{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_1959/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_1959","id":"gutenberg_1959","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1959","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Consolation"],"text":"Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE CROWN OF THORNS\n\nA TOKEN FOR THE SORROWING\n\n\nby E. H. Chapin\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nOne of the discourses in this volume--\"The Mission of Little\nChildren\"--was written just after the death of a dear son, and was\npublished in pamphlet form. The edition having become exhausted sooner\nthan the demand, it was deemed advisable to reprint it; and accordingly\nit is now presented to the reader, accompanied by others of a similar\ncast, most of them growing out of the same experience. This fact will\naccount for any repetition of sentiment which may appear in these\ndiscourses, especially as they were written without any reference to one\nanother.\n\nTo the sorrowing, then, this little volume is tendered, with the\nauthor's sympathy and affection. Upon its pages he has poured out some\nof the sentiments of his own heartfelt experience, knowing that they\nwill find a response in theirs, and hoping that the book may do a work\nof consolation and of healing. If it impresses upon any the general\nsentiment which it contains,--the sentiment of religious resignation and\ntriumph in affliction; if it shall cause any tearful vision to take the\nChristian view of sorrow; if it shall teach any troubled soul to\nendure and hope; if it shall lead any weary spirit to the Fountain of\nconsolation; in one word, if it shall help any, by Christ's strength,\nto weave the thorns that wound them into a crown, I shall be richly\nrewarded, and, I trust, grateful to that God to whose service I dedicate\nthis book, invoking his blessing upon it.\n\nE. H. C.\n\nMay, 1860\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n     THE THREE TABERNACLES\n     THE SHADOW OF DISAPPOINTMENT\n     LIFE A TALE\n     THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SORROW\n     CHRISTIAN CONSOLATION IN LONELINESS\n     RESIGNATION\n     THE MISSION OF LITTLE CHILDREN\n     OUR RELATIONS TO THE DEPARTED\n     THE VOICES OF THE DEAD\n     MYSTERY AND FAITH\n\n\n\n\nTHE THREE TABERNACLES\n\n\nAnd Peter answered and said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to\nbe here: and let us make three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for\nMoses, and one for Elias. MARK ix. 5.\n\n\nCaught up in glory and in rapture, the Apostle seems to have forgotten\nthe world from which he had ascended, and to which he still belonged,\nand to have craved permanent shelter and extatic communion within the\nmystic splendors that brightened the Mount of Transfiguration. But it\nwas true, not only as to the confusion of his faculties, but the purport\nof his desire, that \"he knew not what he said.\" For even \"while he yet\nspake,\" the cloud overshadowed them, the heavenly forms vanished, they\nfound themselves with Jesus alone, and an awful Voice summoned them from\ncontemplation to duty,--from vision to work.\n\nPeter knew not what he said. He would have converted the means into an\nend. He and his fellow-disciples had been called to follow Christ not\nthat they might see visions, but had been permitted to see visions that\nthey might follow Christ. Just previous to that celestial interview,\nJesus had announced to them his own painful doom, and had swept away\ntheir conceit of Messianic glories involved with earthly pomp and\ndominion, by his declaration of the self-denial, the shame, and the\nsuffering, which lay in the path of those who really espoused his cause\nand entered into his kingdom. They needed such a revelation as this,\nthen, upon the Mount of Transfiguration, to support them under the\nstroke which had shaken their earthly delusion, and let in glimpses of\nthe sadder truth. It was well that they should behold the leaders of the\nold dispensation confirming and ministering to the greatness of the new,\nand the religion which was to go down into the dark places of the earth\nmade manifest in its authority and its source from Heaven. It was\nwell that they should see their Master glorified, that they might be\nstrengthened to see him crucified. It was well that Moses and Elias\nstood at the font, when they were about to be baptized into their\napostleship of suffering, and labor, and helping finish the work which\nthese glorious elders helped begin. But that great work still lay before\nthem, and to rest here would be to stop upon the threshold;--to have\nkept the vision would have thwarted the purpose. Upon a far higher\nsummit, and at a far distant time--with fields of toil and tracts of\nblood between--would that which was meant as an inspiration for their\nsouls become fixed for their sight, and tabernacles that should never\nperish enclose a glory that should never pass away.