The late Archbishop Whately, in some annotations on Lord Bacon’s second essay, has mentioned a very remarkable phenomenon connected with insect-life, and has recorded that it often occurred to him as a very impressive analogy of a future state. You know that every butterfly—the Greek name for which, it is remarkable, is the same that signifies also the soul, Psyche—comes from a caterpillar—in the language of naturalists, called a larva, which signifies, literally, a mask. Now there is a tribe of insects called ichneumon-flies, which inhabit and feed on these larvæ. The parasitical flies have a long, sharp sting, which pierces the body of the caterpillar, and whereby they deposit their eggs on the inward parts of their victim. But, strange to say, the caterpillar thus attacked goes on feeding, and apparently thriving quite as well as those that have escaped. But when the period arrives for the close of the larva-life, then the evil is made manifest. Caterpillars assume the pupa-state from which they emerge butterflies; and it is then that the difference appears between those that have escaped the parasites and those that were the victims of them. Beautiful and awful analogy! There are many who, as to the outside, look like other men. They dress well, look well. The sin is preying only on their immortal part; and when they have laid aside that which merely belonged to their physical life, then the soul shall stand, with all its poverty and scars and shrivelled places, naked and open. “The kingdom of heaven is within you,” said Christ to his followers; and so are the elements of hell in other men.
Prodigious is the inconsistency of some modern reasoners. They believe in the immortality of the soul. They see that the man is the development of the boy, and that the acts of the youth leave their impress on the whole after-life. They say law is inflexible, and that miracles therefore are impossible. They affirm that justice is so exact that its penalty must fall on its proper victim, and that therefore Christ’s death is not vicarious. But somehow at this point all their reasoning falls to pieces. According to them, man in the future life is not to be dealt with after this inflexibility of law and this exactness of justice. According to them, up to the moment of death law goes in a straight, unbending line; why then, in the name of all pretence of reason, does it fail at that point, so that wickedness, which has met with its exact punishment in this world, fails to meet with it in that coming one? Dear young man, fearlessness as to what that future may be is stark madness. It is folly for which there is no name, for a man all through his earthly life to bear the traces of the indolence and self-willedness of his youth. But oh, what must it be for all the future and eternal life to bear the traces of the wrongs that have been done to the soul in this? What must it be for all the possible features with which the soul entered on this life—truth, purity, love, faith—not only to have lain undeveloped, but to have been quenched? Let me conjure and entreat you to look at this subject. Do not, for the sake of all that is dear to you, close your eyes to it. Let the great future take its right place as you are starting in life. Be assured that the language of Scripture concerning those that have perished is prompted by God’s yearning for your immortal well-being, while it accords with all the analogies of creation: “For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord, therefore shall they eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.”
Come then, young men, and let me persuade you to a worthy view of life. God meets you as you read these words, and offers to be the guide of your human life. The good God did not send you into his creation to be afterwards an accursed thing in the outer darkness. This life of yours, with its endowments and capabilities, may become a sublime and influential life—a blessed ascendency, a tower of strength to men, regnant in all that is majestic, angelic, and godlike. Hear how Divine counsel speaks to you: “How long, ye simple ones, will ye love folly? Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my Spirit upon you; I will make known my words unto you.” Nor will life thus passed be too earnest to be happy. Yours will be the happiness—not of animal enjoyments merely, not purchased with stabbing your self-respect, not followed with the heart-sobs of those who love you, but of one who is bringing into use the higher and diviner faculties of your nature. Your intelligence will be fed by knowledge, your soul will be ennobled by purity, your tastes will be in harmony with sweet sounds and beauty, your conscience will be kept in peace, and your heart’s emotions will have play in ways that leave no bitterness, but ofttimes swell into rapture. Believe me, the only thing that can give meaning and glory to your life is, to resolve most resolutely that you will not be enslaved, will not be degraded, will not be plunged into the mire and foulness of sin, but will live according to a life-plan of real nobleness. Remember, no one can do this for you. Your life is in your own hands; and God has so placed you among creatures, that He will not do you saving good without your consent. You may be a poor waif on the winds of temptation, drifted to whatever abyss of destruction they hurry you; or you may be a son of God, victorious over sin, ranking with the earth’s great ones, and followed with blessings. And then, and then, when the final issue comes, and you lie down to die, instead of regrets, yours may be the solid satisfaction that your life, from its very morning, has been consecrated to the side of goodness; and then, instead of a place with the wicked and the scorners, you may go into a heaven for which you are prepared, and into a life of glorious felicity that is to come, and into which you have been initiated down here.
Blessed be God, there is a short way to the life I recommend. There are two steps by which you may enter it. Obtain, first, forgiveness for the sins of the past. God offers you all the merits of Christ’s atoning sacrifice. Through that great sacrifice he will receive you, and remember your sins no more. In the blessed book, in every variety of form, in every glowing and rich expression, are you assured that pardon shall be granted to a repentant soul. Young man, this is the first step. Believe, and drop your burden of the sins of the past. Start a free man.
This is the second step: offer your life gratefully, lovingly, to the Friend and Saviour of your soul. Ask for his Spirit to help you: his ear will be swift to hearken. This love to him will make his yoke easy, will make the cross light, will make life to have a magnificent meaning, will make sorrow to wear a friendly guise, will break the force of temptation, will make sin the hateful thing. This will cause your feet to find “peace and pleasantness” on the path of life, till you reach the mansions where the golden gates shall be thrown open for you, and the angels shall tell you they have been waiting to welcome you.
Brother, will you try this life?