causeless, arbitrary manner; they are meant for our discipline and our
good. In whatever aspect they come, then, let their appropriate lesson
be heeded. This is the religious view of life, and is wide apart from
the philosophy that lets events happen as they will, as though we were
in the setting of a heady current, and were borne along among other
matters that now help us, now jar and wound us,-that happen without
order and without object; all, like ourselves, driven along and taking
things as they come. In the religious view, all things stream from God's
throne, and whatever sky hangs over them, the infinite One is present;
prosperity is the sunshine that he has sent, and Faith, as she weeps,
beholds a bow in the clouds.

The religious man takes things as they come, but how? In a reverent and
filial spirit, a spirit that obeys and trusts because God has ordained.
He refers, behind the event, to the will that declares it. And yet, this
will be no formal lifeless resignation. He will not be stripped of his
manhood, or become unnatural in his religion. His resignation will not
be the cold assent of reason, or the mere rote and repetition of the
lips. No, it will be born in struggling and in sorrow. Religion is not
a process that makes our nature callous to all fierce heats or drenching
storms. Neither is he the most religious man who is calmest in the keen
crisis of trouble. I say in the crisis of trouble-for to human
vision there always is a crisis. We cannot penetrate to the secret
determinations of God, and in the season of care and affliction there
is a time when the issue is uncertain,-when we cannot say it is sealed.
What shall we do then? Is human agency nothing? Grant that we are
driving down a stream,-can we use no effort? Is there not a time when
deeds, struggles, prayers, are of some avail?-when the spirit, in its
intense agony, with swollen strength and surging tears, heaves against
the catastrophe, if yet, perchance, it may ward it off? Truly, there
is such a time, and the humblest disciple of Christ may weep as he also
wept. But let him also strive as Christ strove. Let him not dash his
grief in rebellious billows to the throne; let not his groans arise in
resentful murmurs; let the remembrance of what God is and why he does,
be with him, and let the filial, reverent trust steal in,--"Not my will,
but thine be done." That reference to God, that obedience to him, rising
from the very depths of sorrow, and clung to without faltering, is
RESIGNATION. It shall bestow peace and victory in the end. O! how
different from that sullen fatalism that lets things come as they
will. To such a soul things do come as they will, and it hardens under
them,-they do come as they will, but it sees not, cares not, why they
come. No thought goes up beyond the cloud to God,-no strength is born
that shall make life's trials lighter,-no love and faith that will seek
the Father's hand in the darkest hour, and shed an enduring light over
the thorny path of affliction, and upon the bosom of the grave. Look at
these two. Outwardly, their calmness may be the same. Nay, the one may
evince emotion and tears, while the other shall stand rigid in the hour
of calamity, with a bitter smile, or a frown of endurance. But in the
one is strength, in the other rigidity; in the one is power to triumph
over sorrow, in the other only nervous capacity to resist it. The one
is man hardened to indifference, sullen because of irreligion, upon whom
some sorrow will one day fall that will peel him to the quick, and he
will not know where to flee for healing. The other is man contending
against evil, yet not against God,-man with all the tenderness and
strength of his nature, impressible yet unconquerable, walking with feet
that bleed among the wounding thorns, and a heart that shrinks from the
heavy woe, yet, all lacerated as he is, able to walk through, because he
holds by the hand of Omnipotence. The one is the unbending tree, peeled
by the lightning and stripped by the North wind, lifting its gnarled
head in sullen defiance to the storm, which, when the storm does
overcome it, shall be broken. The other also is rooted in strength,
and meets the rushing blast with a lofty front. But as "it smiles in
sunshine, so it bends in storm," trustful and obedient, yet firm and
brave, and nothing shall overwhelm it.

I trust I have succeeded in impressing upon you the difference between
Christian resignation and mere hardihood, or indifference. Resignation
is born of discipline, and lives only in a truly religious soul. We
have seen that it is not incompatible with tenderness; nay, it is more
valuable, because it springs up in natures that have thus suffered and
wept. To see them become calm and pass with unfaltering step through
the valley of affliction, when, but now, they shrunk from it, is a proof
that God indeed has strengthened them, and that they have had communion
with him. The unbeliever's stubbornness may endure to the end, but no
human power could inspire this sudden and triumphant calmness.

And even when the crisis is past, when the sorrow is sealed, it is not
rebellion to sigh and weep. Our Father has made us so. He has opened the
springs of love that well up within us, and can we help mourning when
they turn to tears and blood? He has made very tender the ties that bind
us to happiness, and can we fail to shrink and suffer when they are cut
asunder? When we have labored long in the light of hope, and lo! It goes
out in darkness, and the blast of disappointment rushes upon us, can we
help being sad? Can the mother prevent weeping when she kisses the lips
of her infant that shall prattle to her no more; when she presses its
tiny hand, so cold and still,-the little hand that has rested upon her
bosom and twined in her hair; and even when it is so sweet and beautiful
that she could strain it to her heart forever, it is laid away in the
envious concealment of the grave? Can the wife, or the husband, help
mourning, when the partner and counsellor is gone,-when home is made
very desolate because the familiar voice sounds not there, and the
cast-off garment of the departed is strangely vacant, and the familiar
face has vanished, never more to return? Can the child fail to lament,
when the father, the mother,-the being who nurtured him in infancy,
who pillowed his head in sickness, who prayed for him with tears on
his sinful wandering, who ever rejoiced in his joy and wept in
his sorrows,-can he fail to weep when that venerable form lies all
enshrouded, and the door closes upon it, and the homestead is vacant,
and the link that bound him to childhood is in the grave? Say, can we
check the gush of sorrow at any of life's sharp trials and losses?
No; nor are we forbidden to weep, nor would we be human if we did not
weep,-if, at least, the spirit did not quiver when the keen scathing
goes over it. But how shall we weep? O! Thou, who didst suffer in
Gethsemane, thou hast taught us how. By thy sacred sorrow and thy pious
obedience thou has taught us; by thy great agony and thy sublime
victory thou has taught us. We must refer all to God. We must earnestly,
sincerely say, "Thy will be done." Then our prayers will be the source
of our strength. Then our sorrowing will bring us comfort. "They will
be done;" repeat this, feel this, realize its meaning and its relations,
and you shall be able to say, with a rooted calmness, "The cup which my
Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?"

"The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" Who
shall be able to say this as Jesus said it? They who struggle as he
struggled,-who obey as he obeyed,-who trust as he trusted. There are
those upon earth who have been able to say it. It has made them stronger
and happier. There are those in heaven who have been able to say it.
They have gone up from earthly communions to the communion on high. Do
you not see them there, walking so serenely by the still waters, with
palms about their brows? Serenely-for in their faces nothing is left of
their conflict but its triumph; nothing of their swollen agony but the
massy enduring strength it has imparted. They have ceased from their
trials, but first they learned how to endure them. They submitted, but
they were not overwhelmed. When sorrow came, each pious soul struggled,
but trusted; and so was able to meet the last struggle,-was able to say
as the shadow of death fell upon it, "The cup which my Father hath given
me, shall I not drink it?" They were resigned. Behold-theirs is the
victory!

THE MISSION OF LITTLE CHILDREN

     "And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in
     the midst of them."  Matthew xviii.2.

Everything has its mission. I speak not now of the office which each
part of the great universe discharges. I speak not of the relation
between these parts,--that beautiful ordinance by which the whole is
linked together in one common life, by which the greatest is dependent
upon the least, and the least shares in the benefactions of the
greatest. In this sense, everything has, strictly, its mission. But I
speak of the influence, the instruction, which everything has, or may
have, for the soul of man. The flower, and the star, the grass of the
field, the outspread ocean, are full of lessons; they perform a mission
to our spiritual nature, if we will receive it. We may pass them by as
simply material forms, the decorations or conveniencies(sic) of this
our natural life. But if we will come to them in a religious spirit, and
study all their meaning, they will be to us ministers of God, impressive
and eloquent as human lips, and filled with truths instructive as any
that man can utter.

Jesus illustrated his teachings by these objects. He made everything
that was at hand perform a mission for the human soul. The lilies of the
field were clothed with spiritual suggestion, and the fowls of the air,
as they flew through the trackless firmament, bore a lesson of truth and
consolation. As if to show that there is nothing, however small, that
is insignificant, and that has not its mission, he selected the falling
sparrow to be a minister of wisdom, and dignified the wayside well as a
clear and living oracle of the divinest truth.

In the instance before us, the object selected was a little child. In
reply to the question, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"
Jesus set this little one in the midst of his disciples and said,
"Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little
children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Thus did he
rebuke their sensuous ideas of greatness by a spiritual truth, and make
a little child the teacher of profound and beautiful wisdom. I do not
propose, however, at this time, to dwell upon the precise doctrines
which Christ taught in the instance, but having, as it were, the little
child set in our midst, to draw from it further lessons that may do us
good. In one word, I propose to speak of the mission of little children.