\n\nYou may have anticipated the lessons for ourselves which I propose to\ndraw from this unconsidered request of Peter. At least, you will readily\nperceive that it does contain suggestions applicable to our daily life.\nFor I proceed, at once, to ask you if it is not a fact that often we\nwould like to remain where, and to have what, is not best for us? Do not\nillustrations of this simple thought occur easily to your minds? Does\nnot man often desire, as it were, to build his tabernacles here or\nthere, when due consideration, and after-experience will convince him\nthat it was not the place to abide; that it was better that the good\nbe craved, or the class of relations to which he clung, should not be\npermanent? In order to give effect to this train of reflection, let\nme direct you to some specific instances in which this desire is\nmanifested.\n\nPerhaps I may say, without any over-refinement upon my topic, that\nthere are three things in life to which the desires of men especially\ncling,--three tabernacles which upon the slope of this world they\nwould like to build. I speak now, it is to be remembered, of desires of\nimpulse, not of deliberation,--of desires often felt, if not expressed.\nAnd I say, in the first place, that there are certain conditions in life\nitself that it sometimes appears desirable to retain. Sometimes, from\nthe heart of a man, there breaks forth a sigh for perpetual youth. In\nthe perplexities of mature years,--in the experience of selfishness, and\nhollowness, and bitter disappointment; in the surfeit of pleasure; in\nutter weariness of the world,--he exclaims, \"O! give me back that sweet\nmorning of my days, when all my feelings were fresh, and the heart was\nwet with a perpetual dew. Give me the untried strength; the undeceived\ntrust; the credulous imagination, that bathed all things in molten\nglory, and filled the unknown world with infinite possibilities.\" Sad\nwith skepticism, and tired with speculation, he cries out for that faith\nthat needed no other confirmation than the tones of a mother's voice,\nand found God everywhere in the soft pressure of her love; and when his\nsteps begin to hesitate, and he finds himself among the long shadows,\nand the frailty and fear of the body overcome the prophecies of the\nsoul, and no religious assurance lights and lifts up his mind, how he\nwishes for some fountain of restoration that shall bring back his bloom\nand his strength, and make him always young! \"Why have such experiences\nas decline, and decay, and death?\" he asks. \"Is it not good for us to be\never young? Why should not the body be a tabernacle of constant youth,\nand life be always thus fresh, and buoyant, and innocent, and confiding?\nOr, if we must, at last, die, why all this sad experience,--this\nincoming of weakness,--this slipping away of life and power?\"\n\nBut this is a feeling which no wise or good man ever cherishes long,\nfor he knows that the richest experiences, and the best achievements of\nlife, come after the period of youth; spring out of this very sadness,\nand suffering, and rough struggle in the world, which an unthinking\nsentimentality deplores. Ah, my friends, in spite of our trials,\nour weariness, our sad knowledge of men and things; in spite of the\ndeclining years among which so many of us are standing, and the tokens\nof decay that are coming upon us; nay, in spite even of our very sins;\nwho would go back to the hours of his youthful experience, and have the\nshadow stand still at that point upon the dial of his life? Who, for the\nsake of its innocence and its freshness, would empty the treasury of his\nbroader knowledge, and surrender the strength that he has gathered in\neffort and endurance? Who, for its careless joy, would exchange the\nheart-warm friendships that have been annealed in the vicissitudes of\nyears,--the love that sheds a richer light upon our path, as its vista\nlengthens, or has drawn our thoughts into the glory that is beyond the\nveil? Nay, even if his being, has been most frivolous and aimless, or\nvile,--in the penitent throb with which this is felt to be so, there is\na. spring of active power which exists not in the dreams of the\nyouth; and the sense of guilt and of misery is the stirring, of a life\ninfinitely deeper than that early flow of vitality and--consciousness\nwhich sparkles as it runs. Build a tabernacle for perpetual youth, and\nsay, \"It is good to be here?