Man's life is the true fable of that beautiful youth, Narcissus, who had a twin sister of remarkable loveliness, strongly resembling himself, and to whom he was most tenderly attached. She dies young. He frequents fountains to gaze upon his own image reflected in the waters, it seeming to him the likeness of her he has lost. He is in pity transformed into a flower on the border of a stream, where, bending on his fragile stem, he seeks his image in the waters murmuring by, until he fades and dies. Has not God, the all loving Author who composed the sweet poem of Man and Nature, written at the close a reconciling Elysium wherein these pure lovers, the fond Narcissus and his echo mate, shall wander in perennial bliss, their embracing forms mirrored in unruffled fountains?
Looking now for the conclusion of the whole matter, we find that it lies in three different aspects, both of inquiring thought and of practical morality, according to the lights and modes in which three different classes of minds approach it. To the consistent metaphysician, reasoning rigidly on grounds of science and philosophy, every thing pertaining to the methods and circumstances of the future life is an affair of entire uncertainty and hypothesis.5 If in the future state the soul retains its individuality as an identical force, form, life, and memory, and if associates in the present state are brought together, it is probable that old friends will recognise each other. But if they are oblivious of the past, if they are incommunicably separated in space or state, if one progresses so much farther that the other can never overtake him, if the personal soul blends its individual consciousness with the unitary consciousness of the Over Soul, if it commences a new career from a fresh psychical germ, then, by the terms, there will be no mutual recognition. In that case his comfort and his duty are to know that the anguish and longing he now feels will cease then; to trust in the benignity of the Infinite Wisdom, who knows best what to appoint for his creatures; and to submit with harmonizing resignation to the unalterable decree, offering his private wish a voluntary sacrifice on the altar of natural piety. That he shall know his friends hereafter is not impossible, not improbable; neither is it certain. He may desire it, expect it, but not with speculative pride dogmatically affirm it, nor with insisting egotism presumptuously demand it.
5 Gravell, Das Wiedersehen nach dem Tode. Wie es nur sein konne.
To the uncritical Christian the recognising reunion of friends in heaven is an unshaken assurance.6 There is nothing to disturb his implicit reception of the plain teaching of Scripture. The legitimate exhortations of his faith are these. Mourn not too bitterly nor too long over your absent dead; for you shall meet them in an immortal clime. As the last hour comes for your dearest ones or for yourself, be of good cheer; for an imperishable joy is yours. You:
"Cannot lose the hope that many a year
Hath shone on a gleaming way,
When the walls of life are closing round
And the sky grows sombre gray."
Put not away the intruding thoughts of the departed, but let them often recur. The dead are constant. You know not how much they may think of you, how near they may be to you. Will you pass to meet them not having thought of them for years, having perhaps forgotten them? Let your mind have its nightly firmament of religious communion, beneath which white and sable memories shall walk, and the sphered spirits of your risen friends, like stars, shed down their holy rays to soothe your feverish cares and hush every murmuring doubt to rest. From the dumb heavings of your loving and trustful heart, sometimes exclaim, Parents who nurtured and watched over me with unwearied affection, I would remember you oft, and love you well, and so live that one day I may meet you at the right hand of God. Early friends, so close and dear once, who in the light of young romance trod with me life's morning hills, neither your familiar faces nor your sweet communion are forgotten by me: I fondly think of you, and aspire towards you, and pray for a purer soul, that I may mount to your celestial circle at last;
"For many a tear these eyes must weep,
And many a sin must be forgiven,
Ere these pale lids shall sink to sleep,
Ere you and I shall meet in heaven."
Blessed Jesus, elder Brother of our race, who sittest now by thy Father's throne, or pacest along the crystal coast as a leader, chief among ten thousand, whose condescending brow the bloody thorns no longer press, but the dazzling crown of thy Divinity encircles, oh, remember us, poor erring pilgrims after thine earthly steps; pity us, help us, and after death bring us to thy home.
To the sympathetic poet, the man of sentiment and meditation, who views the question from the position of the heart, in the glory and vistas of the imagination, but with all the known facts and relations of the subject lying bare under his sight, the uniting restoration, in another sphere, of earth's broken ties and parted friends, is an unappeasable craving of the soul, in harmony with the moral law, powerfully prophesied to his experience from all quarters, and seemingly confirmed to his hopes by every promise of God and nature.7
6 Grafe, Biblische Beitrage zu der Frage, Werden wir uns wiedersehen nach dem Tode.