第33章 Our Relations to the Departed (1)

"She is not dead, but sleepeth." Luke viii.52A Great peculiarity of the Christian religion is its transforming or transmuting power.I speak not now of the regeneration which accomplishes in the individual soul, but of the change it works upon things without.It applies the touchstone to every fact of existence, and exposes its real value.Looking through the lens of spiritual observation, it throws the realities of life into a reverse perspective from that which is seen by the sensual eye.

Objects which the world calls great it renders insignificant, and makes near and prominent things which the frivolous put off.

Thus the Christian, among other men, often appears anomalous.

Often, amidst the congratulations of the world, he detects reason for mourning, and is penetrated with sorrow.On the contrary, where others shrink, he walks undaunted, and converts the scene of dread and suffering into an ante-chamber of heaven.In this light, the Apostle Paul speaks of himself and others, "As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich;as having nothing, and yet possessing all things." Indeed, all the beatitudes are based upon this peculiarity; for the true blessing, the inward, everlasting riches, are for those who, in the world's eye, are poor, and mourning, and persecuted.Jesus himself weeps amid triumphant psalms and sounding hosannas, while on the cross he utters the prayer of forgiveness, and the ejaculation of peace.

No wonder, then, that the believer views the ghastliest fact of all in a consoling and even a beautiful aspect; and death itself becomes but sleep.Well was that trait of our religion which Ihave now suggested illustrated at the bed-side of Jairus'

daughter.Well did that noisy, lamenting group represent the worldly who read only the material fact, or that flippant skepticism which laughs all supernatural truth to scorn.And well did Jesus represent the spirit of his doctrine, and its transforming power, when he exclaimed, "She is not dead, but sleepeth."Yes! beautifully has Christianity transformed death.To the eye of flesh it was the final direction of our fate,--the consummate riddle in this mystery of being,--the wreck of all our hopes,--"The simple senses crowned his head, Omega! thou art Lord, they said;We find no motion in the dead."

Ever, though with higher desires and better gleamings, the mind has struggled and sunk before this fact of decay, and this awful silence of nature; while in the waning light of the soul, and among the ashes of the sepulchre, skepticism has built its dreary negation.And though the mother could lay down her child without taking hints which God gave her from every little flower that sprung on that grassy bed,--though the unexhausted intellect has reasoned that we ought to live again, and the affections, more oracular, swelling with the nature of their great source, have prophesied that we shall,--never, until the revelation of Christ descended into our souls, and illuminated all our spiritual vision, have we been able to say certainly of death, it is a sleep.This has made its outward semblance not that of cessation, but of progression--not an end, but a change--converting its rocky couch to a birth-chamber, over-casting its shadows with beams of eternal morning, while behind its cold unconsciousness the unseen spirit broods into higher life."He fell asleep," says the sacred chronicler, speaking of bloody Stephen."Our friend Lazarus sleepeth," said Christ to his disciples; and yet again, as here in the text, the beautiful synonyme is repeated, "She is not dead, but sleepeth."But I proceed to remark, if the Christian religion thus transforms death, or, in other words, abolishes the idea of its being annihilation, or an end, then it gives us a new view of our relations to the departed.What are these relations? The answers to this question will form the burden of the present discourse.

I.There is the relation of memory.It is true, we may argue that this relation exists whether the Christian view of death be correct or not;--so long have those who are now gone actually lived with us,--so vivid are their images among the realities of the soul,--though the grave should forever shut them from our communion.But this relation of memory has peculiar propriety and efficacy when associated with a Christian faith.If the dead live no more, what would memory be to us but a spectre and a sting? Should we not then seek to repress those tender recollections,--to close our eyes to those pale, sad visions of departed love? Should we not invoke the glare and tumult of the world to distract or absorb our thoughts? Would we not say, "Let it come, the pleasure, the occupation of the hour, that we may think no more of the dead, plucked from us forever,--let us drive thoughtlessly down this swift current of life, since thought only harrows us,--let us drive thoughtlessly down, enjoying all we can, until we too lie by the side of those departed ones, like them to moulder in everlasting unconsciousness." I don not say that this would always be the case without religious hope, but it is a very natural condition of the feelings in such circumstances,--it is the most humane alternative that would then be left.At least, no one so well as the Christian can go into the inner chambers of memory, feel the strength of its sad yet blissful associations, and calmly invoke the communion of the dead.