\" It cannot be so; and it is well that it\ncannot. Our post is not the Mount of Vision, but the Field of Labor; and\nwe can find no rest in Eden until we have passed through, Gethsemane.\n\nEqually vain is the desire for some condition in life which shall be\nfree from care, and want, and the burden of toil. I suppose most people\ndo, at times, wish for such a lot, and secretly or openly repine at the\nterms upon which they are compelled to live. The deepest fancy in the\nheart of the most busy men is repose--retirement-command of time and\nmeans, untrammeled by any imperative claim. And yet who is there that,\nthrown into such a position, would find it for his real welfare, and\nwould be truly happy? Perhaps the most restless being in the world is\nthe man who need do nothing, but keep still. The old soldier fights all\nhis battles over again, and the retired merchant spreads the sails of\nhis thought upon new ventures, or comes uneasily down to snuff the air\nof traffic, and feel the jar of wheels. I suppose there is nobody whose\ncondition is so deplorable, so ghastly, as his whose lot many may be\ndisposed to envy,--a man at the top of this world's ease, crammed\nto repletion with what is called \"enjoyment;\" ministered to by every\nluxury,--the entire surface of his life so smooth with completeness that\nthere is not a jut to hang, a hope on,--so obsequiously gratified\nin every specific want that he feels miserable from the very lack of\nwanting. As in such a case there, can be no religious life--which never\npermits us to rest in a feeling of completeness; which seldom abides\nwith fulness(sic) of possession, and never stops with self, but always\ninspires to some great work of love and sacrifice--as in such a case\nthere can be no religious life, he fully realizes the poet's description\nof the splendor and the wretchedness of him who\n\n\n    \" * * built his soul a costly pleasure-house\n    Wherein at ease for aye to dwell;\"\n\nand who said\n\n    \" * * O soul, make merry and carouse\n    Dear soul, for all is well.\n\n    * * * * * * *\n\n    Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth,\n    Joying to feel herself alive,\n    Lord over nature, lord of the visible earth,\n    Lord of the 'senses five\n\n    \"Communing with herself:, 'All these are mine,\n    And let the world have peace or wars,\n    'T is one to me,' * * * * *\n\n    * * * * * So three years\n    She throve, but on the fourth she fell,\n    Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears,\n    Struck through with pangs of hell.\"\n\n\nThe truth is, there is no one place, however we may envy it, which would\nbe indisputably good for us to occupy; much less for us to remain in.\nThe zest of life, like the pleasure which we receive from a work of art,\nor from nature, comes from undulations--from inequalities; not from\nany monotony, even though it be the monotony of seeming perfection. The\nbeauty of the landscape depends upon contrasts, and would be lost in\none common surface of splendor. The grandeur of the waves is in the deep\nhollows, as well as the culminating crests; and the bars of the sunset\nglow on the background of the twilight. The very condition of a great\nthing is that it must be comparatively a rare thing. We speak of summer\nglories, and yet who would wish it to be always summer?--who does not\nsee how admirably the varied seasons are fitted to our appetite for\nchange? It may seem as if it would be pleasant to have it always\nsunshine; and yet when fruit and plant are dying from lack of moisture,\nand the earth sleeps exhausted in the torrid air, who ever saw a summer\nmorning more beautiful than that when the clouds muster their legions to\nthe sound of the thunder, and pour upon us the blessing of the rain?\nWe repine at toil, and yet how gladly do we turn in from the lapse of\nrecreation to the harness of effort! We sigh for the freedom and glory\nof the country; but, in due time, just as fresh and beautiful seem to\nus the brick walls and the busy streets where our lot is cast, and\nour interests run. There is no condition in life of which we can say\nexclusively \"It is good for us to be here.