In using this term "mission," I wish to have no obscurity about my
meaning. I refer, by it, to the influence which little children may
exert upon us,--to the effects which they may produce,--rather than to
any direct object which they can have in view, or for which they set
themselves to work. They may be unconscious missionaries; indeed, to a
great extent, they are so. But so are the lilies of the field and the
birds of the air. Yet if we believe that God is the ordainer of all
wisdom and of all good, that he uses an object or event in numberless
ways, and makes it the unconscious instrument of many of his plans,
then we may say that children are sent by him for the express purpose of
producing these effects, and in that sense have a mission.

I pass to consider some of the modes in which that mission is
accomplished.

I. Little children give us a sincere and affectionate manifestation
of human nature. I know that even a child will soon become artful,
and imbibe the spirit of dealing and of policy. But in a strongly
comparative sense, the child is artless. The thoughts of the heart leap
spontaneously from the lips. The bubbling impulse is closely followed
by the action. Its desire, its aversion, its love, its curiosity,
are expressed without modification. The broken prattle, those
half-pronounced words, are uttered with clear, ringing tones of
sincerity. There is no coil of deceit about the heart. There are no
secrets chambered in the brain. The countenance has put on no disguise.
There is no manoeuvring with lips or actions, no suspicion or plotting
in the eyes. It is simple human nature fresh from the hands of God, with
all its young springs in motion, trying themselves in their simplicity
and their newness. The eyes open upon the world, not with speculation,
but with wonder. To them, the ancient hills and the morning stars are
just created, new phenomena burst upon them every moment, and nature in
a thousand channels pours itself into the young soul. And how soon it
learns the meaning of a mother's smile, and the protection of a father's
hand! How soon the fountains of affection are unsealed and the mystery
of human love takes possession of the hear! But the tides of that love
are controlled by no calculation, are fettered by no proprieties, but
flow artlessly and freely.

Humanity soon runs into deceit, and the sincerest man wears a mask.
We cannot trust our most familiar friends, to the whole extent. We all
retain something in our inmost hearts that nobody knows but we and
God. The world bids us be shrewd and politic. We walk in a mart of
selfishness. Eyes stare upon us, and we are afraid of them. We meet as
traders, as partisans, as citizens, as worshippers, as friends-brothers,
if you will-but we must not express all we think, we must school
ourselves in some respects,--must adopt some conventionalities. There is
some degree of isolation between ourselves and every other one. But
from the world's strife and sordidness, its wearisome forms and cold
suspicions, we may turn to the sanctity of home, and if we have a child
there, we shall find affection without alloy, a welcome that leaps from
the heart in sunshine to the face, and speaks right from the soul;--a
companion who is not afraid or ashamed of us, who makes no calculation
about our friendship, who has faith in it, and requires of us perfect
faith in return, and whose sincerity rebukes our worldliness, and makes
us wonder at the world. And if all this makes us better and happier,
if it keeps our hearts from hardness and attrition, if it begets in us
something of the same sincerity, and hallows us with something of
the same affection, if it softens and purifies us at all, then do not
children, in this respect perform a mission for us?

And shall we not learn from them more confidence in human nature, seeing
that "the child is father to the man," and that much that seems cold and
hard in men may conceal the remains of childhood's better feeling? And,
also, shall it not make us deplore and guard against those influences
which can change the sincere and loving child into the deceitful and
selfish man-that cover the spring of genuine feeling with the thick rime
of worldliness, and petrify the tender chords of the heart into rough,
unfeeling sinews? The man should not be, in all respects, as the child.
The child cannot have the glory of the man. If it is not polluted by his
vices, it is not ennobled by his virtues. But in so much as the child
awakens in us tenderness, and teaches us sincerity, and counteracts our
coarser and harder tendencies, and cheers us in our isolation from human
hearts, by binding us close with a warm affection, and sheds ever around
our path the mirrored sunshine of our youth and our simplicity, in so
much the child accomplishes for us a blessed mission.

II. Children teach us faith and confidence. Man soon becomes proud with
reason, and impatient of restraint. He thinks he knows, or ought to
know, the whole mystery of the universe. It is not easy for him to take
anything upon trust, or to lie low in the hand of God. But the child is
full of faith. He is not old enough to speculate, and the things he sees
are to him so strange and wonderful that he can easily believe in "the
things that are unseen." He propounds many questions, but entertains no
doubts as to God and heaven. And what confidence has he in his father's
government and his mother's providence!

I do not say, here, that a man's faith should be as a child's faith. Man
must examine and reason, contend with doubt, and wander through mystery.
But I would have him cherish the feeling that he too is a child, the
denizen of a Father's house, and have sufficient confidence in that
Father to trust his goodness; and to remember, if things look perplexed
and discordant to him, that his vision is but a child's vision-he cannot
see all. Indeed, there is a beautiful analogy between a child in its
father's house and man in the universe, and much there is in the filial
sentiment that belongs to both conditions. Beautifully has it been shown
by a recent writer how the natural operation of this sentiment in the
child's heart, and in the sphere of home, stands somewhat in the place
of that religion which man needs in his maturer conditions. "God
has given it, in its very lot," says he, "a religion of its own, the
sufficiency of which it were impiety to doubt. The child's veneration
can scarcely climb to any loftier height than the soul of a wise and
good parent...How can there be for him diviner truth than his father's
knowledge, a more wonderous world than his father's experience, a better
providence than his mother's vigilance, a securer fidelity than in their
united promise? Encompassed round by these, he rests as in the embrace
of the only omniscience he can comprehend." (Martineau)

But O! my friends, when our childhood has passed by, and we go out to
drink the mingled cup of life, and cares come crowding upon us, and
hopes are crushed, and doubts wrestle with us, and sorrow burdens our
spirits, then we need a deeper faith, and look up for a stronger Father.
A kind word will not stifle our grief then. We cannot go to sleep upon
our mother's arms, and forget it all. There is no charm to hold our
spirits within the walls of this home, the earth. Our thoughts crave
more than this. Our souls reach out over the grave, and cry for
something after! No bauble will assuage this bitterness. It is spiritual
and stern, and we must have a word from heaven-a promise from one who is
able to fulfill. We look around us, and find that Father, and his
vary nature contains the promise that we need. And as the child in his
ignorance has faith, not because he can demonstrate, but because it
is his father, so let us, in our ignorance, feel that in this great
universe of many mansions, of solemn mysteries, of homes beyond the
earth, of relationships that reach through eternity, of plans only a
portion of which is seen here; so let us look up as to a Father's
fare, take hold of his hand, go in and out and lie down securely in his
presence, and cherish faith. If children only teach us to do this, how
beautiful and how great is their mission!

III. Children waken in us new and powerful affections. Nobody but a
parent can realize what these affections are, can tell what a fountain
of emotion the newborn child unseals, what chords of strange love are
drawn out from the heart, that before lay there concealed. One may
have all powers of intellect, a refined moral culture, a noble and
wide-reaching philanthropy, and yet a child born to him shall awaken
within him a depth of tenderness, a sentiment of love, a yearning
affection, that shall surprise him as to the capacity and the mystery of
his nature.

And the relation of a mother to her child; what other is like it?
Without it, how undeveloped is the great element of affection, how small
a horn of its orb is filled and lighted! What was she until that new
love woke up within her, and her heart and soul thrilled with it, and
first truly lived in it? Of all the degrees of human love, how amply is
this the highest! In all the depths of human love, how surely is this
the nethermost! When illustrations fail us, how confidently do we seize
upon this! The mother nurturing her child in tenderness, watching over
it with untiring love! O! that is affection stronger than any of this
earth. It has a power, a beauty, a holiness like no other sentiment.
When that child has grown to maturity, and has gone out from her in
profligacy and in scorn; when the world has denounced him, and justice
sets its price upon his head, and lovers and companions fall off from
him in utter loathing-we do not ask, we know, there is one heart that
cannot reject him. No sin of his can paralyze the chord that vibrates
there for him. No alienation can cancel the affection that was born at
his birth, that pillowed him in his infancy, centred in him its life,
clasped him with its strength, and shed upon him its blessings, its
hopes, and its prayers.

