VII
IMMORTALITY[12]
"Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die."—St. John xi. 25, 26.
"Whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die." If a man die, shall he live again? There is no time in our history when that has been a more pressing question than it is to-day. Men are dying in hundreds. I can think myself of some as dear to me as if they were my own sons, whose bodies are lying to-day in some Belgian or French grave. And I spend much of my time in going to comfort the widows and the mothers. If a man die, shall he live again? I wonder whether you have ever read or heard read this little poem called "The Army of the Dead":[13]
"I dreamt that overhead
I saw in twilight grey
The Army of the Dead
Marching upon its way,
So still and passionless,
With faces so serene,
That scarcely could one guess
Such men in war had been.
"No mark of hurt they bore,
Nor smoke, nor bloody stain;
Nor suffered any more
Famine, fatigue, or pain;
Nor any lust of hate
Now lingered in their eyes—
Who have fulfilled their fate,
Have lost all enmities.
"A new and greater pride
So quenched the pride of race
That foes marched side by side
Who once fought face to face.
That ghostly army's plan
Knows but one race, one rod—
All nations there are Man,
And the one King is God.
"No longer on their ears
The bugle's summons falls;
Beyond these tangled spheres
The Archangel's trumpet calls;
And by that trumpet led
Far up the exalted sky,
The Army of the Dead
Goes by, and still goes by.
"Look upward, standing mute;
Salute!"
And will they live again? I think that what chills our faith, and forms really the only argument that they will not live again, is the dead appearance of the dead. I am perfectly certain it is that that chills the faith of hundreds. The dead look so dead. There is "no voice nor any that answers, nor any that regardeth," and all the attempts, foolish, often even mischievous, to reach those in the other world have ended in utter failure. And, therefore, when we are facing the dead appearance of the dead, we are facing the only argument there is that they do not live again.
I want to say now one or two things that I hope will help you to have a happy view of death, to make you absolutely certain that when a man dies he does live again.
1. And, first of all, remember how deceptive are appearances in Nature. We might be absolutely certain, might we not? if we did not know to the contrary, that this earth was quite still. It does not seem to move in the slightest degree, but we really know that the earth is travelling at the terrific speed of nineteen miles a second through space—nineteen miles every second. It does look, does it not? as if the sun was going round the earth quite quickly. But actually the earth is going round the sun. Again, when you blow a candle out, it does seem as if you really put it out. But do you? It is just the one thing you do not do. You do not blow it out. The force in the flame passes into another form. The conservation of force or energy is one of the great truths of science. You do not blow the candle out at all. Therefore even from this lowest ground there is nothing whatever in science that makes it improbable that when a man dies he shall live again. But you may go farther, without leaving what we are taught by scientific knowledge. A man's body is changed every seven years. Yet the man does not change. I look back and remember myself perfectly well as a boy who went to a certain school. And yet not a fragment of my present body went to that school. There must be someone in me that persists, that goes on when the body changes. If I were to cut off my hand I should still be myself; if I were to cut off my arm, my leg, still I should remain. And so if the whole body goes, I am still myself. If we had not anything more than this, we could not prove that men live after death; but there is nothing whatever in the whole teaching of science to disprove that we do. You might, for instance, notice that an instrument in a room is perfectly silent, but that may be because he who has been playing upon it has gone into another room. There would be no argument in the silence of the instrument for the non-existence of the player. I say that because one of the most touching incidents in my life was when a poor little girl said to me (I have often quoted this): "I feel so afraid of death. I seem to see it coming down on me like a great shadow." For a moment or two I prayed for the right word to say to her, and it seemed to come to me, as it does come at these moments, from the Holy Spirit. I said to her: "You would not be afraid if I were to come and carry you into the next room." "No," she said, "I should not." "Well, then," I said, "would you be afraid if someone ten thousand times kinder, and with ten thousand times more strength, should carry you into another room?" When I next saw her she was dead, with a smile on her face. If the player has gone away into the next room, no wonder the instrument does not sound. And therefore, if the body seems dead, it only seems dead because the owner of the body has gone into the next room. It is said in the hospital, as the nurse comes out from behind the screen: "He is gone." He is gone—quite so, he is gone—therefore no wonder his body looks dead.