\" Our course is appointed\nthrough vicissitude,--our discipline is in alternations; and we can\nbuild no abiding tabernacles along the way.\n\nBut, I observe, in the second place, that there are those who may\ndiscard the notion of retaining any particular condition of life and yet\nthey would preserve unbroken some of its relations. They may not keep\nthe freshness of youth, or prevent the intrusion of trouble, or shut out\nthe claims of responsibility, or the demands for effort;--they may not\nachieve anything of this kind; and they do not wish to achieve it; but\nthey would build a tabernacle to LOVE, and keep the objects of dear\naffection safe within its enclosure. \"Joy, sorrow, poverty, riches,\nyouth, decay, let these come as they must,\" say they, \"in the flow of\nProvidence; but let the heart's sanctuaries remain unbroken, and let us\nin all this chance find the presence and the ministration of those we\nlove.\" And, common as the sight is, we must always contemplate with a\nfresh sadness this sundering of family bonds; this cancelling(sic) of\nthe dear realities of home; this stealing in of the inevitable gloom;\nthis vacating of the chair, the table, and the bed; this vanishing of\nthe familiar face into darkness; this passage from communion to\nmemory; this diminishing of love's orb into narrower phases,--into a\ncrescent,--into a shadow. Surely, however broad the view we take of the\nuniverse, a real woe, a veritable experience of suffering, amidst this\nboundless benificence, reaching as deep as the heart's core, is this old\nand common sorrow;--the sorrow of woman for her babes, and of man for\nhis helpmate, and of age for its prop, and of the son for the mother\nthat bore him, and of the heart for the hearts that once beat in\nsympathy, and of the eyes that hide vacancies with tears. When these\nold stakes are wrenched from their sockets, and these intimate cords are\nsnapped, one begins to feel his own tent shake and flap in the wind that\ncomes from eternity, and to realize that there is no abiding tabernacle\nhere.\n\nBut ought we really to wish that these relations might remain unbroken,\nand to murmur because it is not so? We shall be able to answer this\nquestion in the negative, I think,--however hard it may be to do\nso,--when we consider, in the first place, that this breaking up and\nseparation are inevitable. For we may be assured that whatever in the\nsystem of things is inevitable is beneficent. The dissolution of these\nbonds comes by the same law as that which ordains them; and we may be\nsure that the one--though it plays out of sight, and is swallowed up in\nmystery--is as wise and tender in its purpose as the other. It is very\nconsoling to recognize the Hand that gave in the Hand that takes a\nfriend, and to know that he is borne away in the bosom of Infinite\nGentleness, as he was brought here. It is the privilege of angels, and\nof a faith that brings us near the angels, to always behold the face of\nour Father in Heaven; and so we shall not desire the abrogation of this\nlaw of dissolution and separation. We shall strengthen ourselves to\ncontemplate the fact that the countenances we love must change, and the\nties that are closest to our hearts will break; and we shall feel that\nit ought to be, because it must be,--because it is an inevitability in\nthat grand and bounteous scheme in which stars rise and set, and life\nand death play into each other.\n\nBut, even within the circle of our own knowledge, there is that which\nmay reconcile us to these separations, and prevent the vain wish of\nbuilding perpetual tabernacles for our human love. For who is prepared,\nat any time, to say that it was not better for the dear friend, and\nbetter for ourselves, that he should go, rather than stay;--better for\nthe infant to die with flowers upon its breast, than to live and have\nthorns in its heart;--better to kiss the innocent lips that are still\nand cold, than to see the living lips that are scorched with guilty\npassion;--better to take our last look of a face while it is pleasant\nto remember--serene with thought, and faith, and many charities--than\nto see it toss in prolonged agony, and grow hideous with the wreck of\nintellect? And, as spiritual beings, placed here not to be gratified,\nbut to be trained, surely we know that often it is the drawing up of\nthese earthly ties that draws up our souls; that a great bereavement\nbreaks the crust of our mere animal consciousness, and inaugurates a\nspiritual faith; and we are baptized into eternal life through the cloud\nand the shadow of death.