As Wolfgang spoke, Athelstane lifted his head, which had drooped in heavy thought, and he saw the wide ocean leaping in the morning light stretched out before him, and the new-risen sun smote his face with glory. And Athelstane laid his hand on Wolfgang’s arm, and spoke as his friend had never heard him speak before, for it was as a man in whose soul a great new thought had sprung to life: “Aye, Wolfgang, aye,” he said; “but if that marvellous work of human hands was not made only for earth, do you think we were made for nothing better than the life which now we lead,—to eat and drink, and marry, and toil, and sleep, and die, and be forgotten? Are not we too, O Wolfgang, made for other things than these? Are we not fitted for some other element than that in which now we have our being, some other existence than that which yet we lead? If we were intended only to live our few years of animal life on earth and then perish, why were we given minds to plough the seas of thought, and aspirations to point to heaven, and love to swell beneath the breath of affection, and conscience to guide us on our way as the pilot lays on it his mighty hand? O Wolfgang! we could perceive that the ship was intended to float on the great ocean which we had never beheld. Can we not see that we and all our race are made to live in a world yet unseen, wider, freer, grander a thousand times than earth,—a world which we shall enter whensoever the tide of death shall lift us up and bear us away?”
THE PEAK IN DARIEN: THE RIDDLE OF DEATH.
It is somewhat singular that the natural longing to penetrate the great secret of mortality should not have suggested to some of the inquirers into so-called “Spiritual” manifestations that, before attempting to obtain communication with the dead through such poor methods as raps and alphabets, they might more properly, and with better hope of gaining a glimpse through the “gates ajar,” watch closely the dying, and study the psychological phenomena which accompany the act of dissolution. Thus, it might be possible to ascertain, by comparison of numerous instances, whether among these phenomena are any which seem to indicate that the mind, soul, or self of the expiring person, is not undergoing a process of extinction, but exhibiting such tokens as might be anticipated, were it entering upon a new phase of existence and coming into possession of fresh faculties. It is at least conceivable that some such indications might be observed, were we to look for them with care and caution, under the rare conditions wherein they could at any time be afforded; and, if this should prove to be the fact, it is needless to dilate on the intense interest of even such semblance of confirmation of our hopes. I must earnestly protest, however, at starting, that, in my opinion, to regard anything which could be so noticed as being more than such a confirmation, or, as if it could constitute an argument for belief in a future life, would be foolish in the extreme, seeing the great obscurity and the evanescent nature of all such phenomena. Our faith in immortality must be built on altogether different ground, if it is to be of any value as a part of our religion or of our philosophy. But, assuming that we are, individually, already convinced that the quasi-universal creed of the human race is not erroneous, and that “the soul of a man never dies,”[36] we may not unreasonably turn to the solemn scene of dissolution, and ask whether there does not sometimes occur, under one or two perhaps of its hundred forms, some incidents which point in the direction of the great fact which we believe to be actually in process of realization? According to our common conviction, there is a moment of time when the man whom we have known in his garb of flesh casts it aside, actually, so to speak, before our eyes, and “this mortal puts on immortality.” As in Blanco White’s beautiful sonnet, he is, like Adam, watching his first sunset, and trembling to lose sight of the world, and the question to be solved is whether darkness has enshrouded him, or whether
“Hesperus with the hosts of heaven came,
And, lo! Creation widened in his view”;
and he may have asked himself,—
“Who would have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O Sun? or deemed,
While flower and leaf and insect stood revealed,
That to such countless orbs thou mad’st us blind?”
and life, like light, had been only a deception and a veil.
We have walked in company with our brother, perchance for years, through the “wilderness of this world,” over its arid plains of toil and through its sweet valleys of love and pleasure; and then we have begun to climb the awful Andes which have always loomed before us at our journey’s end,—their summits against the sky,—and beyond them the undiscovered land. Onward, a little before us, as chance may decide, our companion perhaps mounts the last acclivity; and we see him slowly approach the mountain’s crown, while our lagging steps yet linger on the slopes below. Sometimes, ere he reach the hill-top, he is enveloped in cloud, and then we see him no more; but again, sometimes, he remains in the full sunlight, and though distant from us, and beyond the reach of our voice, it is yet possible for us to watch his attitude and motions. Now, we see him nearing the summit. A few steps more, and there must break on his vision whatever there may be of the unknown world beyond,—a howling wilderness or a great Pacific of joy. Does he seem, as that view bursts on him, whatsoever it may be,—does he seem to be inspired with hope or cast down with despair? Do his arms drop in consternation, or does he lift them aloft with one glad gesture of rapture, ere he descend the farther slope, and is lost to our sight forever?
It appears to me that we may, though with much diffidence, answer this question as regards some of our comrades in life’s journey, who have gone before us, and of whom the last glimpse has been one full of strange, mysterious, but most joyful promise. Let us inquire into the matter calmly, making due allowance both for natural exaggeration of mourning friends, who recall the most affecting scenes, and also for the probable presence of cerebral disturbance and hallucination at the moment of physical dissolution.
Of course, it is quite possible that the natural law of death may be that the departed always sink into a state of unconsciousness, and rather dip beneath a Lethe than leap a Rubicon. It is likewise possible that the faculties of a disembodied soul, whatever that may be, may need time and use, like those of an infant, before they can be practically employed. But there is also at least a possibility that consciousness is not always lost, but is continuous through the passage from one life to another, and that it expands rather than closes at the moment when the bonds of the flesh are broken, and the man enters into possession of his higher powers and vaster faculties, symbolled by the beautiful old emblem of Psyche’s emancipated butterfly quitting the shell of the chrysalis.[37] In this latter case there is a certain prima facie presumption that close observation ought to permit us occasionally to obtain some brief glimpse, some glance, though but of lightning swiftness and evanescence, revealing partially this transcendent change.