And no one feels the death of a child as a mother feels it. Even the
father cannot realize it thus. There is a vacancy in his home, and a
heaviness in his heart. There is a chain of association that at
set times comes round with its broken link; there are memories of
endearment, a keen sense of loss, a weeping over crushed hopes, and a
pain of wounded affliction. But the mother feels that one has been taken
away who was still closer to her heart. Hers has been the office of
constant ministration. Every gradation of feature has developed before
her eyes. She has detected every new gleam of intelligence. She heard
the first utterance of every new word. She has been the refuge of his
fears; the supply of his wants. And every task of affection has woven a
new link, and made dear to her its object. And when he dies, a portion
of her own life, as it were, dies. How can she give him up, with all
these memories, these associations? The timid hands that have so often
taken hers in trust and love, how can she fold them on his breast, and
surrender them to the cold clasp of death? The feet whose wanderings she
has watched so narrowly, how can she see them straitened to go down
into the dark valley? The head that she has pressed to her lips and her
bosom, that she has watched in burning sickness and in peaceful slumber,
a hair of which she could not see harmed, O! how can she consign it
to the chamber of the grave? The form that not for one night has been
beyond her vision or her knowledge, how can she put it away for the long
night of the sepulchre, to see it no more? Man has cares and toils that
draw away his thoughts and employ them; she sits in loneliness, and all
these memories, all these suggestions, crowd upon her. How can she bear
all this? She could not, were it not that her faith is as her affection;
and if the one is more deep and tender than in man, the other is more
simple and spontaneous, and takes confidently hold of the hand of God.

Thus, then, do children awaken within us deep and mighty affections; and
is it not their mission to do so? Do we not see many beautiful offices
created and discharged by these affections--tender and far-reaching
relationships into which they run? Do we not see how they win the heart
from frivolity and selfishness, and make it aware of duties, and quick
with sympathies? I shall not enter into detailed considerations of the
results of this affection thus awakened in us by children. A little
reflection will render them obvious to you. Let me simply say, that in
awakening these affections children discharge an important and beautiful
mission.

IV. I might speak of other offices discharged by little children; of the
influence upon us of their purity and their innocence; their importance
in the social state; of the benefits conferred upon us by the very
duties which we exercise toward them. But merely suggesting these, I
will speak at this time of but one more mission which they perform
for us, and this, my friends, is performed through sadness and through
tears. The little child performs it by its death. It has been with us a
little while. We have enjoyed its bright and innocent companionship by
the dusty highway of life, in the midst of its toils, its cares, and its
sin. It has been a gleam of sunshine and a voice of perpetual gladness
in our homes. We have learned from it blessed lessons of simplicity,
sincerity, purity, faith. It has unsealed within us this gushing,
never-ebbing tide of affection. Suddenly, it is taken away. We miss the
gleam of sunshine. We miss the voice of gladness. Our homes are dark and
silent. We ask, "Shall it not come again?" And the answer breaks upon
us through the cold gray silence, "Nevermore!" We say to ourselves again
and again, "Can it be possible?" "Do we not dream?" "Will not that life
and affection return to us?" "Nevermore!" O! nevermore! The heart is
like an empty mansion, and that word goes echoing through its desolate
chambers. We are stricken and afflicted. But must this, should this, be
always and only so? Are we not looking merely at the earthly aspect of
the event? Has it not a spiritual phase for us? Nay, do we not begin to
consider how through our temporal affection an eternal good is wrought
out for us? Do we begin to realize that in our souls we have derived
profit from it already? Do we not begin to learn that life is not a
holiday or a workday only, but a discipline,--that God conducts that
discipline in infinite wisdom and benevolence,--mingles the draught,
and, when he sees fit, infuses bitterness? Not that constant sweet
would not please us better, but that our discipline, which is of more
importance than our indulgence, will be more effectual thereby. This is
often talked about; I ask, do not we who are called upon to mourn the
loss of children realize it,--actually realize that that loss is for
our spiritual gain? If we do not, we are merely looking upon the earthly
phase of our loss. If we do not realize this spiritual good, we may.

Yes, in death the little child has a mission for us. Through that very
departure he accomplishes for us, perhaps, what he could not accomplish
by his life. These affections which he has awakened, we have considered
how strong they are. They are stronger, are they not, than any
attachment to mere things of this earth? But that child has gone from
us,--gone into the unseen, the spiritual world. What then? Do our
affections sink back into our hearts,--become absorbed and forgotten?
O, no! They reach out after that little one; they follow him into the
unseen and spiritual world,--thus is it made a great and vivid reality
to us,--perhaps for the first time. We have talked of it, we have
believed in it; but now that our dead have gone into it, we have, as
it were, entered it ourselves. Its atmosphere is around us, chords of
affection draw us toward it, the faces of our departed ones look out
from it--and it is a reality. And is it not worth something to make it
such a reality?

We are wedded to this world. It is beautiful, it is attractive, it is
real. Immortality is a pleasant thought. The spiritual land is an object
of faith. But the separation between this and that is cold to think of,
and hard to bear. It needs something stronger than this earth to draw us
toward that spiritual world; to break some of the thousand tendrils
that bind us here. My friends, though many powerful appeals, many solid
arguments, cannot break our affections from this earth, the hand of a
departed child can do it. The voice that calls us to unseen realities,
that bids us prepare for the heavenly land, that says from heights of
spiritual bliss and purity, "Come up hither;"--that voice that we loved
so on earth, and gladly can we rise and follow it.

Behold, then, what a little child can perform for us through its death!
It makes real and attractive to us that spiritual world to which it has
gone, and calls our affections from earth to that true life which is the
great end of our being, which is the object of all our discipline, our
mingled joy and suffering, here upon this earth. That little child, gone
from its sufferings of early,--gone

     "Gentle and undefiled, with blessings on its head,"--

has it indeed become a very angel of God for us, and is it calling us
to a more spiritual life, and does it win us to heaven? Is its memory
around us like a pure presence into which no thought of sin can readily
enter? Or is it with us, even yet, a spiritual companion of our ways?
From being the guarded and the guided, has it risen in infant innocence,
yet in the knowledge and majesty of the immortal life, to be the guard
and the guide? Does it, indeed, make our hearts softer and purer,
and cause us to think more of duty, and live more holy, thus clothing
ourselves to go and dwell with it? Does it, by its death, accomplish all
this? O! most important, most glorious mission of all, if we only heed
it, if we only accept it. Then shall we behold already the wisdom and
benevolence of our Father breaking through the cloud that overshadows
us. Already shall we see that the tie, which seemed to be dropped and
broken, God has taken up to draw us closer to himself, and that it
is interwoven with his all-gracious plan for our spiritual profit and
perfection. And we can anticipate how it will all be reconciled, when
his own hand shall wipe away our tears, and the bliss of reunion shall
extract the last drop of bitterness from "the cup that our Father had
given us."

OUR RELATIONS TO THE DEPARTED

     "She is not dead, but sleepeth."  Luke viii.52

A Great peculiarity of the Christian religion is its transforming
or transmuting power. I speak not now of the regeneration which
accomplishes in the individual soul, but of the change it works upon
things without. It applies the touchstone to every fact of existence,
and exposes its real value. Looking through the lens of spiritual
observation, it throws the realities of life into a reverse perspective
from that which is seen by the sensual eye. Objects which the world
calls great it renders insignificant, and makes near and prominent
things which the frivolous put off. Thus the Christian, among other men,
often appears anomalous. Often, amidst the congratulations of the world,
he detects reason for mourning, and is penetrated with sorrow. On the
contrary, where others shrink, he walks undaunted, and converts the
scene of dread and suffering into an ante-chamber of heaven. In this
light, the Apostle Paul speaks of himself and others, "As sorrowful, yet
always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and
yet possessing all things." Indeed, all the beatitudes are based upon
this peculiarity; for the true blessing, the inward, everlasting riches,
are for those who, in the world's eye, are poor, and mourning, and
persecuted. Jesus himself weeps amid triumphant psalms and sounding
hosannas, while on the cross he utters the prayer of forgiveness, and
the ejaculation of peace.

No wonder, then, that the believer views the ghastliest fact of all in
a consoling and even a beautiful aspect; and death itself becomes but
sleep. Well was that trait of our religion which I have now suggested
illustrated at the bed-side of Jairus' daughter. Well did that noisy,
lamenting group represent the worldly who read only the material fact,
or that flippant skepticism which laughs all supernatural truth to
scorn. And well did Jesus represent the spirit of his doctrine, and its
transforming power, when he exclaimed, "She is not dead, but sleepeth."

Yes! beautifully has Christianity transformed death. To the eye of flesh
it was the final direction of our fate,--the consummate riddle in this
mystery of being,--the wreck of all our hopes,--

     "The simple senses crowned his head,
         Omega! thou art Lord, they said;
         We find no motion in the dead."

Ever, though with higher desires and better gleamings, the mind has
struggled and sunk before this fact of decay, and this awful silence of
nature; while in the waning light of the soul, and among the ashes of
the sepulchre, skepticism has built its dreary negation. And though the
mother could lay down her child without taking hints which God gave her
from every little flower that sprung on that grassy bed,--though the
unexhausted intellect has reasoned that we ought to live again, and
the affections, more oracular, swelling with the nature of their great
source, have prophesied that we shall,--never, until the revelation
of Christ descended into our souls, and illuminated all our spiritual
vision, have we been able to say certainly of death, it is a sleep.
This has made its outward semblance not that of cessation, but of
progression--not an end, but a change--converting its rocky couch to a
birth-chamber, over-casting its shadows with beams of eternal morning,
while behind its cold unconsciousness the unseen spirit broods into
higher life. "He fell asleep," says the sacred chronicler, speaking
of bloody Stephen. "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth," said Christ to his
disciples; and yet again, as here in the text, the beautiful synonyme is
repeated, "She is not dead, but sleepeth."

