About the world to come, it ought not to be as though we did not know surely, because we do not know much. From the nearest star, our earth, if it is seen, looks hardly anything at all. It shines, or rather it twinkles, and that is all. To them afar off, this earth is only a shining point. But to us who live in it, it is wide and various. It is sea and land; it is Europe, Asia, Africa, and America; it is the lair of the lion, and the pasture of the ox, and the pathway of the worm, and the support of the robin; it is what has day and night in it; it is what customs and languages obtain in; it is many countries; it is the habitation of a thousand million men; and it is our home. All this the world is to us; though, looked at from one of the stars, it is only a something that twinkles in the distance. It is seen only as a few intermittent rays of light; though, to us who live in it, it is hill and valley, and land and water, and many thousands of miles wide. So that if the future world is a star of guidance for us, it is enough; because it is not for us to know, but to believe, that it will prove our dear home.
* * * * *
We live mortal lives for immortal good. And really this world is so mysterious, that there is not one of its commonest ways but is perhaps sublimer to walk on than we at all think. At night, when we walk about and see at all, it is by the light of other worlds; though we do not often think of this. It is the same in life. There is many a matter concerning us that is little thought of, but which is ours, as it were, from out of the infinite. Yes, our lives are to be felt as being very great, even in their nothingness. Even our mortal lives are as wonderful as immortality. Is the next life a mystery? So it is. But then how mysterious even now life is. Food is not all that a man lives by. There is some way by which food has to turn to strength in him; and that way is something else than his own will. I am hungry, I sit down to a meal, and I enjoy it. And the next day, from what I ate and drank for my pleasure, there is blood in my veins, and moisture on my skin, and new flesh making in all my limbs. And this is not my doing or willing; for I do not even know how my nails grow from under the skin of my fingers. I can well believe in my being to live hereafter. How, indeed, I am to live, I do not know; but, then, neither do I know how I do live now. When I am asleep, my lungs keep breathing, my heart keeps beating, my stomach keeps digesting, and my whole body keeps making anew. And in the morning, when I look in the glass, it is as though I see myself a new creature; and really, for the wonder of it, it is all the same as though another body had grown about me in my
sleep. This living from day to day is astonishing,
when it is thought of; and we are let we are
let feel the miracle of it, so, perhaps,
that our being to live again may
not be too wonderful for
our belief.
Though there be storm and turbulence on this earth, one would rise but little way, through the blackened air, before he would come to a region of calm and peace, where the stars shine unobstructed, and where there is no storm. And a little above our cloud, a little higher than our darkness, a little beyond our storm, is God’s upper region of tranquil peace and calm. And when we have had the discipline of winter here, it will be possible for us to have eternal summer there.
Henry Ward Beecher.
