第38章 The Voices of the Dead(1)

"And by it he being dead yet speaketh." Hebrews xi.4.

Much of the communion of this earth is not by speech or actual contact, and the holiest influences fall upon us in silence.Amonument or symbol shall convey a meaning which cannot be expressed; and a token of some departed one is more eloquent than words.The mere presence of a good and holy personage will move us to reverence and admiration, though he may say and do but little.So is there an impersonal presence of such an one; and, though far away, he converses with us, teaches and incites us.

The organs of speech are only one method of the soul's expression; and the best information which it receives comes without voice or sound.We hear no vocal utterance from God, yet he speaks to us through all the forms of nature.In the blue, ever-arching heaven he tells us of his comprehensive care and tender pity, and "the unwearied sun" proclaims his constant and universal benevolence.The air that wraps us close breathes of his intimate and all-pervading spirit; and the illimitable space, and the stars that sparkle abroad without number, show forth his majesty and suggest infinitude.The gush of silent prayer--the sublimest mood of the spirit--is when we are so near to him that words cannot come between; and the power of his presence is felt the most, felt in the profoundest deep of our nature, when the curtains of his pavilion hang motionless around us.And it is so, I repeat, with all our best communions.The holiest lessons are not in the word, but the life.The virtues that attract us most are silent.The most beautiful charities go noiseless on their mission.The two mites reveal the spiritual wealth beneath the poor widow's weeds; the alabaster box of ointment is fragrant with Mary's gratitude; the look of Christ rebukes Peter into penitence; and by his faith Abel, being dead, yet speaketh.

Yes, even the dead, long gone from us, returning no more, their places left vacant, their lineaments dimly remembered, their bodies mouldering back to dust, even these have communion with us; and to speak of "the voices of the dead" is no mere fancy.

And it is to that subject that I would call your attention, in the remainder of a brief discourse.

"He being dead yet speaketh." The departed have voices for us.

In order to illustrate this, I remark, in the first place, that the dead speak to us, and commune with us, through the works which they have left behind them.As the islands of the sea are the built-up casements of myriads of departed lives,--as the earth itself is a great catacomb,--so we who live and move upon its surface inherit the productions and enjoy the fruits of the dead.They have bequeathed to us by far the larger portion of all that influences our thoughts, or mingles with the circumstances of our daily life.We walk through the streets they laid out.We inhabit the houses they built.We practise the customs they established.We gather wisdom from books they wrote.We pluck the ripe clusters of their experience.We boast in their achievements.And by these they speak to us.Every device and influence they have left behind tells their story, and is a voice of the dead.We feel this more impressively when we enter the customary place of one recently departed, and look around upon his work.The half-finished labor, the utensils hastily thrown aside, the material that exercised his care and received his last touch, all express him, and seem alive with his presence.By them, though dead, he speaketh to us, with a freshness and tone like his words of yesterday.How touching are those sketched forms, those unfilled outlines in that picture which employed so fully the time and genius of the great artist--Belshazzar's feast! In the incomplete process, the transition-state of an idea from its conception to its realization, we are brought closer to the mind of the artist; we detect its springs and hidden workings, and therefore feel its reality more than in the finished effort.And this is one reason why we are impressed at beholding the work just left than in gazing upon one that has been for a long time abandoned.Having had actual communion with the contriving mind, we recognize its presence more readily in its production; or else the recency of the departure heightens the expressiveness with which everything speaks of the departed.The dead child's cast-off garment, the toy just tossed aside, startles us as though with his renewed presence.A year hence, they will suggest him to us, but with a different effect.

But though not with such an impressive tone, yet just as much, in fact, do the productions of those long gone speak to us.Their minds are expressed there, and a living voice can do little more.

Nay, we are admitted to a more intimate knowledge of them than was possessed by their contemporaries.The work they leave behind them is the sum-total of their lives--expresses their ruling passion--reveals, perhaps, their real sentiment.To the eyes of those placed on the stage with them, they walked as in a show, and each life was a narrative gradually unfolding itself.