But I proceed to remark, if the Christian religion thus transforms
death, or, in other words, abolishes the idea of its being annihilation,
or an end, then it gives us a new view of our relations to the departed.
What are these relations? The answers to this question will form the
burden of the present discourse.

I. There is the relation of memory. It is true, we may argue that
this relation exists whether the Christian view of death be correct or
not;--so long have those who are now gone actually lived with us,--so
vivid are their images among the realities of the soul,--though the
grave should forever shut them from our communion. But this relation
of memory has peculiar propriety and efficacy when associated with a
Christian faith. If the dead live no more, what would memory be to us
but a spectre and a sting? Should we not then seek to repress those
tender recollections,--to close our eyes to those pale, sad visions of
departed love? Should we not invoke the glare and tumult of the world
to distract or absorb our thoughts? Would we not say, "Let it come, the
pleasure, the occupation of the hour, that we may think no more of the
dead, plucked from us forever,--let us drive thoughtlessly down this
swift current of life, since thought only harrows us,--let us drive
thoughtlessly down, enjoying all we can, until we too lie by the side
of those departed ones, like them to moulder in everlasting
unconsciousness." I don not say that this would always be the case
without religious hope, but it is a very natural condition of the
feelings in such circumstances,--it is the most humane alternative that
would then be left. At least, no one so well as the Christian can go
into the inner chambers of memory, feel the strength of its sad yet
blissful associations, and calmly invoke the communion of the dead.

I speak not now of what occurs in those first bitter days of grief, when
the heart's wound bleeds afresh at every touch,--when we are continually
surprised by the bleak fact that the loved one is actually dead. But I
speak of those after seasons, those Indian summers of the soul, in which
all the present desolation is blended with the bloom and enjoyment of
the past. Then do we find that the tie which binds us so tenderly to the
departed is a strong and fruitful one. We love, in those still retired
seasons, to call up the images of the dead, to let them hover around us,
as real, for the hour, as any living forms. We linger in that communion,
with a pleasing melancholy. We call up all that was lovely in their
character, all that was delightful in their earthly intercourse. They
live again for us, and we for them.

In this relation of memory, moreover, we realize the fact, that while
the departed were upon earth we enjoyed much with them. This is a truth
which in any estimate of our loss we should not overlook. Do we mourn
that the dead have been taken from us so soon? Are we not also thankful
that they were ours so long? In our grief over unfulfilled expectation,
do we cherish no gratitude for actual good? So much bliss has God
mingled in our cup of existence that the might have withheld. He lent it
to us thus far; why complain, rather, that he did not intrust us with it
longer? O! these fond recollections, this concentrated happiness of past
hours which we call up with tears, remind us that so much good we have
actually experienced.

In close connection with this thought is the fact, that, by some
delicate process of refinement, we remember of the dead only what was
good. In the relation of memory we see them in their best manifestation,
we live over the hours of our past intercourse. Though in extraordinary
instances it may be true that "the evil which men do lives after them,"
yet even in regard to the illustrious dead, their imperfections are
overlooked, and more justice is done to their virtues than in their own
time. Much more is this the case with those around whom our affections
cling more closely. The communion of memory, far more than that of life,
is unalloyed by sharp interruptions, or by any stain. That communion
now, though saddened, is tender, and without reproach.

And even if we remember that while they lived our relations with them
were all beautiful, shall we not believe that when they were taken away
their earthly mission for us was fulfilled? Was not their departure as
essential a work of the divine beneficence as their bestowal? Who knows
but if they had overstayed the appointed hour, our relations with them
might have changed?--some new element of discontent and unhappiness
been introduced, which would have entirely altered the character of
our recollections? At least, to repeat what I have just suggested,
what Christian doubts that their taking away--this change from living
communion to the communion of memory--was for an end as wise and kind as
were all the love and intercourse so long vouchsafed to us?

Vital, the, for the Christian, is this relation which we have with the
dead by memory. We linger upon it, and find in it a strange and
sweet attraction, and is not much of this because, though we may be
unconscious of it, the current of faith subtilely intermingles with
our grief, and gives its tone to our communion? We cannot consider the
departed as lost to us forever. The suggestion of rupture holds a latent
suggestion of reunion. The hues of memory are colored by the reflection
of hope. Religion transforms the condition of the departed for us, and
we consider them not as dead, but sleeping.

II. There is another relation which we have with the dead,--the relation
of spiritual existence. We live with them, not only by communion with
the past, by images of memory, but by that fine, mysterious bond which
links us to all souls, and in which we live with them now and forever.
The faith that has converted death into a sleep has also transformed the
whole idea of life. If the one is but a halt in the eternal march,--a
slumbrous rest preceeding a new morning,--the other is but the flow
of one continuous stream, mated awhile with the flesh, but far more
intimately connected with all intelligences in the universe of God. What
are the conditions of our communion with the living--those with whom we
come in material contact? The eye, the lip, the hand, are but symbols,
interpretations;--behind these it is only spirit that communes with
spirit, even in the market or the street. But not to enter into so
subtle a discussion, of what kind are some of the best communions which
we have on earth? We take up some wise and virtuous book, and enter into
the author's mind. Seas separate us from him,--he knows us not; he never
hears our names. But have we not a close relation to him? Is there not
a strong bond of spiritual communion between us? Nay, may not the
intercourse we thus have with him be better and truer than any which we
could have from actual contact,--from local acquaintance? Then, some icy
barrier of etiquette might separate us,--some coldness of temperament
upon his part,--some spleen or disease; we might be shocked by some
temporary deformity; some little imperfection might betray itself. But
here, in his book, which we read three thousand miles away from him, we
receive his noblest thoughts,--his best spiritual revelations; and we
know him, and commune with him most intimately, not through local but
through spiritual affinities.

And how pleasing is the though that not even death interrupts this
relation. Years, as well as miles--ages may separate us from the great
and good man; but we hold with him still that living communion of the
spirit. Our best life may flow to us from this communion. Some of our
richest spiritual treasures have been deposited in this intercourse of
thought. Some of our noblest hopes and resolutions have been animated by
those whose lips have long since been sealed,--whose very monuments have
crumbled.

A dear friend goes away from us to a foreign land. We watch the
receeding sail, and feel that that is a bond between us, until it fades
away in the far blue horizon. Then it is a consolation to walk by the
shore of that sea, and to realize that the same waters lave the other
shore, where he dwells,--to watch some star, and know that at such an
hour his eye and thought are also directed to it. Thus the soul will not
entertain the idea of absolute separation, but makes all those material
objects agents for its affinities. But how much nearer does that absent
one come to us, when we know that at such an hour we both are kneeling
in prayer, and that our spirits meet, as it were, around the footstool
of God!

Thus we see that even in life there are spiritual relations which bind
us to our fellows, and that often these are dearer and stronger than
those of local contact. Why should we suppose that death cuts off all
such affinities? It does not cut them off. It only removes the loved
from our converse and our sight; but if, when absent in some distant
land of this earth, we are conscious of still holding relations to them,
do we not retain the same though they have vanished into that mysterious
and unseen land which lies beyond the grave? "She is not dead, but
sleepeth." Christianity has taught us to look away from the ghastly
secrets of the sepulchre, and not consider that changing clay as the
friend we mourn, but as only the cast-off and mouldering garment. It has
kindled within us a lively appreciation of the continued existence of
those who have gone from us; taught us to feel that the thoughts, the
love, the real life of the departed, all, in fact, that communed with
us here below, still lives and acts. And our relations to them are
relations which we bear, not to abstractions of memory, to phantoms
of by-gone joy, but to spiritual intelligences, whose current of being
flows on uninterrupted, with whose current of being our own mingles.
I know not how it is with others, but to me there is inexpressible
consolation in this thought.

But I would suggest that, as spiritual beings, we bear even a closer
relation to the departed. I said that Christianity has transformed the
whole idea of life. It has shown that we are essentially spirits, and
that our highest relations are spiritual. If so, it seems an arrogant
assumption to deny that any intercourse may exist between ourselves
and the spiritual world. Possessing as we do this mysterious nature,
throbbing with the attraction of the eternal sphere, who shall say that
it touches no spiritual confines,--that it has communion only with
the beings that we see? It is a dull atheism which repudiates all such
intimations as superstitious or absurd. To speak more distinctly, I
allude to the consoling thought which springs up almost intuitively,
that the departed may, at times, see us, and be present with us, though
we do not recognize them. For wise and good reasons, our senses may so
constrain us that we cannot perceive these spiritual beings. But the
same reasons do not exist to shut them from beholding and visiting us.
The most essential idea of the immortal state is that it yields certain
prerogatives which we cannot possess in our mortal condition. May it
not be, therefore, that while it is our lot to be restricted to sensuous
vision, and to behold only material forms, it is their privilege, having
received the spiritual sight, to see both spiritual and material things?

