SECTION XXIX.

THE JOY OF RE-UNION.

UNDOUBTEDLY the present contemplation of joy in the future meeting of the tenderly beloved is very fascinating. I find it hard to read without unmanly tears Southey's lines on Ladurlad and his daughter meeting the deceased mother in Paradise (Kehama, canto x., Mount Meru.) But how is this topic (which kind friends press on me) connected with the present argument? Can it be implied that whatever is pleasant to believe is true? Truth is often bitter to digest; but Falsehood, indeed all Delusion, draws endless mischief after it, if not to the individual, yet in its further growth: therefor Truth, even if it be bitter, ought to be welcomed. But temperaments and circumstances vary. Years ago, in converse with an amiable and very thoughtful widow, I asked whether in the loss of dear ones she had found the hope of meeting them in a future world a sustaining power. To my surprize she answered: "Oh! the idea of meeting "would be quite painful, utterly embarrassing." For a test case I take what I hav just now read in a newspaper. A young couple ar married in the morning: in the same afternoon the bridegroom ventures on the ice, and is drowned. Will it console the bride to say to her: "Weep not for in due time you will rejoin your lost "lover in heaven ?" Alas! she expected to hav him in this world as her life-partner, perhaps as her breadprovider, certainly as her protector and friend, to soothe her in grief and sympathize in joy. How cold the comfort, to assure her that after she has fought perhaps a hard battle of life, bereft of her dear one while she wants him, she will regain him where she will not want him, after she is mentally so changed, as perhaps not to be recognizable. Deviation from the Physical Analogies

for a moral purpose, requires weighty reasons and a complete result. Jesus is said to raise from the dead a youth who was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: there the consolation is complete. But to re-unite the widowed mother and her son in a distant and unknown future, is certainly a lame result from the moral correction of physical law. Is it not possible, that when consolation from this topic is administered conventionally, with intention however kind, reticence is imposed by good taste on one who gains no real assuagement. In precisely the cases which most need it, this ground of consolation signally fails.

Elsewhere I hav adduced the case of a good mother made wretched by a graceless undutiful son who has died impenitent. The logic of the Christian Church for 1700 years bids this mother to believe that her son is gone to an eternal hell, and comfort herself by the assurance that she is herself going to a happy heaven. The new school which rebukes me as flippant for the argument, has to put its own new wine into old skins; and, while glorifying in theory the doctrin of Jesus, marvellously transforms his "worm that dieth not and his fire unquenchable" into something of totally opposit spirit.

Whatever the first joy of Ladurlad, however delightful the remembrance of his earthly affection and its object, Southey's heaven provides for his hero no material to elicit or sustain his love for Yedillian, such as on Earth daily wants, mutual service, mutual thoughtfulness, common joy, common sorrow afford.

SECTION XXX.

YEARNING FOR GOD'S KINGDOM.

Nor does this yet touch the bottom of the matter. A right-hearted man has no desire for anything in his

own future at all to compare with his longing that Truth, Righteousness and Universal Mercy may triumph; especially on that area on which his knowledge is most complete and his interest keenest. Next after praying that we may ourselves hallow the thought of God, zeal that God may be everywhere obeyed ought to possess us, according to the received "Lord's Prayer." He who rejoices in God's coming kingdom, better fulfils the ideal of God's servant and fellow-worker, than he who rejoices in his own personal prospects and future ecstasies of spiritual joy. A rude ancient Roman, a not very virtuous French soldier, accepts the pang of his death-wound with joy, if he believes it has contributed to the victory of his country. In this idol of his fancy, however ill-deserving it may be, he entirely forgets and sacrifices himself. Hav we not something to learn from his wild virtue? If we choose our paramount object of desire wisely and rightly, the less we think of our own future the better. When the progress of the kingdom of heaven chiefly kindles our enthusiasm, we easily forget self, longing only that Sin may vanish and God may reign actually, wherever ar creatures capable of Sin and Holiness. Only on this Earth do we know of such creatures. Concerning planetary inhabitants and angelic beings we only guess. Therefor precisely concerning the future of this Earth does it seem most reasonable for a heavenly-minded man to be specially concerned. To liv and see the kingdom of heaven triumphant is naturally his dearest wish. Nearly such was the Hebrew aspiration: "Oh visit me with thy "salvation, that I may see the good of thy chosen and "glory with thy inheritance."

We regard Wilberforce as eminently favored, so too Charles Sumner, Garrison and Wendell Phillips, because they lived to see the triumph of Negro Freedom, to which they had devoted their lives. What we cannot hope to

see or hear, we anticipate by Faith, which, buoyed up by undemonstrable Hope, becomes to the heart a substantial evidence; the Faith that the kingdom of Charity will triumph there, where the heart has most ached for it.

This in fact was the true primitiv Christian faith; that God would establish his kingdom here over men in flesh and blood. The saints were to share Messiah's triumph, to sit beside him on his throne, as in some sense superintendents and agents under him. The joy was not selfish, for it turned on the prevalence of Righteousness to supersede the reign of Satan. Contrariwise, in the modern Christian notion of Heaven, the broad, unselfish desire is evanescent, and the purely personal desires ar made prominent and paramount. For a moment it seemed to me, that to look serenely from above and see the advances of God's kingdom on this Earth would be an intense joy; but I quickly had to check myself. Only He to whom a thousand years ar as one day, could look on without agonizing impatience, if in the future the advances of his kingdom ar to be slow as in the past. If so, then: Quid æternis minorem

66

Consiliis animum fatigas ?"*

It is better to believe, than to watch inactivly.-But Hope, Faith and Charity all suggest, that the future advances will be more rapid, though Little Faith call the idea Quixotic.

SECTION XXXI.

WHAT IS IDENTITY?

No one can care for his own future life, unless he is convinced that his identity is preserved, when his soul is dis-embodied or re-embodied. To me no question is

* 66 Why out-wear thy soul, unequal to Eternal Counsels ?"-Horace.

darker than "What is the test of Identity?" Practically it is by memory that each makes sure that he is the same person. This suffices, while the brain is in a normal state but in a morbid state, as in an ugly dream, a man may hav false memories, so as to fancy he has committed crimes. Other anomalies of the insane ar attested: yet no one supposes that Identity is lost in such disease. Indeed if it were, much more would it be lost by death which dissolves the brain.

Moreover, memory of eighty or one hundred years on Earth is a very poor capital (so to speak) for a million years to come; not to embarrass ourselves with Eternity. To each adult his infancy is of no importance: scarcely any one identifies himself with what he was in his first three years. If the soul is to liv through vast ages, the events of human life ever dwindle in importance and the consciousness of Identity seems to evaporate. There is a terrible disproportion between the narrow limits of human life and the endless years that ar to follow. The more the mind dwells on this contrast, the more does the sober truth of the Greek Axiom impress me: Whoever has a beginning of life has also an end. He alone who, like his own Universe, is unlimited in Space and Time, can inherit a future Eternity. For us it remains to be grateful that he has given us that very noble gift,* Human Life, and absolutely to trust him with child-like confidence, when he recalls it.

SECTION XXXII.

WHEN IS MORAL ARGUMENT ADEQUATE ?

In the close of Section viii. it was remarked, that what force of moral argument will here be adequate, will be estimated differently by different minds. It seems, in

**

"Glorious manhood," according to simple, genial Homer.

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