Madame de Sevigné herself, and
of all other persons who regarded the acquirement of information as an
amusement, or at most an accomplishment; “One small head might carry
all they knew,” though their lives should be prolonged to the length
of antediluvian old age. But in his opinion it would be otherwise with
those who devoted themselves to the pursuit of knowledge, for the
purpose of storing their own minds, and enabling themselves to
instruct their fellow creatures. For although the mind would retain
its faculties unimpaired for a length of time in proportion to the
greater length of life, it by no means follows that its capacity would
be enlarged. Horace Walpole lived forty years after he had said “my
mould has taken all its impressions, and can receive no more. I must
grow old upon the stock I have.” It is indeed highly probable that the
most industrious students for some time before they reach the confines
of senility forget as much as they learn. A short life is long enough
for making us wise to salvation, if we will but give our hearts to the
wisdom which is from above: and this is the one thing needful.
There are some however who in their eulogistic and extravagant
lamentations seem to have thought no lease long enough for the objects
of their admiration. A certain John Fellows published an elegy on the
death of the Reverend John Gill, D.D. This learned Doctor in Dissent
died at a good old age; nevertheless the passionate mourner in rhyme
considered his death as a special mark of the Almighty's displeasure,
and exclaimed
How are the mighty fallen! Lord when will
Thine anger cease? The great the learned Gill
Now pale and breathless lies!
Upon which a reviewer not improperly remarked that without dwelling
upon the _presumption_ of the writer he could not but notice the
_folly_ of thus lamenting as though it were an untimely stroke, the
natural departure of a venerable old man of near eighty. “Was this,”
said he, “sufficient cause for raising such an outcry in Zion, and
calling on her sons and daughters to weep and wail as if the Day of
Judgement were come.”
Nothing however in former times excited so great a sensation in the
small world of Noncons as the death of one of their Divines. Their
favorite poet Dr. Watts, wished when the Reverend Mr. Gouge died that
he could make the stones hear and the rocks weep,
And teach the Seas and teach the Skies
Wailings and sobs and sympathies.
Heaven was impatient of our crimes,
And sent his minister of death
To scourge the bold rebellion of the times,
And to demand our prophet's breath.
He came commissioned for the fates
Of awful Mead and charming Bates:
There he essay'd the vengeance first,
Then took a dismal aim, and brought GREAT GOUGE to dust.
GREAT GOUGE to dust! how doleful is the sound!
How vast the stroke is! and how wide the wound!—
Sion grows weak and England poor;
Nature herself with all her store
Can furnish such a pomp for death no more.
This was pretty well for a threnodial flight. But Dr. Watts went
farther. When Mr. Howe should die, (and Howe was then seventy years of
age,) he thought it would be time that the world should be at an
end,—and prayed that it might be so.
Eternal God! command his stay!
Stretch the dear months of his delay;—
O we could wish his age were one immortal day!
But when the flaming chariot's come
And shining guards to attend thy Prophet home,
Amidst a thousand weeping eyes,
Send an Elisha down, a soul of equal size;
_Or burn this worthless globe, and take us to the skies!_
What would the Dissenters have said if a clerical poet had written in
such a strain upon the decease of a Bishop or Archbishop?
We pray in the Litany to be delivered from sudden death. Any death is
to be deprecated which should find us unprepared: but as a temporal
calamity with more reason might we pray to be spared from the misery
of an infirm old age. It was once my fortune to see a frightful
instance of extreme longevity,—a woman who was nearly in her hundredth
year. Her sight was greatly decayed, though not lost; it was very
difficult to make her hear, and not easy then to make her understand
what was said, though when her torpid intellect was awakened she was,
legally, of sane mind. She was unable to walk, or to assist herself in
any way. Her neck hung in such wrinkles that it might almost be
likened to a turkey's; and the skin of her face and of her arms was
cleft like the bark of an oak, as rough, and almost of as dark a
colour. In this condition, without any apparent suffering, she passed
her time in a state between sleeping and waking, fortunate that she
could thus beguile the wearisomeness of such an existence.