Nor need we imagine that immortality implies distance from us,--that
change of state requires any great change of place. Looking through
this earthly glass, we see but darkly; but when death shatters it we
may behold close around us the friends we have loved, and find their
spiritual peculiarity is not incompatible with such near residence.
The homes of departed spirits may be all around us,--these spirits
themselves may be ever hovering near, unseen in our blindness of the
senses. At all events, we deem it one of the grand distinctions of
spirit that it is not confined to one region of space, but may pass,
quick as its own intelligence, from sphere to sphere. And while I would
rebuke rash speculation, I would also rebuke the cold materialism which
unhesitatingly rejects an idea like this which I have now suggested.

I maintain, moreover, that such speculation is not all idle. It serves
to quicken within us the thought of how near the dead may be to us, to
purify that thought, and to breathe upon our fevered hearts a consoling
hope. And when I combine its intrinsic reasonableness with the spirit
and spiritualism of Christianity, and that intuitive suggestion which
springs up in so many souls, I can urge but faint objection to those
who entertain it, and would, if possible, share and diffuse the comfort
which it gives. Nearer, than, than we imagine--close as in mortal
contact, and more intimately--may be those whom we, with earthly vision
behold no more; visiting us in hours of loneliness, and affording unseen
companionship; watching us in the stillness of slumber, and reflecting
themselves in our dreams.

But, whether we indulge this notion or not, let us realize the relation
which we have with the departed by the ties of mutual spirituality. Let
us not coldly restrict or weaken this relation. If the material world is
full of inexplicable things,--if we cannot explain the secret affinities
of the star and the flower,--let us feel how full of mystery and how
full of promise is this spiritual universe of which we are parts, and
whose conditions we so little know. Let us cherish that transcendent
faith, that quick, spiritual sympathy, which says of the departed, "They
are not dead, but sleeping."

III. Finally, we have with the dead the relation of discipline. Though
we should see them only in the abstractions of memory,--though it should
be true that they have no spiritual intercourse with us,--yet their
agency in our behalf has not ceased. They still accomplish a work for
us. That work is in the moral efficacy of bereavement and sorrow. In
their going away they lead our thoughts out beyond the limits of the
world. They quicken us to an interest in the spiritual land, as one who
looks upon a map, and listlessly reads the name of some foreign shore,
so, often, do we open this blessed revelation not heeding its recital of
the immortal state. But as, when some friend goes to that distant coast,
that spot on the map becomes, of all places, most vivid and prominent,
so when our loved ones die, the spiritual country largely occupies our
thoughts and attracts our affections. They depart that we may be weaned
from earth. They ascend that we may "look steadfastly towards heaven."
If this is not our everlasting home, why should they all remain here
to cheat us with that thought? If we must seek a better country, should
there not be premonitions for us, breaking up, and farewells, and the
hurried departure of friends who are ready before us? I need not dwell
on this suggestion. We are too much of the earth, earthy, and bound
up in sensual interests. It is often needful that some shock of
disappointment should shake our idea of terrestrial stability--should
awake us to a sense of our spiritual relations--should strike open some
chasm in this dead, material wall, and let in the light of the unlimited
and immortal state to which we go. We need the discipline of bereavement
in temporal things, to win us to things eternal. And so, in their
departure, the loved accomplish for us a blessed and spiritual result,
and instead of being wholly lost to us, become bound to us by a new and
vital relation.

But these loved ones depart, no merely to bind our affections to another
state, but to fit us better for the obligations of this. Perhaps, in the
indulgence of full communion, in the liquid ease of prosperity, we have
scantily discharged our social duties. We have not appreciated love,
because we have never felt its absence. We have shocked the tenderest
ties, because we were ignorant of their tenderness. We have withheld
good offices, because we knew not how rare is the opportunity to fulfil
them. But when one whom we love passes away, then, realizing a great
loss, we learn how vital was that relation, how inestimable the
privilege which is withdrawn forever. How quick then is our regret
for every harsh word which we have spoken to the departed, or for any
momentary alienation which we have indulged! This, however, should not
reduce us to a morbid sensitiveness, or an unavailing sorrow, seeing
that it is blended with so many pleasant memories; but it should teach
us our duty to the living. It should make our affections more diligent
and dutiful. It should check our hasty words, and assuage our passions.
It should cause us, day and night, to meet in kindness and part in
peace. Our social ties are golden links of uncertain tenure, and, one by
one, they drop away. Let us cherish a more constant love for those who
make up our family circle, for "not long may we stay." The allotments of
duty, perhaps, will soon distribute us into different spheres of action;
our lines, which now fall together in a pleasant place, will be wide
apart as the zones, or death will cast his shadow upon these familiar
faces, and interrupt our long communion. Let us, indeed, preserve this
temper with all men--those who meet us in the street, in the mart, in
the most casual or selfish concerns of life. We cannot remain together a
great while, at the longest. Let us meet, then, with kindness, that when
we part no pang may remain. Let not a single day bear witness to the
neglect or violation of any duty which shall lie hard in the heart when
it is excited to tender and solemn recollections. Let only good-will
beam from faces that so soon shall be changed. Let no root of bitterness
spring up in one man's bosom against another, when, ere long, nature
will plant flowers upon their common grave. "Let not the sun go down
upon our wrath," when his morning beams may search our accustomed places
for one or both of us, in vain.

Thus, if the dead teach us to regard more dutifully the living, they
will accomplish for us a most beautiful discipline. Their departure may
also serve another end. It may teach us the great lessons of patience
and resignation. We have been surrounded by many blessings, and yet
perhaps, have indulged in fretfulness. A slight loss has irritated us.
We have chafed at ordinary disappointments, at little interruptions in
the current of our prosperity. We have been in the habit of murmuring.
And now this great grief has overtaken us, that we may see at what
little things we have complained,--that we may learn that there is a
meaning in trouble which should make us calm,--that we had no right to
these gifts, the privation of which has offended us, but that all
have flowed from that mercy which we have slightly acknowledged, and
peevishly accused. This great sorrow has stricken us, piercing through
bone and marrow, in order to reach our hearts, and touch the springs of
spiritual life within us, that henceforth, we may look upon all sorrow
in a new light. Little troubles have only disturbed the surface of our
nature, making it uneasy, and tossing it into fretful eddies; this heavy
calamity, like a mighty wind, has plunged into the very depths, and
turned up the foundations, leaving us, at length, purified and serene. I
believe we shall find it to be the general testimony that those who have
the least trouble are the loudest complainers; while, often, the souls
that have been fairly swept and winnowed by sorrow are the most patient
and Christ-like. The pressure of their woe has broken down all ordinary
reliances, and driven them directly to God, where they rest in sweet
submission and in calm assurance. Such is the discipline which may be
wrought out for us by the departure of those we love. Such, and other
spiritual results, their vanishing may secure for us, which we never
could have gained by their presence; and so it may be said by some
departing friend,--some one most dear to our hearts,--in a reverent
sense, as the Master said to his disciples, "It is expedient for you
that I go away; for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto
you."

As I have already touched upon the region of speculation, I hardly dare
drop a hint which belongs here, though it grows out of a remark made
under the last head. But I will say that it is not unreasonable to
suppose that the departed may perform a more close and personal agency
than this which I have just dwelt upon. Often, it may be, they are
permitted messengers for our welfare; guardians, whose invisible wings
shield us; teachers, whose unfelt instructions mysteriously sway us.
The child may thus discharge an office of more than filial love for the
bereaved parents. The mother may watch and minister to her child.
The father, by unseen influences, win to virtue the heart of his
poor prodigal. But whether this be so or not, certain are we that the
departed do discharge such an agency, if not by spiritual contact with
us, or direct labor in our behalf, by the chastening influence that
their memory sheds upon us, by uplifting our thoughts, by spiritualizing
our affections, by drawing our souls to communion with things celestial
and with God.

Let us see to it, then, that we improve this discipline; that we quench
not the holy aspiration which springs up in our sorrow; that we neglect
not the opportunity when our hearts are softened; that we continue the
prayer which first escaped our lips as a sigh and a call of distress;
that the baptism of tears lets us into the new life of reconciliation,
and love, and holiness. Otherwise, the discipline is of no avail, and,
it may be, we harden under it.