2. And this becomes all the more certain when you notice that ever since man has existed he has always believed and felt perfectly certain that he is going to survive death. This is one of the great instincts in humanity. Such convictions always point to some great truth that corresponds to them. For instance, the prayer instinct in man demands God. It has been beautifully said that, just as the fin of the fish demands the water, and just as the wing of the bird demands air, so the instinct of prayer in man demands God. Man is a praying animal. He always has prayed, and that great instinct of prayer demands satisfaction. He always has believed he is going to live after death, and the very fact that that instinct has been planted in him everywhere demands that he shall. There is a very touching story in ancient literature about the great Greek philosopher Socrates. Although he knew nothing about Christ or the Christian revelation, he had a long conversation, recorded in one of the most ancient writers, before he drank the fatal poison, hemlock. Although he had not the Christian revelation, he gave all the arguments necessary to make everyone around him certain that five minutes after death he would be the same as five minutes before.
3. And this becomes all the more certain when you consider the character of God. People often do not realise how much the character of God is bound up with this question of immortality. No good man would implant a living instinct in a child's nature and then love to tantalise and disappoint it. No good man would do it, or think for a moment of doing it; and do you suppose God would? Let me read you the first portion of a beautiful letter which I have received from one of the highest in the land, who lost her husband last year, and has lost her splendid son this year in battle. She writes: "Dear and kindest friend, Lord Bishop—I have lingered in thanking you for your letter, because it was so precious, and is always beside me to inspire and comfort. England has gone forth 'obedient unto death' in the honour that befits her, and we must try and be worthy. It does not seem lonely, for they have gone in good company, that great band of brave, shining knights who have given all." That beautiful trust inspires the "Farewell of the Dead," which was written during the early weeks of the war:
"Mother with unbowed head,
Hear thou across the sea
The farewell of the dead,
The dead who died for thee.
Greet them again with tender words and grave,
For, saving thee, themselves they could not save.
"To keep the house unharmed
Their fathers built so fair,
Deeming endurance armed
Better than brute despair,
They found the secret of the word that saith,
'Service is sweet, for all true life is death.'
"So greet thou well thy dead
Across the homeless sea,
And be thou comforted
Because they died for thee.
Far off they served, but now their deed is done
For evermore their life and thine are one."
Now, do you suppose—this is to me an absolutely irrefragable argument—do you suppose that God would have planted the love of that son in that mother's heart, and given her that faith, and then mean to disappoint her? All I can say is that, if He does, He is no God I could love, nor that anyone could love. The world is in the hand of some foul fiend, who loves to disappoint and blast the hopes of his children. That is not the God of the New Testament. No, our Lord says something very touching about that. He says: "In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you." "I would have told you." I would not have let you live all your lives and see your sons die, and your husbands die, and then disappoint you. "If it were not so, I would have told you."
4. And so we are prepared—you see now why I chose that particular text—we are prepared for the great revelation when it comes. Even science has prepared us. This great instinct of the soul, that it will live again, has prepared us. Our belief in a good God prepared us. We were all ready to hear it, and at last it comes from heaven. "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die."
And now we have got it. It has been all led up to; we were all prepared for it. We could not have been certain till we were told it by One who came from heaven. This is the Christian religion. It is no miserable half-and-half Gospel about a good man that once lived. That view of Jesus Christ has nothing to do with Christianity. The Son of God came Himself from heaven.
That is the Christian religion. And, having come from heaven, He knows what is in heaven. And He speaks with the certainty of knowledge: "In My Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you." And "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die."
And, mark you, to prove it, to get the whole truth this morning, not only for your own selves, but for the mourners who abound in our midst, and must abound more and more as the weeks pass—to prove this doctrine that He rose Himself from the dead, we must have the full gospel of Easter. Alas! a new theology has been whittling away the faith of some in this country. But the old doctrine of Easter was this, "David saw corruption, but He whom God raised up saw no corruption." And as He died and was buried, so He rose again. Why do we keep Sunday, do you suppose, if there was no Resurrection? Why not keep as the sacred day Friday, if nothing happened on Sunday? If Christ did not rise on that day, why do we have at our Eucharists the Body broken and the Blood shed? How could any people enshrine in their Eucharistic service the tokens of a shameful death unless the body buried had risen again? How did the Cross get to the top of the dome of St. Paul's? Why should we have the old gallows erected over the finest city in the world, unless it was the symbol, not only of death, but of glorious resurrection?
Therefore, we have not got to put our reason behind our backs in believing that He who said "I am the resurrection and the life" raised Himself from the grave. It is with our reason as well as with our hearts that we say, in answer to the question, "If a man die, shall he live again?" "Yes, thank God, he has never really died."