\n\nBut, once more, I remark, that there are those who may say, \"We do not\nask for any permanence in the conditions of life; we do not ask that\neven its dearest relationships should be retained; but give, O! give\nus ever those highest brightest moods of faith and of truth, which\nconstitute the glory of religion, and lift us above the conflict and\nthe sin of the world!\" No truly religious mind can fail to perceive the\ngravitation of its thoughts and desires, and the contrast between its\nusual level and its best moments of contemplation and prayer. And it.\nmay indeed seem well to desire the prolongation of these experiences; to\ndesire to live ever in that unworldly radiance, close to the canopy\nof God,--in company with the great and the holy,--in company with the\napostles and with Jesus,--on some Mount of Transfiguration, in garments\nwhiter than snow, and with faces bright as the sun; and the hard, bad,\ntrying world far distant and far below. Does not the man of spiritual\nsensitiveness envy those sainted ones who have grown apart, in pure\nclusters, away above the sinful world, blossoming and breathing\nfragrance on the very slopes of heaven?\n\nAnd yet, is this the complete ideal of life? and is this the way in\nwhich we are to accomplish its true end? I think we may safely say that\neven the brightest realizations of religion should be comparatively\nrare, otherwise we forget the work and lose the discipline of our mortal\nlot. The great saints--the men whose names stand highest in the calendar\nof the church universal--are not the ascetics, not the contemplators,\nnot the men who walked apart in cloisters; but those who came down from\nthe Mount of Communion and Glory, to take a part in the world; who have\ncarried its burdens in their souls, and its scars upon their breasts;\nwho have wrought for its deepest interests, and died for its highest\ngood; whose garments have swept its common ways, and whose voices have\nthrilled in its low places of suffering and of need;--men who have\nleaned lovingly against the world, until the motion of their great\nhearts jars in its pulses forever; men who have gone up from dust, and\nblood, and crackling fire; men with faces of serene endurance and lofty\ndenial, yet of broad, genial, human sympathies;--these are the men who\nwear starry crowns, and walk in white robes, yonder.\n\nWe need our visions for inspiration, but we must work in comparative\nshadow; otherwise, the very highest revelations would become monotonous,\nand we should long for still higher. And yet, are there not some whose\ndesire is for constant revelation? Who would see supernatural sights,\nand hear supernatural sounds, and know all the realities towards which\nthey are drifting, as well as those in which they must work? They would\nmake this world a mount of perpetual vision; overlooking the fact that\nit has its own purposes, to be wrought out by its own light, and within\nits own limits. For my part, I must confess that I do not share in\nthis desire to know all about the next world, and to see beforehand\neverything that is going to be. I have no solicitude about the mere\nscenery and modes of the future state. But this desire to be in the\nmidst of perpetual revelations argues that there is not enough to fill\nour minds and excite our wonder here; when all things around us are\npregnant with suggestion, and invite us, and offer unfathomed depths for\nour curious seeking. There is so much here, too, for our love and our\ndiscipline; so much for us to do, that we hardly need more revelations\njust now;--they might overwhelm and disturb us in the pursuit of\nthese appointed ends. Moreover, the gratification of this desire would\nforeclose that glorious anticipation, that trembling expectancy, which\nis so fraught with inspiration and delight,--the joy of the unknown, the\nbliss of the thought that there is a great deal yet to be revealed.\n\nWe do need some revelation; just such as has been given;--a glimpse of\nthe immortal splendors; an articulate Voice from heaven--a view of the\nglorified Jesus; a revelation in a point of time, just as that on the\nmount was in point of space. We need some; but not too much,--not all\nrevelation; not revelation as a customary fact. If so, I repeat, we\nshould neglect this ordained field of thought and action. We should live\nin a sphere of supernaturalism,--in an atmosphere of wonder,--amid\na planetary roll of miracles; still unsatisfied; still needing the\nsuggestion of higher points to break the stupendous monotony.