And, finally, let me say, that the faith by which we regard our
relations to the departed in the light that has been exhibited in this
discourse, is a faith that must be assimilated with our entire spiritual
nature. It must be illustrated in our daily conduct, and sanctify every
thought and motive of our hearts. We should not seek religion merely for
its consolations, and take it up as an occasional remedy. In this way
religion is injured. It is associated only with sorrow, and clothed, to
the eyes of men, in perpetual sadness. It is sought as the last resort,
the heart's extreme unction, when it has tried the world's nostrums
in vain. It is dissociated from things healthy and active,--from all
ordinary experiences,--from the great whole of life. It is consigned to
the darkened chamber of mourning, and the weary and disappointed spirit.
Besides, to seek religion only in sorrow,--to fly to it as the last
refuge,--argues an extreme selfishness. We have served the world and our
own wills, we have lived the life of the senses, and obeyed the dictates
of our passions so long as they could satisfy us, and now we turn to God
because we find that he only can avail us! We seek religion for the good
it can do us, not for the service we can render God. We lay hold of it
selfishly, as something instituted merely for our help, and lavish our
demands upon it for consolation, turning away sullen and skeptical,
it may be, if these demands are not immediately answered. Many come
to religion for consolation who never apply to it for instruction,
for sanctification, for obedience. Let us learn that we can claim its
privileges only by performing its duties. We can see with the eye of its
clear, consoling faith, only when it has spiritualized our entire being,
and been developed in our daily conduct. Affliction may open religious
ideas in the soul, but only by the soul's discipline will those ideas
expand until they become our most intimate life, and we habitually enjoy
celestial companionship, and that supersensual vision of faith by which
we learn our relations to the departed.

That faith let us receive and cherish. If we live it we shall believe
it. No sophistry can steal it from us, no calamity make us surrender it.
But the keener the trial the closer will be our confidence. Standing
by the open sepulchre in which we see our friends, "not dead, but
sleeping," we shall say to insidious skepticism and gloomy doubt, in the
earnest words of the poet,

     "O! steal not thou my faith away,
         Nor tempt to doubt a lowly mind.
     Make all that earth can yield thy prey,
         But leave this heavenly gift behind.
     Our hope is but the seaboy's dream,
         When loud winds rise in wrath and gloom;
     Our life, a faint and fitful beam,
         That lights us to the cold, dark tomb;

     Yet, since, as one from heaven has said,
         There lies beyond that dreary bourn
     A region where the faithful dead
         Eternally forget to mourn,
     Welcome the scoff, the sword, the chain,
         The burning waste, the black abyss:--
     I shrink not from the path of pain,
         Which leads me to that world of bliss.

     Then hush, thou troubled heart! be still;--
         Renounce thy vain philosophy;--
     Seek thou to work thy Maker's will,
         And light from heaven shall break on thee.
     'Twill glad thee in the weary strife,
         Where strong men sink with falling breath;--
     'Twill cheer thee in the noon of life,
         And bless thee in the night of death."

THE VOICES OF THE DEAD

     "And by it he being dead yet speaketh."  Hebrews xi. 4.

Much of the communion of this earth is not by speech or actual contact,
and the holiest influences fall upon us in silence. A monument or symbol
shall convey a meaning which cannot be expressed; and a token of some
departed one is more eloquent than words. The mere presence of a good
and holy personage will move us to reverence and admiration, though he
may say and do but little. So is there an impersonal presence of such an
one; and, though far away, he converses with us, teaches and incites us.
The organs of speech are only one method of the soul's expression; and
the best information which it receives comes without voice or sound. We
hear no vocal utterance from God, yet he speaks to us through all the
forms of nature. In the blue, ever-arching heaven he tells us of his
comprehensive care and tender pity, and "the unwearied sun" proclaims
his constant and universal benevolence. The air that wraps us close
breathes of his intimate and all-pervading spirit; and the illimitable
space, and the stars that sparkle abroad without number, show forth his
majesty and suggest infinitude. The gush of silent prayer--the sublimest
mood of the spirit--is when we are so near to him that words cannot come
between; and the power of his presence is felt the most, felt in the
profoundest deep of our nature, when the curtains of his pavilion
hang motionless around us. And it is so, I repeat, with all our best
communions. The holiest lessons are not in the word, but the life. The
virtues that attract us most are silent. The most beautiful charities
go noiseless on their mission. The two mites reveal the spiritual
wealth beneath the poor widow's weeds; the alabaster box of ointment is
fragrant with Mary's gratitude; the look of Christ rebukes Peter into
penitence; and by his faith Abel, being dead, yet speaketh.

Yes, even the dead, long gone from us, returning no more, their places
left vacant, their lineaments dimly remembered, their bodies mouldering
back to dust, even these have communion with us; and to speak of "the
voices of the dead" is no mere fancy. And it is to that subject that I
would call your attention, in the remainder of a brief discourse.

"He being dead yet speaketh." The departed have voices for us. In order
to illustrate this, I remark, in the first place, that the dead speak to
us, and commune with us, through the works which they have left behind
them. As the islands of the sea are the built-up casements of myriads
of departed lives,--as the earth itself is a great catacomb,--so we who
live and move upon its surface inherit the productions and enjoy the
fruits of the dead. They have bequeathed to us by far the larger portion
of all that influences our thoughts, or mingles with the circumstances
of our daily life. We walk through the streets they laid out. We inhabit
the houses they built. We practise the customs they established. We
gather wisdom from books they wrote. We pluck the ripe clusters of their
experience. We boast in their achievements. And by these they speak to
us. Every device and influence they have left behind tells their story,
and is a voice of the dead. We feel this more impressively when we enter
the customary place of one recently departed, and look around upon his
work. The half-finished labor, the utensils hastily thrown aside,
the material that exercised his care and received his last touch, all
express him, and seem alive with his presence. By them, though dead, he
speaketh to us, with a freshness and tone like his words of yesterday.
How touching are those sketched forms, those unfilled outlines in
that picture which employed so fully the time and genius of the
great artist--Belshazzar's feast! In the incomplete process, the
transition-state of an idea from its conception to its realization, we
are brought closer to the mind of the artist; we detect its springs
and hidden workings, and therefore feel its reality more than in
the finished effort. And this is one reason why we are impressed at
beholding the work just left than in gazing upon one that has been for
a long time abandoned. Having had actual communion with the contriving
mind, we recognize its presence more readily in its production; or else
the recency of the departure heightens the expressiveness with which
everything speaks of the departed. The dead child's cast-off garment,
the toy just tossed aside, startles us as though with his renewed
presence. A year hence, they will suggest him to us, but with a
different effect.

But though not with such an impressive tone, yet just as much, in fact,
do the productions of those long gone speak to us. Their minds are
expressed there, and a living voice can do little more. Nay, we are
admitted to a more intimate knowledge of them than was possessed by
their contemporaries. The work they leave behind them is the sum-total
of their lives--expresses their ruling passion--reveals, perhaps, their
real sentiment. To the eyes of those placed on the stage with them, they
walked as in a show, and each life was a narrative gradually unfolding
itself. We discover the moral. We see the results of that completed
history. We judge the quality and value of that life by the residuum. As
"a prophet has no honor in his own country," so one may be misconceived
in his own time, both to his undue disparagement, and his undue
exaltation; therefore can another age better write his biography than
his own. His work, his permanent result, speaks for him better--at least
truer--than he spoke for himself. The rich man's wealth,--the sumptuous
property, the golden pile that he has left behind him;--by it, being
dead, does he not yet speak to us? Have we not, in that gorgeous result
of toiling days and anxious nights,--of brain-sweat and soul-rack,--the
man himself, the cardinal purpose, the very life of his soul? which we
might have surmised while he lived and wrought, but which, now that it
remains the whole sum and substance of his mortal being, speaks far
more emphatically than could any other voice he might have used. The
expressive lineaments of the marble, the pictured canvas, the immortal
poem;--by it, Genius, being dead, yet speaketh. To us, and not to its
own time, are unhoarded the wealth of its thought and the glory of its
inspiration. When it is gone,--when its lips are silent, and its heart
still,--then is revealed the cherished secret over which it toiled,
which was elaborated from the living alembic of the soul, through
painful days and weary nights,--the sentiment which could not find
expression to contemporaries,--the gift, the greatness, the lyric power,
which was disguised and unknown so long. Who, that has communed with
the work of such a spirit, has not felt in every line that thrilled his
soul, in every wondrous lineament that stamped itself upon his memory
forever, that the dead can speak, yes, that they have voices which
speak most truly, most emphatically when they are dead? So does Industry
speak, in its noble monuments, its precious fruits! So does Maternal
Affection speak, in a chord that vibrates in the hardest heart, in the
pure and better sentiment of after-years. So does Patriotism speak, in
the soil liberated and enriched by its sufferings. So does the martyr
speak, in the truth which triumphs by his sacrifice. So does the great
man speak, in his life and deeds, glowing on the storied page, so does
the good man speak, in the character and influence which he leaves
behind him. The voices of the dead come to us from their works, from
their results and these are all around us.

