"Then in a nobler, sweeter song
I'll sing thy power to save
When this poor, lisping, stammering tongue
Lies silent in the grave,"
the majestic voice that had thrilled courts and senates, was heard
in a clear thrice-repeated "Amen! Amen! Amen!" And so he passed, let
us hope, to have part in that final song. Pity, infinite pity, that
he had not made more of that magnificent intellect for the Giver of
it! But at least he was too great a man to deny the Love and the
Sacrifice by which alone the life of the greatest as well as the
feeblest can be saved from being an eternal tragedy.
I know, my dear A----, the derision with which all this may be
received, but my hope is that you have passed beyond that point of
intellectual self-conceit and moral self-murder. At all events, this
is the only ground of a safe immortality that the Bible holds out,
and beyond the Bible there is no ground. If you ever settle safely
the solemn questions of the future, you will settle them here. If you
ever find the rest for which I know you are weary, you will find it
at the cross and in the presence of Him who hung upon it, and whose
words are to-day, as of old, "Come unto me, and I will give you rest."
In all this I know there is nothing new to you. I had nothing new to
say; I wished simply to make a plea for the faith of your earlier
years. It is easy to put it aside, but, after all, it is a faith
that will stand. The evidence of nineteen centuries from millions
of honest and intelligent witnesses, of all ranks and conditions,
living and dying, to the power of this faith to sustain in the most
solemn crises of life, when flesh and heart are failing, and when
the darkness and anguish and mystery of death are rocking the soul
to its foundations, cannot wisely be dismissed as a delusion: there
must be a reality behind it. The lights that have gone out from your
own home and heart you were right in believing have "not gone out in
darkness," but you will not forget that as they went into purer light
they went with Him who has brought life and immortality to light, who
is the Resurrection and the Life, in whom believing, though we were
dead, yet shall we live.
Here I must rest. I can only commend you to God and to the word of
his grace--to the written word and to the incarnate Word, to the
Bible and to Christ. I am as certain as I am of my own existence
that if you will give yourself up to the guidance of these you
will be satisfied and you will be saved. If you will only take the
Bible _and follow it_, you will find an assurance of its truth that
cannot be shaken; you will find rest, for you will find Christ. And
surely it is not too much to ask that in a matter of such infinite
importance you make a fair, honest and thorough trial of that which
no man ever yet made trial of to be disappointed.
Yet let me not fail to impress as a final thought that this result of
good and of peace will come _only by the power of the Holy Spirit_.
It is his to take of the things of Christ and show them to us; unless
he does this, we cannot see them. My last word of entreaty, then,
is--and I would make it as earnestly as conviction and feeling and
language can make it--yield to the Spirit of God. The end you want
is too great for your own strength. You have proved this. You have
struggled on long enough in your own plans and your own way, seeking
rest, and you are as far from rest as ever. Try now another way. Take
hold of a higher strength. "Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye
shall find." I plead with you by all the memories of the past and by
all the hopes of the future. You have sinned, and I would not heal
the hurt slightly. No one knows better than you that if the Bible is
true you have a long and dark account against you--if not of open and
flagrant sin, yet to the Mind that makes no mistakes of that which
is perhaps far worse, of calm, deliberate, persistent rejection of
Christ and of his Spirit. It would be faithlessness and cruelty to
hide the fact that by all the verities of God you are in peril--in
fearful peril. To stand in darkness where no light is is sad enough;
but when Light is come into the world and men stand in darkness,
there is sin that seals its own doom. As the case is now, the very
unrest of your soul--its dark gropings, its unsatisfied yearnings,
its sighs of despair--all this is the living witness of your danger,
the prophecy of a deeper gloom and woe to come.
But as yet it is also the voice of God's mercy; it is the plea of
his Spirit calling you to the only rest that the universe has for
the erring and the sinful. The Spirit of God is very pitiful. Every
thought of good is from him; every desire for a better life is his
inspiration; every penitent sigh is his breath. I believe he is not
far from you; I believe, therefore, you are not far from the kingdom
of heaven. Quench not the Spirit. Do not go down in darkness in sight
of the City of Light.
You remember the circumstances of our return from Europe in the fall
of 18--. We were young then, but the events are still vivid in my
memory, as they are no doubt in yours. For two days we were delayed
in Liverpool by a fearful storm. In that storm the Royal Charter was
coming in, having made successfully the voyage of the world. She
had been signaled, and was already in the Channel; her arrival was
looked for every hour. Dear friends of those we were leaving were on
board. The fires were lighted on the hearth, and the table was spread
for the long-absent ones, and glad hearts were waiting impatiently to
give them joyful welcome. But they never came; in sight of the harbor
and of the lights of home they went down--the four hundred of that
doomed ship. The next day we passed the silent wreck as we came out,
and I am sure you thought, as I did, how unutterably sad and pathetic
is such an end, to perish in sight of home.
Our voyage, dear A----, is almost over. The harbor is near; the
lights of the eternal home are in sight; the table is spread,
and dear ones--yours and mine--are waiting there to give us glad
and everlasting welcome. Do not make wreck of life and hope and
immortality in the very sight of home.
Yours, in the bonds of early years,
C----.
Since these letters were written, he to whom they were addressed
has gone where human arguments and pleadings cannot reach him. In a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, he passed from the scenes of a
busy, honored and prosperous life into the solemn mysteries that lie
beyond our horizon. On his desk was found the following unfinished
letter, written the night before his death: