There is not one of you, however young, but must be living two lives—and the sooner you come to recognize the fact clearly, the better for you—the one life in the outward material world, in contact with the things which you can see, and taste, and handle, which are always changing and passing away: the other in the invisible, in contact with the unseen; with that which does not change or pass away—which is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. The former life you must share with others, with your family, your schoolfellows and friends, with everyone you meet in business or pleasure. The latter you must live alone, in the solitude of your own inmost being, if you can find no Spirit there communing with yours—in the presence of, and in communion with, the Father of your spirit, if you are willing to recognize that presence. The one life will no doubt always be the visible expression of the other; just as the body is the garment in which the real man is clothed for his sojourn in time. But the expression is often little more than a shadow, unsatisfying, misleading. One of our greatest English poets has written—
“The one remains, the many change and pass,
Heaven’s light for ever shines, earth’s shadows fly.
Time, like a dome of many coloured glass,
Stains the bright radiance of eternity,
Until death tramples it to fragments.”
And so you and I are living now under the dome of many-coloured glass, and shall live as long as we remain in these bodies, a temporal and an eternal life—“the next world,” which too many of our teachers speak of as a place which we shall first enter after death, being in fact “next” only in the truest sense of the word; namely, that it is “nearest” to us now. The dome of time can do nothing more (if we even allow it to do that) than partially to conceal from us the light which is always there, beneath, around, above us.
“The outer life of the devout man,” it has been well said, “should be thoroughly attractive to others. He would be simple, honest, straightforward, unpretending, gentle, kindly;—his conversation cheerful and sensible: he would be ready to share in all blameless mirth, indulgent to all save sin.” And tried by this test, the best we have at command, my brother was essentially a devout man.
The last thirty years, the years of his manhood, have been a period of great restlessness and activity, chiefly of a superficial kind, in matters pertaining specially to religion. The Established Church, of which he was a member, from conviction as well as by inheritance, has been passing through a crisis which has often threatened her existence; faction after faction, as they saw their chance, rising up and striving in the hope of casting out those whose opinions or practices they disliked. Against all such attempts my brother always protested whenever he had an opportunity, and discouraged all those with whom he had any influence from taking any part in them.