But I remark, in the second place, that the dead speak to us in memory
and association. If their voices may be constantly heard in their works,
we do not always heed them; neither have we that care and attachment for
the great congregation of the departed which will at any time call them
up vividly before us. But in that congregation there are those whom we
have known intimately and fondly, whom we cherished with our best love,
who lay close to our bosoms. And these speak to us in a more private and
peculiar manner,--in mementos that flash upon us the whole person of the
departed, every physical and spiritual lineament--in consecrated hours
of recollection that upon up all the train of the past, and re-twine its
broken ties around our hearts, and make its endearments present still.
Then, then, though dead, they speak to us. It needs not the vocal
utterance, nor the living presence, but the mood that transforms the
scene and the hour supplies these. That face that has slept so long
in the grave, now bending upon us, pale and silent, but affectionate
still,--that more vivid recollection of every feature, tone, and
movement, that brings before us the departed just as we knew them in the
full flush of life and health,--that soft and consecrating spell which
falls upon us, drawing in all our thoughts from the present, arresting,
as it were, the current of our being, and turning it back and holding it
still as the flood of actual life rushes by us,--while in that trance
of soul the beings of the past are shadowed--old friends, old days, old
scenes recur, familiar looks beam close upon us, familiar words reecho
in our ears, and we are closed up and absorbed with the by-gone, until
tears dissolve the film from our eyes, and some shock of the actual
wakes us from our reverie;--all these, I say make the dead to commune
with us as really as though in bodily form they should come out from
the chambers of their mysterious silence, and speak to us. And if life
consists in experiences, and not mere physical relations,--and if love
and communion belong to that experience, though they take place in
meditation, or in dreams, or by actual contact,--then, in that hour of
remembrance, have we really lived with the departed, and the departed
have come back and lived with us. Though dead, they have spoken to us.
And though memory sometimes induces the spirit of heaviness,--though it
is often the agent of conscience, and wakens u to chastise,--yet, it is
wonderful how, from events that were deeply mingled with pain, it
will extract an element of sweetness. A writer, in relating one of
the experiences of her sick-room, has illustrated this. In an hour of
suffering, when no one was near here, she went out from her bed and her
room to another apartment, and looked out upon a glorious landscape of
sunrise and spring-time. "I was suffering too much to enjoy this picture
at the moment," she says, "but how was it at the end of the year? The
pains of all those hours were annihilated,--as completely vanished as if
they had never been; while the momentary peep behind the window-curtain
made me possessor of this radiant picture for evermore." "Whence came
this wide difference," she asks, "between the good and the evil? Because
good is indissolubly connected with ideas,--with the unseen realities
which are indestructible." And though the illustration which she thus
gives may bear the impression of an individual personality, instead of
a universal truth, still, in the instance to which I apply it, I believe
it will very generally hold true, that memory leaves a pleasant rather
than a painful impression. At least, there is so much that is pleasant
mingled with it that we would not willingly lose the faculty of
memory,--the consciousness that we can thus call back the dead, and hear
their voices,--that we have the power of softening the rugged realities
which only suggest our loss and disappointment, by transferring the
scene and the hour to the past and the departed. And, as our conceptions
become more and more spiritual, we shall find the real to be less
dependent upon the outward and the visible,--we shall learn how much
life there is in a thought,--how veritable are the communions of spirit;
and the hour in which memory gives us the vision of the dead will be
prized by us as an hour of actual experience and such opportunities will
grow more precious to us. No, we would not willingly lose this power
of memory. One would not say, "Let the dead never come back to me in a
thought, or a dream; let them never glide before me in the still
watch of meditation; let me see, let me hear them no more, even in
fancy;"--not one of us would say this; and, therefore, it is
evident, that whatever painful circumstance memory or association may
recall,--even though it cause us to go out and weep bitterly,--there
is a sacred pleasure, a tender melancholy, that speaks to us in these
voices of the dead, which we are willing to cherish and repeat. It makes
our tears soft and sanctifying as they fall; it makes our hearts purer
and better,--makes them stronger for the conflict of life.

I remark, finally, that the dead speak to us in those religious
suggestions--those consolations, invitations, and hopes--which the
bereaved spirit indulges. Our meditations, concerning them naturally
draw us more closely to these spiritual realities which lie beyond the
grave, and beget in us those holier sentiments which we need. That such
is the tendency of these recollections experience assures us. They
open for us a new order of thought; they bring us in contact with the
loftiest but most neglected truths. Even the hardest heart feels this
influence. It is softened by the stroke of bereavement and, for the time
being, a chastening influence falls upon it, and it always thinks of
the dead with tenderness and awe. They speak to our affections with an
irresistible influence; they soothe our turbulent passions with their
mild and holy calmness; they rebuke us in their spiritual majesty for
our sensuality and our sin. They have departed, but they are not silent.
Though dead, they speak to us. Sweet and sanctifying is their communion
with us. They utter words of warning, too, and speak to us by the silent
eloquence of example. By this they bid us imitate all that was good in
their lives, all that is dear to remember. By this, too, they tell us
that we are passing swiftly from the earth, and hastening to join their
number. A little while ago, and they were as we are;--a little while
hence, and we shall be as they. Our work, like theirs, will be left
behind to speak for us. How important, then, that we consider what work
we do! They assure us that nothing is perpetual here. They bid us not
fasten our affections upon earth. In long procession they pass us by,
with solemn voices telling of their love and hatred, their interests
and cares, their work and device;--all abandoned now and passed away, as
little worth as the dust that blows across their graves. Upon all that
was theirs, upon every memorial of them, broods a melancholy dimness and
silence. They recede more and more from the associations of the living.
New tides of life roll through the cities of their habitation, and upon
the foot-worn pavements of their traffic other feet are busy. Their
lovely labor, or their stately pomp, is forgotten. No one weeps or cares
for them. Their solicitous monuments are unheeded. The companions of
their youth have rejoined them. The young, who scarcely remembered them,
are giving way to another generation. The places that knew them know
them no longer. "This, this," their solemn voices preach to us, "is the
changeableness of earth, and the emptiness of its pursuits!" They urge
us to seek the noblest end, the unfailing treasure. They bid us to find
our hope and our rest, our only constant joy in Him, who alone, amid
this mutability and decay, is permanent,--in God!

Well, then, is it for us to listen to the voices of the dead. By so
doing, we are better fitted for life, and for death. From that audience
we go purified and strengthened into the varied discipline of our mortal
state. We are willing to stay, knowing that the dead are so near us, and
that our communion with them may be so intimate. We are willing to go,
seeing that we shall not be widely separated from those we leave behind.
We will toil in our lot while God pleases, and when he summons us we
will calmly depart. When the silver cord becomes untwined, and the
golden bond broken,--when the wheel of action stands still in the
exhausted cistern of our life,--may we lie down in the light of that
faith which makes so beautiful the face of the dying Christian, and has
converted death's ghastly silence to a peaceful sleep; may we rise to a
holier and more visible communion, in the land without a sin and without
a tear; where the dead shall be closer to us than in this life; where
not the partition of a shadow, or a doubt, shall come between.

MYSTERY AND FAITH

     "For we walk by faith, not by sight."  II Corinthians v. 7.

It needs only common experience, and but little of that, to convince us
that this life is full of mystery, and at every step we take demands of
us faith. For at every step we take we literally walk by faith; in every
work we do we must have confidence in something which is not by sight,
in something which is not yet demonstrated. Skepticism carried to its
ultimate consequences is the negation of everything. It closes up the
issues of all knowledge, and sunders every ligament that binds us
to practical life. We must have faith in something or we stand on
no promises; we can predicate nothing. It may be said that in the
experience of the past we have a guide for the future; but then, must we
not have faith in experience? Do we not trust something which is not
yet demonstrated when we say "This cause which produced that effect
yesterday will produce a similar effect today or tomorrow?" How do we
know--positively know, that it will produce that effect, and what are
the grounds of our knowledge? This boasted "cause and effect," this
"experience," what right have we to rely upon it for one moment of
the future? Not for that moment has it demonstrated anything;--it
demonstrated for the time being, and the time being only; and our
confidence that it will do so again is faith, not sight--faith in
cause and effect, faith in experience, but faith after all. Hume, the
philosopher, has illustrated the positions which have now been taken.
"As to past experience," says he, "it can be allowed to give direct
and certain information of those precise objects only, and that precise
period of time which fell under its cognizance; but why this experience
should be extended to future times, and to other objects, which for
aught we know may be only in appearance similar; this is the main
question on which I would insist. The bread which I formerly ate
nourished me; that is, a body of such sensible qualities was, at that
time, endued with such secret powers; but does it follow that other
bread must also nourish me at another time, and that like sensible
qualities must also be attended with like secret powers? The consequence
seems nowise necessary." And yet we eat our bread, day by day, without a
doubt or a fear. We sow the grain and we reap the wheat, but for all the
work is done in faith, and the whole process is steeped in mystery.
In that scattering of the golden seed, what confidence is expressed
in elements that we cannot see, in beneficent agencies that we cannot
control, in results that are beyond our power, and that in their growth
and development are full of wonder exceeding our wisdom. Give up faith;
say that we will act only upon that which is demonstrated and known,
say that we will walk only so far as sight reaches, and we completely
separate the present from the future, and stop all the mechanism of
practical life.

