I had been at home but a few days, when I was called to the southern part of Illinois, to deliver two funeral discourses. One of them was on the occasion of the death of Mrs. Middleworth, an estimable woman, cut down in the vigor of womanhood, and in the midst of usefulness. A large number attended the service; some came as far as fifteen miles. Surely, if ever we need consolation, it is when death enters our abode, and snatches therefrom a dear friend. Sensitive ties are then severed, and affection’s nerves receive a dreadful shock. The death of a friend is like an untimely frost on an orange grove; it may indeed kill but one, but it blights the whole grove. But death is no new thing under the sun. For six thousand years mankind have been dying. It is estimated that sixty persons die every minute. Every hour in the day, week, month, year, century, thousands of human beings breathe their last breath, and heave their last sigh. All over the world are dying scenes, and funeral scenes. An army of the living are employed to bury an army of the dead. And this sad work has been going on for sixty centuries.
How true are the words of the wise man: “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh.” Death and the grave are never satisfied. The high and the low, the old and the young, the saint and the sinner, must alike be prostrated in death when the king of terror hurls his unerring dart. As ocean wave succeeds wave, so generation of men succeed generation, and each in its turn is borne to, and dashes and dies upon the fearful shore of time. Every thing on earth speaks of mutation and death. The lofty marble monument, erected to commemorate human genius; the stately palace of wealth, pomp and greatness, are being crumbled to dust by the busy and untiring hand of time. Saith the Bible, “All flesh is grass.” As the grass withereth, and the flower fadeth, so with mortal man. The decree has gone forth from the court of heaven, and cannot be revoked, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” No appeal is admitted; no reversal of the judgment need be expected. Die we all must! But how little is this dreadful fact realized by many! How many spend life as if they believed it would never end! To the accumulation of earthly treasures, or the advancement of ambitious schemes, multitudes devote all their energy, all their talent, all their precious time. Unwise men! God made us for more noble pursuits; and he who devotes all of life’s blessed moments to the accumulation of earth’s perishable treasures, answers not to the end of his being, is not a friend to himself, but rather his own greatest enemy.
But when the decrees of the Almighty shall be executed; when dust shall have returned to dust, and ashes to ashes, shall we be no more forever? Will death never yield his prey? Shall we share the fate of the beetle and the worm? Will the tender ties of love and affection, which are severed by the cold hand of death, with weeping eyes and bleeding heart, never be reunited? And when we consign our dear friends to the grave, shall we never more behold them? Never more enjoy their society, which society made a heaven of earth? And when we shall bid farewell to earth, and close our eyes in death, shall we be annihilated? Some there are, who answer these important questions in the affirmative. Some there are, who tell us, that death is an eternal sleep, that the grave and the worm will devour our all; that we are like the bubble on the wide ocean, seen for a moment, and then disappear to be known no more forever. But thank God, we have reason to hope for better things. We have reason to hope that there is a life beyond this life, a world beyond this world, where friends will meet, where the great family of God will meet, to part no more; that on the blissful plains of immortality, the severed links of humanity will be welded in an immortal chain, never more to be severed.
While in the neighborhood where this service was held, I delivered two other discourses, to great congregations. From thence I went to Dudley, and delivered another funeral discourse, on the occasion of the death of Mrs. Sutherland, a devoted believer in our most holy faith, and an excellent woman. It is sometimes said by the opposers of the Great Salvation, that it is good to live by, but not to die by. But it seems to me, that what is good to live by, must be good to die by, for what prepares us to live, prepares us to die. When the opposer tells me, that my religion “is good to live by,” I thank him for such testimony in its favor; but I cannot return the compliment, cannot admit that his creed, let it be what it may, if it denies the essential features of the Restitution, “is good to live by.” Is Atheism, which denies a God, and orphanizes the world, “good to live by?” Is Deism, that denies a Savior, and doubts an hereafter, “good to live by?” Is Partialism, that represents God as cruel, revengeful and unjust; as loving some and hating others; blessing some and cursing others, world without end, “good to live by?” Men can live with such creeds in their heads, as they can live on horse ham and mule stake; but it is living at a poor dying rate.