5. And what sort of life is it going to be on the other side of the veil, the veil which hides this unseen world? Those young men who are dying are not always specially religious. They come to church sometimes, and some come to Communion. I had from the front the other day an account of how two hundred and fifty of the Artists' Corps received the Communion before they went into battle. But, still, we know many of our soldiers are not what we should call specially religious men. What, therefore, are we to think of the life awaiting them on the other side of the veil? Well, I will tell you what I think. I pin my faith to this: Jesus Christ knows them through and through. "Jesus beholding him loved him" was said of one young man. Jesus beheld all these boys of ours, all these young comrades, and He loved them. And He knows what kind of life they will enjoy, and He prepares them for the life that is for them. He has something for each that they will be fit for, when, strengthened in character and purified in soul, they are ready to inherit the kingdom prepared for them. You can trust them with Him, you can trust your boy to Christ, who understands him better than you do.
What shall we have in the other world which will correspond to what we have here? One thing at least that we shall have is memory. You remember, in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, Abraham says to Dives: "Son, remember." "Son, remember." Resolve to lay up something in your life here to which your thoughts will turn happily and find pleasure in, in the quiet times beyond death. In that stillness there must be no bitter quarrels to remember, no bitter jealousies, no unkindnesses. Make to yourselves, while here, friends from your use of the mammon of unrighteousness, so that when it fails those friends may receive you into everlasting habitations.
And then with memory will come love, all the old beautiful love and friendship which makes us so happy here. But, mark you, the right kind of love—not lust. "Love is the fulfilling of the law," says St. John.
"Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,
But Lust's effect is tempest after sun;
Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done."[14]
The two are absolutely different. Love thinks of the interests of the loved one, and is full of self-control and self-restraint. But lust only thinks of self, and is unbridled and unrestrained. Love goes on into the other world.
"They sin who tell us Love can die;
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity.
In heaven Ambition cannot dwell,
Nor Avarice in the vaults of hell.
Of lust these passions of the earth,
They perish where they have their birth,
But Love is indestructible.
Its holy flame for ever burneth.
From heaven it came, to heaven returneth;
Full oft on earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times oppressed,
In heaven it finds its perfect rest.
It soweth here in toil and care,
But the harvest-time of Love is there."[15]
Therefore cultivate here in your Church life, in your home life, this wonderful, pure, beautiful thing, this love which will last for ever. "They sin who tell us Love can die." And, above all, keep that love pure, absolutely pure and true. Let nothing be substituted for it which calls itself love, but which is not love. Then with this love, this unselfish, disinterested love, the prayer instinct goes on. Do not be afraid of thinking of and praying for your dear boy in Paradise; pray for him. Do you suppose the mother in Paradise ceases to pray for her son here? You know that, in the old beautiful prayers of the Church for her dead, we pray that God will give them eternal rest and peace, and that everlasting light will shine upon them. That prayer instinct that lies so deep here goes on behind the veil. They are praying for us there as we are praying for them here. As St. Augustine says so beautifully, "The Church above loves and helps its pilgrim brothers."
And, then, one thing more must go on—energy and activity of soul. Can you imagine a man like the late Archbishop Temple doing nothing for ever and ever? No. The greatest rest is delightful exercise of the faculties of the soul. And there must be in that other world work for those who have been active here below. Such souls when they are taken from us are being promoted to some work that they are specially fitted to do by the experience which has long worked itself into their souls. I think of two cases of Christians suffering patiently week after week, one for thirteen, the other for fifteen, years. The beautiful patience being worked into their character will be wanted in the other world.
Then, again, man is born for a Church. He is born to worship here in companionship with others. I hope that this church will be every Sunday morning as full as it is now, that you will more and more join in the fellowship of the saints, and that you will more and more learn to love this spiritual home, and to cheer one another on in your spiritual lives, and so be ready, when the time comes, to worship in the other world with angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven. Lift up your heads and the hands that hang down, all ye mourners! For death is not that miserable, terrible thing which some people think it is. We are born into the other world as quietly as we are born into this. And the other life there is full of happiness, full of love, full of joyous and beautiful activities. And so, when we are called upon to die, it will only be a gentle passing from life here to life there, and from the fulness and the happiness of this life to the still deeper fulness and still greater happiness of the life of the world to come.