第36章 Our Relations to the Departed (4)

Though we should see them only in the abstractions of memory,--though it should be true that they have no spiritual intercourse with us,--yet their agency in our behalf has not ceased.They still accomplish a work for us.That work is in the moral efficacy of bereavement and sorrow.In their going away they lead our thoughts out beyond the limits of the world.

They quicken us to an interest in the spiritual land.as one who looks upon a map, and listlessly reads the name of some foreign shore, so, often, do we open this blessed revelation not heeding its recital of the immortal state.But as, when some friend goes to that distant coast, that spot on the map becomes, of all places, most vivid and prominent, so when our loved ones die, the spiritual country largely occupies our thoughts and attracts our affections.They depart that we may be weaned from earth.They ascend that we may "look steadfastly towards heaven." If this is not our everlasting home, why should they all remain here to cheat us with that thought? If we must seek a better country, should there not be premonitions for us, breaking up, and farewells, and the hurried departure of friends who are ready before us? I need not dwell on this suggestion.We are too much of the earth, earthy, and bound up in sensual interests.It is often needful that some shock of disappointment should shake our idea of terrestrial stability--should awake us to a sense of our spiritual relations--should strike open some chasm in this dead, material wall, and let in the light of the unlimited and immortal state to which we go.We need the discipline of bereavement in temporal things, to win us to things eternal.And so, in their departure, the loved accomplish for us a blessed and spiritual result, and instead of being wholly lost to us, become bound to us by a new and vital relation.

But these loved ones depart, no merely to bind our affections to another state, but to fit us better for the obligations of this.

Perhaps, in the indulgence of full communion, in the liquid ease of prosperity, we have scantily discharged our social duties.We have not appreciated love, because we have never felt its absence.We have shocked the tenderest ties, because we were ignorant of their tenderness.We have withheld good offices, because we knew not how rare is the opportunity to fulfil them.

But when one whom we love passes away, then, realizing a great loss, we learn how vital was that relation, how inestimable the privilege which is withdrawn forever.How quick then is our regret for every harsh word which we have spoken to the departed, or for any momentary alienation which we have indulged! This, however, should not reduce us to a morbid sensitiveness, or an unavailing sorrow, seeing that it is blended with so many pleasant memories; but it should teach us our duty to the living.

It should make our affections more diligent and dutiful.It should check our hasty words, and assuage our passions.It should cause us, day and night, to meet in kindness and part in peace.Our social ties are golden links of uncertain tenure, and, one by one, they drop away.Let us cherish a more constant love for those who make up our family circle, for "not long may we stay." The allotments of duty, perhaps, will soon distribute us into different spheres of action; our lines, which now fall together in a pleasant place, will be wide apart as the zones, or death will cast his shadow upon these familiar faces, and interrupt our long communion.Let us, indeed, preserve this temper with all men--those who meet us in the street, in the mart, in the most casual or selfish concerns of life.We cannot remain together a great while, at the longest.Let us meet, then, with kindness, that when we part no pang may remain.Let not a single day bear witness to the neglect or violation of any duty which shall lie hard in the heart when it is excited to tender and solemn recollections.Let only good-will beam from faces that so soon shall be changed.Let no root of bitterness spring up in one man's bosom against another, when, ere long, nature will plant flowers upon their common grave."Let not the sun go down upon our wrath," when his morning beams may search our accustomed places for one or both of us, in vain.

Thus, if the dead teach us to regard more dutifully the living, they will accomplish for us a most beautiful discipline.Their departure may also serve another end.It may teach us the great lessons of patience and resignation.We have been surrounded by many blessings, and yet perhaps, have indulged in fretfulness.Aslight loss has irritated us.We have chafed at ordinary disappointments, at little interruptions in the current of our prosperity.We have been in the habit of murmuring.And now this great grief has overtaken us, that we may see at what little things we have complained,--that we may learn that there is a meaning in trouble which should make us calm,--that we had no right to these gifts, the privation of which has offended us, but that all have flowed from that mercy which we have slightly acknowledged, and peevishly accused.This great sorrow has stricken us, piercing through bone and marrow, in order to reach our hearts, and touch the springs of spiritual life within us, that henceforth, we may look upon all sorrow in a new light.