Here a genuine characteristic of the spiritual attitude has been expressed, but the ground on which it is put is once more unconvincing. How do I know that there is such a being as this wise and loving Deity of whom you tell me? By the evidence of his works, by the testimony of the world he has created, by the life for which I am indebted to him. But the world is the playground of good and evil forces. There is a semblance of design; there is on the other hand apparently the wildest disorder. The stars in their courses travel with incredible celerity in every direction, but no astronomer has ever yet been able to discern a plan in their journeyings. Human life is full of sorrow as well as joy; and whether there be more sorrow or more joy in the lives of most persons, who will venture to say? There is kindness, but there is also cruelty. There is coöperation, and there is merciless competition. There is health and bloom, and there is miserable physical decay. At present, in my case, suffering and sorrow are in the ascendant. The picture of the Deity as fashioned from the evidence of experience is dark and bright, cruel and kind. If he be omnipotent, why did he introduce the elements of discord and trouble into his creation? Why, in particular, does he at present torture me so cruelly? In order that I may believe in him despite the evidence! But how can I believe, seeing that in my own case the evidence on the bad side preponderates? Thus the mind of the sufferer on his couch of pain gropes in the labyrinth of argument and counter-argument—for the intellectual processes are often preternaturally acute in times of physical suffering—and there is no outlet. In a fine spiritual nature there is something which pleads that the counter-arguments ought not to prevail. Desperately, by an act of faith, a man lays hold on his God. But presently his faith again relaxes, his state of mind becomes confused, and unless supported by strong impressions received in and retained from childhood on, the third answer will not avail him.
There is business in hand on the sick bed. What is it? The fourth answer, the answer as it appeals to me, depends on the very incongruity of the finite and the infinite order. Every attempt to explain this incongruity breaks down, every theodicy is a fiction. To explain is to find the cause of effects. But the notion of cause does not apply to the relation between the finite and the infinite. And of the infinite order itself we possess only the plan or scheme of relations. The members of this ideal world are related to one another in such a manner that the essential uniqueness of the one is to be provocative of the diverse distinctiveness of the others. This, as I think, is a very fruitful formula, furnishing a rule of conduct to be applied to our finite relations. But it sheds no light on the uniqueness itself, which is forever ideal. What in its ultimate constitution our spiritual being may be, remains unknown. Did we know, were we capable of comprehending the infinite order, and seeing things in that supersolar light, we might then be able to solve the insoluble riddle, the coexistence side by side of the finite and the infinite. As it is, the problem of finiteness especially in its human aspect of suffering and evil is impenetrable, inexplicable. But if we cannot explain suffering and evil, we can utilize them for a definite spiritual end. And that end is to achieve through the ministry of frustration and the persistence of the effort toward the unattainable, the consciousness of the reality of the spiritual universe and of our membership in it.
The answer, therefore, which I should offer, is based on this pivotal distinction between explaining and using. And thus the business in hand, the end to be gained, is the intensified realization of our spiritual interconnectedness with others, the life in life. To this end we accept from the Stoic, though for a reason which he does not give, resistance to pain, and from the philosopher of sympathy the obligation of not clouding the life of others with our shadow, and from the theologian the law of patience—and we take a step beyond all three.
Let me carry this out somewhat more in detail. To gain the consciousness of interrelation, there must be an object outside of myself of supreme interest to me, enabling me to transcend the ego. Now, pain has the opposite effect, that of concentrating attention on the ego. Pain builds a prison around us, raises up high walls which shut us in. Anyone in great pain is incessantly reminded of his physical state. In order that the mind may pass out of the prison cell and over the encompassing wall, there needs to be some object beyond the wall appealing enough to solicit the outward movement. This object is the spiritual self of my fellowmen. It is my concern for their spiritual self which is their highest good, it is my eager wish to reinforce what is best in them that works the transcendence of the ego and of its pains. In such supreme moments the lesser values dwindle into relative insignificance. And what is best in others is the same consciousness on their part of the interrelation. It is this that I am to awaken in them, to strengthen in them by the intensity with which I myself realize it. In the case of loving kin and friends, they, too, suffer with me. In vain I try to hide my sufferings. They divine what I try to suppress; and the more I try to suppress it, the more they suffer with me. They suffer not only with the suffering, but with the attempt to conceal the suffering. I have seen this in the case of a mother at the bedside of her dying daughter. They go with me to the brink of life. They enter into the anxieties and forebodings that haunt my mind as I face death. There may be young children that still need fostering care. Dangers to the family may arise after I am gone. The more my life is implicated in the lives around me, the more as I stand on the edge of life will my thoughts be occupied, not with the obliteration of my empirical self, but with the future of those that survive—that best future of theirs which I long to assure. And they, in turn, if they are fine natures, will pass through this inward experience with me. Thus I descend into the darkness and the depths, and they descend with me; and I am also to rise out of the darkness and the depths, and am to gain the force to do this in order that I may lift them with me.
This is the business in hand. I am to draw myself out of the depths, to overcome the centralizing, egotizing effects of physical and mental pain, in order by my effort to make those around me realize the intensity with which I feel my interrelatedness with them, and thereby to reveal to them the same spiritual power in themselves. Plans for the future education of the children, counsels of peace, by way of anticipation for the too lonely hours that await the most loving and the most beloved,—these things have value chiefly in so far as they are insignificant of the indissoluble interlacing of life with life.[47]
CHAPTER III
BEREAVEMENT
When we reflect on what actually happens in cases of bereavement, we shall find great diversity in different situations. It may be that the deceased person has led a worthless life, and that the grave is allowed to close over him without much regret. Nevertheless, the honor due to worth that never appeared in him ought to be shown. In the worst cases we may not treat human beings like animals. Besides, there are generally one or more persons who seem to have an unreasoning natural affection for the wretched being, and so he does not go wholly without the tribute of tears. Others, like sufferers from cancer, pass through days, weeks, months of acute pain before they die. In their case it is said that death comes as a relief, and often the final relief from the suffering obscures the loss.
Again, in most men’s lives there is an upper and an under side. Though the public career of statesmen, poets, artists may be dazzling, yet their faults or obliquities are probably well enough known to those who have seen them at close range. Obituaries are seldom truthful. Sometimes, however, the reverse happens; men whose names are held up to public obloquy are not always as black as they are painted. Their worst side becomes known to the public, yet they sometimes possess wonderfully fine traits.
Very pathetic is the mourning for a baby, and its unfulfilled promise, or for a defective child, long a burden, yet strangely grieved for when its feeble little flame of life is extinguished.