But if we take a wider view of things, and consider this material
universe in which we live, the great fact of mystery and the need of
faith will be urged upon us by a larger and more impressive teaching.
The more we learn of nature the more clearly is revealed to us this
fact--that we know less than we thought we did; positively, we know
more, but relatively we know less, because as we have advanced nature
has stretched out into wider and wider relations. The department that
was unknown to us yesterday is explored to-day. Yesterday, we thought
it was all that remained to be explored, but the torch of investigation
that guided us through it now flares out upon new regions we did not
see before. Like one who goes with a candle into some immense cavern,
presently a little circle becomes clear, the shadows vanish before him,
and undefined forms grow distinct, he thinks he is near the end, when
lo! what seemed a solid boundary of rock dissolves and floats away into
a depth of darkness, the path opens into an immense void, new shapes of
mystery start out, and he learns this much that he did not know before,
that instead of being near the end, he is only upon the threshold. We do
not mean to imply by this that we have no positive knowledge, or that
we do not increase in knowledge. With every new discovery we positively
know more and more. But the new discovery reveals the fact that more is
yet to be known; it lays open new regions, it unfolds new relations that
we had not before suspected.

We follow some tiny thread a little way, and hold it secure, but it is
connected with another ligament, and this branches out into a third; and
instead of exhausting the matter, we find ourselves at the root of an
infinite series, of an immense relationship, upon which we have only
just opened; and yet what we have is positive knowledge, is something
more added to our stock. The circle of the known has positively widened,
but the horizon of the unknown has widened also, and, instead of being
to us now, as it seemed some time ago, a solid and ultimate limit, it
is only an ethereal wall, only to us a relative boundary, and behind are
infinite depths and mystery. Our scientific knowledge at the present day
reaches this grand result--it clears up the deception that the system
of nature is mere flat, dead materiality, a few mechanical laws, a few
rigid forms. It shows that these are only the husks, the outer garments
of mighty forces of subtile, far-reaching agencies; and the most common,
every-day truths, that seemed stale and exhausted, become illuminated
with infinite meaning, and are the blossoms of an infinite life.

The wider our circle of discovery, the wider our wonder; the more
startling our conclusions, the more perplexing our questions. We have
not exhausted the universe;--we have just begun to see its harmony of
proportion and of relations, without penetrating a fathom into its
real life. How and what is that power that works in the shooting of
a crystal, and binds the obedience of a star; that shimmers in the
northern Aurora, and connects by its attraction the aggregated universe;
that by its unseen forces, its all-prevalent jurisdiction, holds the
little compass to the north, blooms in the nebula and the flower, weaves
the garment of earth and the veil of heaven, darts out in lightning,
spins the calm motion of the planets, and presides mysteriously over
all motion and all life? And what is life, and what is death, and what
a thousand things that we touch, and experience, and think we know all
about? O! as science, as nature opens upon us, we find mystery after
mystery, and the demand upon the human soul if for faith, faith in high,
yes, in spiritual realities; and this materialism that would shut us in
to death and sense, that denies all spirit and all miracle, is shattered
like a crystal sphere, and the soul rushes out into wide orbits and
infinite revolutions, into life, and light, and power, that are of
eternity,--that are of God!

Thus the scale is prepared for us to rise from things of sense to things
of spirit, to rise from faith in nature to faith in Revelation, from
the faith of LaPlace to the faith of Paul. No one who has studied nature
will reject Christianity because it reveals truths that he cannot
see with his naked eye,--because it speaks of things that he cannot
comprehend. No one who has considered the shooting of a green blade
will dogmatically deny its miracles. No one who has found in the natural
world the intelligent wisdom that pervades all things, will wonder that
he discovers a revelation of perfect love in Jesus Christ. "We walk by
faith, not by sight," said Paul. So says every Christian; and it is of
all things the most rational. Faith in something higher and greater
than we can see, faith in something above this narrow scene, faith in
something beyond this present life, faith in realities that are not of
time or sense; from all that we have now considered we claim such faith
to be most rational, most natural. God, spirit, immortality, instead
of being inconsistent with what we know, are what we most legitimately
deduce from it,--what we might expect from the light that trembles
behind the curtain of mystery which bounds all our sensuous knowledge.
We do believe, the veriest skeptic believes in something behind that
curtain of mystery; nor can he withhold his faith because it attaches to
that which is unseen and incomprehensible, without, as has already
been shown, cutting every nerve that binds us to practical life, and
smothering every suggestion that speaks from outward nature. If he do
not believe in a God, then, or in Christ, or in immortality, let him not
sneer at others because they walk by faith and not by sight; for he also
must do so, though his faith be not in such high truths, such spiritual
realities.

The Christian's faith is an Infinite Father and an immortal life, and
though he cannot see them, cannot come in material contact with them, he
believes them to be the greatest of all realities, and he sees them by
faith, a medium as legitimate as that of sight. They are mysteries,
but everything contains a mystery; they demand of him what every day's,
every hour's events demand of him--faith. Let us understand, however,
that faith is not the surrendering of our minds to that which is
irrational and inconsistent. These terms should not be confounded with
the mysterious and the incomprehensible. That the earth moves and yet
stands still is not a proposition that demands faith. It is in the
province of reason to say that it cannot move and stand still at the
same time. It is an inconsistency. But how the earth moves on its axis,
what is that law that makes it move, is an incomprehensibility. An
incomprehensibility is one thing, an inconsistency is another thing.
The one conflicts with our reason, the other is beyond it. In that which
conflicts with our reason we cannot have faith, but as to that which is
beyond it we exercise faith every day; for we literally walk by faith
and not by sight.

Who shall say, then, that God, immortality, and those high truths
revealed by Jesus, are inconsistent? Do they not conform to the highest
reason? Do not our deepest intuitions demand that these revelations
should be true? Consult your nature, examine your own heart, consider
what you are, what you want, what you feel, deeply want, keenly feel,
and then say whether the Revelation of a God, a Father, and an immortal
life, satisfies you as nothing else can. Take them away, and would there
not be a dreary and overwhelming void? And because you have not seen
God, because you have not realized immortality, because they reach
beyond your present vision, because the grave shuts you in, because they
are high and transcendent truths, will you reject them? Do so, and try
to walk by sight alone. With that nature of yours, so full of love, with
that intellect of yours so limitless in capacity, you are apparently a
child of the elements, a thing of physical nature, born of the dust,
and returning to it. With desires that reach out beyond the stars, with
faculties that in this life just begin to bud, with affections whose
bleeding tendrils cling around the departed, wrestle with death, and say
to the grave, "Give up the dead! they are not thine, but mine; I
feel they must be mine forever," with all these desires, capacities,
affections, you walk--so far as mere sight helps you--among graves and
decay, with nothing more enduring, nothing better, than three-score
years and ten, the clods of the valley, the crumbling bone, and
the dissolving dust! Because God and immortality are mysterious,
incomprehensible, reject them, and walk only by sight? The humblest
outpouring of human affection rebukes thy skepticism; the most narrow
degree of human intellect prophesies beyond all this; the darkest heart,
with that spark of eternal life, the yearning that moves beneath all
its sensualities, and speaks for better, for more enduring things,--that
rebukes thee; and in man's moral nature, in his heart and his mind,
there is that which only can be satisfied, only can be explained by
God and immortality. They alone, then, are rational, they alone have
comprehensive vision, who walk by faith, and not by sight.

Mystery and faith, then; let what we have said concerning these be not
alone for the skeptic, but for the Christian who has faith but cannot
fully justify and confirm it, or who feels it faltering under some heavy
burden, or who is overwhelmed by the magnitude of the truths to which
it attaches, or who wishes, with a kind of half-doubt, that these things
might be seen and felt. They are great, they are incomprehensibly great;
but are they therefore untrue? Does not your heart of hearts tell you
they are true? Does not that Revelation of Christ steal into your soul
and feed it, satisfy it, as nothing else can, with a warm, benignant
power, that makes you know its truth?

Mysteries are all about us, but faith sees light beyond and around them
all. Have you recently laid down the dead in their place of rest? Cold
and crushing, then, is that feeling of vacancy, that dreary sense of
loss, that rushes upon you, as you look through the desolate chambers
without,--through the desolate chambers of the heart within. But will
not He who calls out from the very dust where yon sleepers lie the
flowers of summer, and who, in the snows that enwrap their bed,
cherishes the germs of the glorious springtime, will not He who works
out this beautiful mystery in nature bring life back from the tomb,
and light out of darkness? It is truly a great mystery; but everything
within us responds to it as reasonable; and though it demands our faith,
who, who, in this limited and changing world, can walk by sight alone?