English Secularism: A Confession of Belief

by George Jacob Holyoake

II.—AT THE GRAVE OF A CHILD.

The death of a child is alone its parents' sorrow. Too young to know, too innocent to fear, its life is a smile and its death a sleep. As the sun goes down before our eyes, so a mother's love vanishes from the gaze of infancy, and death, like evening, comes to it with quietness, gentleness, and rest. We measure the loss of a child by the grief we feel. When its love is gone, its promise over, and its prattle silent, its fate excites the parents' tears; but we forget that infancy, like the rose, is unconscious of the sweetness it sheds, and it parts without pain from the pleasure it was too young to comprehend, though engaging enough to give to others. The death of a child is like the death of a day, of which George Herbert sings:

"Sweet day, so clear, so calm, so bright
Bridal of the earth and sky;
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night—
For thou must die."

It is no consolation to say, "When a child dies it is taken from the sorrows of life." Yes! it is taken from the sorrows of life, and from its joys also. When the young die they are taken away from the evil, and from good as well. What parents' love does not include the happiness of its offspring? No! we will not cheat ourselves. Death is a real loss to those who mourn, and the world is never the same again to those who have wept by the grave of a child. Argument does not, in that hour, reach the heart. It is human to weep, and sympathy is the only medicine of great grief. The sight of the empty shoe in the corner will efface the most relevant logic. Not all the preaching since Adam has made death other than death. Yet, though sorrow cannot be checked at once by reason, it may be chastened by it. Wisdom teaches that all human passions must be subordinate to the higher purposes of life. We must no more abandon ourselves to grief than to vice. The condition of life is the liability to vicissitude, and, while it is human to feel, it is duty to endure. The flowers fade, and the stars go down, and youth and loveliness vanish in the eternal change. Though we cannot but regret a vital loss, it is wisdom to love all that is good for its own sake; to enjoy its presence fully, but not to build on its continuance, doing what we can to insure its continuance, and bearing with fortitude its loss when it comes. If the death of infancy teaches us this lesson, the past may be a charmed memory, with courage and dignity in it.

III.—MEN OR WOMEN.

The science of life teaches us that while there is pain there is life. It would seem, therefore, that death, with silent and courteous step, never comes save to the unconscious. A niece of Franklin's, known for her wit and consideration for others, arrived at her last hour at the age of ninety-eight. In her composure a friend gently touched her. "Ah," murmured the old lady, "I was dying so beautifully when you brought me back! But never mind, my dear; I shall try it again." This bright resignation, worthy of the niece of a philosopher, is making its way in popular affection.

Lord Tennyson, when death came near to him, wrote:

"Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar
When I put out to sea.
"Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark,
And may there be no sadness of farewell
When I embark."

There is just a touch of superstition in these genial lines. He writes: "After death the dark." How did he know that? What evidence is there that the unknown land is "dark"? Why not light? The unknown has no determinate or ascertained color.

Where we know nothing, neither priest nor poet has any right to speak as though he had knowledge. Improbability does not imply impossibility. That which invests death with romantic interest is, that it may be a venture on untried existence. If a future state be true, it will befall those who do not expect it as well as those who do. Another world, if such there be, will come most benefitingly and most agreeably to those who have qualified themselves for it, by having made the best use in their power of this. By best use is meant the service of man. Desert consists alone in the service of others. Kindness and cheerfulness are the two virtues which most brighten human life.