SOME CHEERING ASPECTS OF MORTALITY.
When eminent men die, we are accustomed to say that the world has lost something; that their country or party is poorer; that none are left to fill their place, and other such expressions. But very seldom do we hear it said that the world gains when great men die; yet we have no hesitation in saying that the world often gains more by the death of leading men than it would do by their living indefinitely, or even much beyond ‘the allotted span.’ Again, it is not our custom to look forward to the day of our own death as a gain either to ourselves or the world. We somehow think that no one could exactly fill our shoes or act the part we have done; but as a matter of fact, our shoes may be better filled and our part better acted by the generation which follows. This fact ought to humble us a bit; and perhaps we need humbling, for there is just the trace of a tendency among moderns to underrate the men who have immediately preceded them, or who may be going off the far end of the stage as we take our places at the near.
Noble lives have often been spent to little purpose so far as their contemporaries were concerned. The fact is, ‘No man is a hero to his valet,’ nor is any man ‘a prophet in his own country;’ and as ‘distance lends enchantment to the view,’ it is only when the world’s best men have been hid from sight in the greedy grave, that their influence has been felt in all its power. We are apt to hold even the oldest and best of our contemporaries in light esteem; but we reverence the ancients. Nay, many of earth’s noblest sons have been bitterly blamed, and held up to scorn and derision in their lifetime; and not till death stepped in and took them away, did the world discover its mistake.
A poor shoemaker rises while others sleep, and searches among the wayside weeds of his native lanes, his only inspiration being his thirst for knowledge, and the joy of adding a few plants to the known flora of his native land. His neighbours deride him, are doubtful of his sanity, and think his life a sad warning to the peasant lads around who may show signs of leaving the beaten path of the monotonous life their fathers trod. Unmindful of scorn, in defiance of fate, he goes forward in the thorny path he has chosen for himself, gaining knowledge that is quite new, making discoveries that were reserved for such as he, and at last becomes possessed of an herbarium famous for containing specimens to be found in no other. All the while he is unheard of, or heard of unfavourably; but when he grows old, and, tottering on the brink of the grave, hands over his precious scraps to the nearest university, he becomes famous. A coterie of appreciative men in far-away London collect something to relieve his pressing necessities, and—the matter ends. But he dies, and then the world gains—not the blood and toil stained herbarium, but the stimulating example of a hero’s life, which, though it repelled the youth of his own time and district, becomes a burning and a shining light to lighten the path and fire the noble ambition of every youth who reads the story of the heroic struggles which bore him above the swamping waves of prejudice, of poverty, and of scorn.
When that amiable young man the Prince Imperial fell, done to death by Zulu assegais, there arose from nearly every heart in the civilised world a sigh of sympathy for his bereaved mother, and a tear was dropped by many, as they thought of the far-reaching possibilities blotted out by African savages. Yet who can doubt that that tragedy saved a whole nation of men, perhaps for generations, from a host of plotters against the destiny of their own country, not for Bonapartism, but for ends at once selfish, unpatriotic, and unworthy.
In the backwoods of America is born the son of a struggling farmer, who dies ere his son can earn a crust to sustain life. A noble woman, his mother, has a hard battle to fight in the rearing of her family; but bitter though the conflict is, her heroism gains the victory for her in the unequal contest with want and weakness. Her son, sharing his mother’s hard lot, showing her nobleness of character, determines to ‘be somebody;’ to serve the world in his day and generation; and, by efforts such as only heroes make, rises step by step in learning and in every art that dignifies man. From being a backwoodsman’s son and from a condition of penury, he rises ‘from high to higher,’ till he fills the seat of a great Republic, and becomes
The pillar of a nation’s hope,
The admiration of the world.
His influence for good is immense, and he promises to use it well. Suddenly, unexpectedly, a ruffian’s shot lays him on his deathbed. The world, first shocked, and then moved by pity, cannot help exclaiming that this is indeed a kingly man. Bright as shone his light, it only lighted one nation before; but the flash of that pistol made him the observed of distant peoples. He dies; and the dead Garfield wields an influence for good such as a thousand living Garfields never could.
But it is not alone by the rich legacies of well-spent lives which men leave us when they die, that we gain. It is often necessary that even good men should be removed, to allow of the world’s progress—much more bad men, especially if they wield a far-reaching influence. Of no men is this more true than of statesmen. When in Europe one man once heads a party, he generally remains leader while he lives. The world would not suffer from this, if the leaders of parties would move as the world moves; but they are apt to lag behind. When this is the case—and it is constantly occurring—a country may be brought to the very brink of revolutionary overthrow. At times, nations and dynasties have been saved, simply because death stepped in and removed the obstacle with which the body-politic threatened to come into collision.
Sometimes men pursue a certain course, not that it is right, not even that they think it is right, but because they stand committed to it. Oftener, men hold upon a course that everybody but themselves sees is wrong, believing it to be right; but it is only prejudice that blinds them. This is very apt to be true of us all. When once we have chosen our way, we generally keep on till death stops us. Our religion, our politics, our very prejudices, we rarely modify; and we seldom inquire why we hold certain religious or political creeds. Occasionally, a more than ordinarily strong-minded man has courage to think for himself, and even goes the length of acting for himself; but such cases are comparatively rare. Were men not mortal, were men even to live as long as did the antediluvians, progress in the world would be very slow. Threescore years and ten we may hold the world back, but no longer. We hold very different opinions from our grandfathers; but had they lived till now, it is doubtful if they would have greatly modified theirs. Enlightened as we think ourselves, it is quite probable that the generation that acts a century hence may wonder how we managed to rub along in our benightedness!
Many men are morbidly fearful of being thought inconsistent, and will rather hide their opinion than run the risk of being thought so. Though a man may cling thus to what he may have reason to believe is not quite correct, for fear of being inconsistent, nobody will blame his son, far less his grandson, for maintaining exactly the opposite to his father’s opinion. Thus, as men die, errors die; as they are swept from the stage of life, their opinions are replaced by more forward ones, held by the men who fill the shoes of those that went before.
As the Angel of Death is the destroyer of prejudices, so is he the healer of national animosities. The Scotsmen and the Englishmen who fought so fiercely and hated so bitterly at Bannockburn and at Flodden are long since gone, and in their place there is a living race of Scotsmen and Englishmen who belong to one nation, and are proud of each other. Eighty years ago, Frenchmen and Englishmen hated and fought as fiends hate and fight; but death has taken the haters away, and a new race of Englishmen and a new race of Frenchmen to-day regard each other in a very different way. To-day, the Frenchman spends his surplus hate on the Prussian, and the Prussian returns it with not a little insolence, by way of interest. But Death has a drug that is potent enough to quench even their animosities; and when he has had time to practise his art, there will remain Germans and Frenchmen ready to acknowledge that there is room enough in Europe for both; to respect the greatness of each other, and to exchange, not rifle-shots, but friendly greetings.
For centuries, misgovernment has sown evil seed in unhappy Ireland, and the result is a race of Irishmen smarting under a sense of wrong, and crying out accordingly. Were men to live for ever, were memories to live for ever, Ireland never would be pacified. Bit by bit, justice is being done to Ireland, and man by man, death is removing those in whose breast the sense of wrong swelled till it has developed into fury. By-and-by their hatred will be extinguished; in course of time, the animosities between landlord and tenant will be buried. Death sits final arbiter in many a strife.