Instances of this kind are much rarer in Europe than in tropical
climates. Negresses in the West Indies sometimes attain an age which
is seldom ascertained because it is far beyond living memory. They
outlive all voluntary power, and their descendants of the third or
fourth generation carry them out of their cabins into the open air,
and lay them, like logs, as the season may require, in the sunshine,
or in the shade. Methinks if Mecænas had seen such an object, he would
have composed a palinode to those verses in which he has perpetuated
his most pitiable love for life. A woman in New Hampshire, North
America, had reached the miserable age of 102, when one day as some
people were visiting her, the bell tolled for a funeral; she burst
into tears and said “Oh when will the bell toll for me! It seems as if
it never would toll for me! I am afraid that I shall never die!” This
reminds me that I have either read, or heard, an affecting story of a
poor old woman in England,—very old, and very poor,—who retained her
senses long after the body had become a weary burden; she too when she
heard the bell toll for a funeral used to weep, and say she was afraid
God had forgotten her! Poor creature, ignorantly as she spake, she had
not forgotten Him; and such impatience will not be accounted to her
for a sin.
These are extreme cases, as rare as they are mournful. Life indeed is
long enough for what we have to suffer, as well as what we have to
learn; but it was wisely said by an old Scottish Minister (I wish I
knew his name, for this saying ought to have immortalized it,) “Time
is short; and if your cross is heavy you have not far to carry it.”
_Chi ha travaglio, in pace il porti:
Dolce è Dio, se il mondo è amaro.
Sappia l'uom, che al Cielo è caro;
Abbia fede, è aura conforti._[1]
Were the term shorter it would not suffice for the developement of
those moral qualities which belong peculiarly to the latter stage of
life; nor could the wholesome influence which age exercises over the
young in every country where manners are not so thoroughly corrupted
as to threaten the dissolution of society, be in any other manner
supplied.
[Footnote 1: MAGGI.]
“_Il me semble que le mal physique attendrit autant que le mal moral
endurcit le cœur,_” said Lord Chesterfield, when he was growing old,
and suffering under the infirmities of a broken constitution.
Affliction in its lightest form, with the aid of time, had brought his
heart into this wholesome state.
_O figliuol' d'Adam, grida Natura,
Onde i tormenti? Io vi farà tranquilli,
Se voi non rebellate alla mia legge._[2]
There is indeed a tranquillity which Nature brings with it as duly
toward the close of life, as it induces sleep at the close of day. We
may resist the salutary influence in both cases, and too often it is
resisted, at the cost of health in the one, and at a still dearer cost
in the other: but if we do this, we do it wilfully, the resistance is
our own act and deed,—it is our own error, our own fault, our sin, and
we must abide the consequences.
[Footnote 2: CHIABRERA.]
The greatest happiness to which we can attain in this world is the
peace of God. Ask those who have attained the height of their
ambition, whether in the pursuit of wealth, or power, or fame, if it
be not so? ask them in their sane mind and serious hours, and they
will confess that all else is vanity.
Fond man, that looks on earth for happiness,
And here long seeks what here is never found![3]
This His own peace, which is his last and crowning gift, our Heavenly
Father reserves for us in declining life, when we have earned our
discharge from its business and its cares; and He prepares us for it
by the course of nature which he has appointed.
O all the good we hope, and all we see,
That Thee we know and love, comes from Thy love and Thee.[3]
Hear reader the eloquent language of Adam Littleton when speaking of
one who has received this gift:—it occurs in a funeral sermon, and the
preacher's heart went with his words. After describing the state of a
justified Christian, he rises into the following strain: “And now what
has this happy person to do in this world any longer, having his debts
paid and his sins pardoned, his God reconciled, his conscience quieted
and assured, his accusers silenced, his enemies vanquished, the law
satisfied, and himself justified, and his Saviour glorified, and a
crown of Immortality, and a robe of righteousness prepared for him?
What has he to do here more, than to get him up to the top of Pisgah
and take a view of his heavenly Canaan; to stand upon the Confines of
Eternity, and in the contemplation of those joys and glories, despise
and slight the vanities and troubles of this sinful and miserable
world; and to breathe after his better life, and be preparing himself
for his change; when he shall be called off to weigh anchor, and hoist
sail for another world, where he is to make discoveries of unutterable
felicities, and inconceivable pleasures?
“Oh what a happy and blest condition is it to live, or to die in the
midst of such gracious deliverances and glorious assurances; with this
fastening consideration to boot, that ‘neither life nor death, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor any creature is able to
separate him from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ his
Lord!’”
[Footnote 3: PHINEAS FLETCHER.]