Of the great tomb of man.’
6. Philosophers and moralists will readily admit, that the only easy and adequate remedy for the fear of death is the hope of immortality. On the other hand, they, whose vocation it is to question and decry the aids, which reason and philosophy offer in the case, as sullen, cold, stoical, will not deny, that ‘innumerable’ examples have been offered in all countries, and in all time, of men, who, in virtue of no higher discipline than that of reason and philosophy, have met death with such unshrinking and invincible firmness, as could hardly have been rendered more illustrious by any additional motives. They have shown, beyond all question, that nature has furnished us with a power of resistance, which, when rightly called forth, enables us to triumph over fear and death. The pagans of ancient story, the unbelieving of christian lands, the red men of our forests, offer us demonstrations to any extent. I am aware, in what places this simplest of all truths is weakly denied. Those, for whom I write, are of the number who exact the truth; and I have no fear to declare it; nor would I contend for a moment with such as deny this fact.
But I am not the less sensible, that the triumph, in these cases, is bitter and painful. It can only be obtained by a violence done to instinctive nature, connected with innumerable revulsions and horrors, and to all those ineffable clingings to earth, and shrinkings from the first step into the unknown land, that are partly the heritage of nature, and partly the result of the concurrent influence of all our institutions. It is a violence to all the passions, affections, hopes and fears fostered by the earth. But the victory has been wrought, and can be wrought, even though the bosom, in which it is wrought become as of iron.
But the same triumph is won by the hope of immortality, by a process, simple, easy, natural, in entire consonance with the most tender affections and lively sympathies of flesh and blood. We lie down in pain and agony, with a spirit of easy endurance, if we have a confident persuasion that, during the night, we shall have shaken off the cause of our sufferings, and shall rise to renewed health and freshness in the morning. Death can bring little terror to him, who believes that its darkness will instantly be replaced by the light of another scene: and that the separation from friends in the visible land, is only rejoining the more numerous group, who have already become citizens of the invisible country.
To what extent am I the subject of this hope myself; and whence do I derive my belief? These are questions which affection will ask; and the answers, if devoid of interest now, will not be so when the memory of things that were shall come over the mind of the reader like a cloud, and when read as the thoughts of one, who, during his whole sojourn, felt and reflected intensely upon those subjects; and who will then himself have passed away to the experience of all that which is here matter of discussion. Those most dear to me will know what relations I sustained to these subjects, during the best part of my life; and will not be without solicitude to know my final thoughts upon them; thoughts, purified at least from all stain of party interest and esprit du corps, and put forth in the simple consciousness of my own convictions, however they may be powerless to produce belief in the mind of any other. With the fierce war cry of sects in religion, in their acrimonious and never ending contests about abstract terms without a meaning, their combats about the vague and technical phrases of formulas of faith, I have long since had nothing to do. For many years they have rung on my ear like the distant thunder of clouds that have passed by. To the denunciations of those, who assume to hold all truth imprisoned in their articles of confession, if I might hope the distinction of receiving them, I am perfectly callous. Neither would I desire to add another book to the millions of volumes of polemic theology which already exist, and which have as little bearing upon the knowledge, virtue and happiness of the age, as the last year’s snow.
We are, after all, unconsciously influenced, and that in no slight degree, by authority, however humble may be its claims, as a test of truth. How did such a person believe on such a point? Many a young aspirant suspends his opinion, until he hears; and settles into fixed persuasion afterwards. How many are there, in christian lands especially, who have never had a wandering or unbelieving doubt of the soul’s immortality float over their minds? How many, who have had no terrene and gross ideas, influenced by seeing the tenement of flesh, by which all that was called the mind and the soul stood visible to the eye, and tangible to the thought, yielded up to consumption and decay? This is a question which no one can answer for another. For myself, I believe unhesitatingly, and with no stain of doubt, that I shall, in some way, exactly provided for by Him who made me, exist after death, as simply conscious, that I am the same person, as I am now in the morning, that I slept at night. Do I derive this conviction from books and reasonings? I am by no means sure that I do; though the gospel assuredly speaks directly to my heart. I do ready homage to the talents and learning of Clarke, Locke, Paley, Channing and a cloud of reasoning witnesses, of whom every Christian may well be proud; and, most of all, to the profound and admirable Butler.
I hear the author of our faith directly declaring a resurrection and immortality. A single assertation from such a source were enough. But I find him reasoning, and insisting less upon the fact, than I should have expected, had he intended to implant it in the mind, as it were a truth, chiefly to be apprehended by the understanding. It seems to me that he so discusses it, as one who was aware that it was already inwoven in the sentiments and hearts of his hearers, vague, dark, without moral consequence, it may be; but an existing sentiment, taken for granted, upon which he might predicate his doctrines, as upon a thousand other facts, which we can clearly perceive, he considers already admitted by his hearers.
Let a man walk in the fields on a June morning after night showers. Let him seat himself for meditation on the hill-side, under the grateful canopy of foliage. Let him ask himself to embody his conceptions of the divinity, and to give form and place to the Author of the glorious scene outstretched before him. He may have just risen from reading the admirable demonstrations of Clarke, and the astronomical sermons of Chalmers. He may concentrate his conceptions by a fixedness of study, that may amount to pain. He may bewilder his faculties, in attempting to embody something, that his thoughts and reasonings can grasp. I know not what the powers of others can achieve in this case. But I know, by painful experiment, what mine cannot. I ask my understanding and reasoning powers about this glorious Being. They inform me that it is a subject that comes not within their purview. They can follow the chain of reasoning, see that every link is complete, and the demonstration irresistible. But when they wish to avail themselves of their new truth, they have no distinct idea either of premises or conclusion. It has evaporated in the analysis.
I ask my heart, or the source of my moral sentiment, be it what it may, the same question. The grateful verdure, the matin freshness, the glad voices, the aroma of flowers, the earth, the rolling clouds, the sun, all the lamps, that will burn in the firmament by night, my own happy consciousness in witnessing this impressive scene, cry out a God. To my heart, it is the first, the simplest, most obvious thought, presenting itself, it seems to me, as soon as the consciousness of my own existence; certainly susceptible of as little doubt. I have no need to define, analyze, embody. The moment I attempt to do it, my thoughts are vague and unsettled. I yield myself to the conviction. My heart swells with gratitude, confidence, love. So good, so beneficent a Being can do nothing but good, in this or any other world, to him who loves and trusts him, and strives to obey his laws.
My most treasured hopes of immortality are from the same source. Will this conscious being, capable of such remote excursions into the two eternities between which its existence is suspended, live beyond the present life? Not a particle of matter, for ought that appears, can be annihilated. Will the nobler thoughts, the warmer affections perish, as though they had not been? We ask our senses, and they can give us no hope. The body lives, and we speak of it as including the conscious being. We see it die, pass under the empire of corruption, molder, and incorporate with its kindred elements. The sensible evidence, that the person exists, is entirely destroyed. The most insatiate appetite of our natures, however, craves continued existence, and ceases not to seek for it. The inquirer after immortality cannot but be in earnest in this pursuit. The arguments of the venerable sages of old are spread before him. From the soul’s nature, from the unity of consciousness, the incorruptibility of thought, the everlasting progress, of which our faculties are capable, the strong and unquenchable desire of posthumous fame, the sacredness of earthly friendships, and similar arguments, they strove to establish, on the basis of reasoning, the conviction of immortality.