But then, this faith so full of grace “is not good to die by.” But why not? It represents God as a universal Father, Christ a universal Savior, and heaven the home to which all are tending. Is not faith in such a God, such a Savior, and such a Destiny, good in the hour of death? The truth is, nothing but this can afford peace and consolation in that dark and solemn hour. Atheism, Deism, Partialism, are found wanting in man’s dying moments, as when in the possession of health and vigor. True, many close their eyes in death with blissful hopes, who do not accept the faith of God’s Universal Grace, and for this reason—in their dying hour they gaze entirely on the bright side of their creed, for it has a bright side as well as a dark side. They think they can read their “title clear to mansions in the skies,” hence depart in peace. But if they looked for an instant on the dark side of their faith; if they considered that they may be mistaken with regard to their own salvation, and instead of going to heaven may go to hell. And then, around their dying couch are their near and dear friends; and for aught they know, all of them in a few years will be lifting up their eyes in eternal torment, and begging for a drop of water to cool their flaming tongues—if the dying deemed this possible, and it is possible if Orthodoxy is true, would not the thought turn joy into the bitterest sorrow, and songs of praise into howls of despair? But the truth is adapted to all stages and conditions of humanity. It is our counselor, guide, and hope, in the strength and vigor of manhood; our staff in sickness and old age; our all when our eyes are closing in death, and the grave is opening at our feet.
After speaking in five other places in the south part of the state, I returned home; and had been there but two days, when a telegraphic despatch summoned me to attend the funeral of Mrs. Jameson, in Marshall county, Ill., over one hundred miles distant. When turning away from her grave, her husband remarked: “There is buried one of the best women that ever lived.” That is the best eulogy that can be pronounced over the grave of the dead. The departed suffered for months, by day and by night, the most excruciating physical agony, but not a murmur dropped from her lips. She knew that sickness was unto death, and she welcomed the approach of the angel of deliverance. A good life and a christian faith, are blessed friends in the sunset of life. As I am writing about the last page of this book, a letter, with a black border, from a woman in Missouri is received, announcing the death of her husband, and requesting me to attend his funeral. It was his desire, she writes, that I should do so, and I must respect his dying wish.
The common view of death, I am satisfied, is too dark and gloomy. When we look upon the cold and rigid form, the closed eyes and pale brow, of the dead, a sense of gloom, and a vague feeling of fear comes over us; but we should remember, that the being that lately animated that now lifeless body, is a resident of the “house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” But we are oppressed too much by what we see, and have not faith enough in the reality of a life in heaven. And hence it is, that in the chamber of death, at the time of the Holy Passover, bitter sobbings are heard, in the place of song of rejoicing; and hence it is that the coffin, our second cradle, is followed to the grave by those who are arrayed in gloomy habiliments expressive of grief and sorrow. To those who have passed into the house of “many mansions,” death must appear in a very different light. The two grand eras in our life below, its beginning and its close, birth and death, must be viewed by them as really beautiful and equally divine. The departed know by experience what death is. They have tasted the cup, and know that it contains, not a poisonous draught, but the wine of life. They know that this is a world of shadows, not the world above.
When the hour of death arrives, the couch of the dying is surrounded by invisible friends, as by those who still abide in the flesh; and one hand of the dying is held by those to whom he is now to bid adieu; and the other is taken by those whom the eye of flesh can no longer see. “On the one side, there is weeping and almost despair; on the other, the joyful hymn of welcome. Surely tears are a relief to men in this mortal state; and I would not even seem to say that they are wrong. I say only this, that the occasion of our most intense grief, would be no occasion of grief, were death understood by us as it is by those who know by experience—by that holy experience—what it is. Were we able to follow, with open eyes, those who are dear to us, as they pass away, and see them as they are in the Better Land, and know how they are surrounded and employed, we should not mourn as we now do when friends depart, nor should we feel any temptation thus to mourn, and the fear of death would be wholly unknown to us.”
This, I believe, to be the correct view of death; and its general prevalence would dispel the gloom that now hangs over the grave, and save the world many tears and griefs. The day will come when the inhabitants of the earth, having a proper estimate of death, and the hereafter, will wonder that we regarded death with the gloomy apprehension we do. When that day blesses the world, there will be no more death, as most of mankind now regard it.