He puts our lives so far apart,
We cannot hear each other speak.
The more worthy of immortality our beloved seems to be, the keener is the pang of parting. Lowell felt it so “After the Burial”:
Immortal! I feel it and know it,
Who doubts it of such as she?
But that is the pang’s very secret—
Immortal away from me.
The Bible has no rebuke for the sorrow of separation. But it does have the healing hope of eternal reunion. Jesus said: “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” These words, fully believed, still our fear, confirm our hope, and comfort our final sorrow.
To all the burdened, Jesus says, “Come unto me, and I will give you rest.” To all the joyless he says, “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” To all the lonely and mourning he comes with the message, “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.” The world may have difficulty in securing that belief; but the world knows well that this belief alone is the defeat of sorrow. In their best and most desperate and most hopeful hours men flee to the Bible as to the only tent in which their anguish can be soothed. Within that tabernacle walks the form of the Fourth. When they turn from him, they must return with the question, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” The eternal life that he gives is the only consolation for our passing sorrows.
CHAPTER VIII
The Bible and Practice
When men separate the Bible from devotion and practice they are guilty of the final heresy in relation to the Book of Life. The previous pages have shown that the Bible has a real message for actual living. While the larger departments have been treated, it is still true that the message of the Scriptures for other sections of life is vital and fundamental. Whatever we may say about the message of the Bible in regard to chemistry, or biology, or geology; whatever we may say about its inspiration for the literature of the world; and whatever we may say about its accuracy in matters of ancient history and geography—the Book holds a lonely primacy as the Book of Duty. The scientist may not get from it a full revelation; the littérateur may be tempted to omit certain portions from his “choice selections”; the historian may not find in it a full or chronological list of events; but the man with a moral and spiritual passion, the man bent on finding his duty that he may do it faithfully, will discover ample material in its pages. Indeed, he will have a sense of surplus. The ideals of the Book will be so far beyond his performance as to give him the feeling of a gentle rebuke. As a Book of moral science, moral literature, moral history, the Bible has no competitors. As a revelation of the heart of God, of the heart of man, and of the way in which the heart of God and the heart of man are brought into loving harmony, the Bible is supreme.