\n\nAnd I insist that work, not vision, is to be the ordinary method of our\nbeing here, against the position of those who shut themselves in to a\ncontemplative and extatic piety. They would escape from the age, and its\nanxieties; they would recall past conditions; they would get into the\nshadow of cloisters, and build cathedrals for an exclusive sanctity.\nAnd, indeed, we would do well to consider those tendencies of our time\nwhich lead us away from the inner life of faith and prayer. But this\nwe should cherish, not by withdrawing all sanctity from life, but by\npouring sanctity into life. We should not quit the world, to build\ntabernacles in the Mount of Transfiguration, but come from out the\ncelestial brightness, to shed light into the world,--to make the whole\nearth a cathedral; to overarch it with Christian ideals, to transfigure\nits gross and guilty features, and fill it with redeeming truth and\nlove.\n\nSurely, the lesson of the incident connected with the text is clear,\nso far as the apostles were concerned, who beheld that dazzling,\nbrightness, and that heavenly companionship, apart on the mount.\nThey were not permitted to remain apart; but were dismissed to their\nappointed work. Peter went to denial and repentance,--to toil and\nmartyrdom; James to utter his practical truth; John to send the fervor\nof his spirit among the splendors of the Apocalypse, and, in its calmer\nflow through his Gospel, to give us the clearest mirror of the Saviour's\nface.\n\nNay, even for the Redeemer that was not to be an abiding vision; and he\nillustrates the purport of life as he descends from his transfiguration\nto toil, and goes forward to exchange that robe of heavenly, brightness\nfor the crown of thorns.\n\nWhat if Jesus had remained there, upon that Mount of Vision, and himself\nstood before us as only a transfigured form of glory? Where then would\nbe the peculiarity of his work, and its effect upon the world?\n\nOn the wall of the Vatican, untarnished by the passage of three\nhundred years, hangs the masterpiece of Raphael,--his picture of the\nTransfiguration. In the centre, with the glistening raiment and the\naltered countenance, stands Jesus, the Redeemer. On the right hand and\non the left are his glorified visitants; while, underneath the bright\ncloud, lie the forms of Peter, and James, and John, gazing at the\ntransfigured Jesus, shading their faces as they look. Something of the\nrapture and the awe that attracted the apostles to that shining spot\nseems to have seized the soul of the great artist, and filled him with\nhis greatest inspiration. But he saw what the apostles, at that moment,\ndid not see, and, in another portion of his picture, has represented the\nscene at the foot of the hill,--the group that awaited the descent of\nJesus.. The poor possessed boy, writhing, and foaming, and gnashing\nhis teeth,--his eyes, as some say, in their wild rolling agony, already\ncatching a glimpse of the glorified Christ above; the baffled disciples,\nthe caviling scribes, the impotent physicians, the grief-worn father,\nseeking in vain for help. Suppose Jesus had stayed upon the mount, what\nwould have become of that group of want, and helplessness, and\nagony? Suppose Christ had remained in the brightness of that vision\nforever,--himself only a vision of glory, and not an example of toil,\nand sorrow, and suffering, and death,--alas! For the great world at\nlarge, waiting at the foot of the hill--the groups of humanity in\nall ages;--the sin-possessed sufferers--the caviling skeptics; the\nphilosophers, with their books and instruments; the bereaved and frantic\nmourners in their need!\n\nSo, my hearers, wrapped in the higher moods of the soul, and wishing\nto abide among upper glories, we may not see the work that waits for us\nalong our daily path; without doing which all our visions are vain. We\nmust have the visions. We need them in our estimate of the world around\nus,--of the aspects and destinies of humanity. There are times\nwhen justice is balked, and truth covered up, and freedom trampled\ndown;--when we may well be tempted to ask, \"What is the use of trying\nto work?\"--when we may well inquire whether what-we are doing is work\nat all. And in such a case, or in any other, one is lifted up, and\ninspired, and enabled to do and to endure all things, when in steady\nvision he beholds the everliving God,--when all around the injustice,\nand conflict, and suffering of the world, he detects the Divine\nPresence, like a bright cloud overshadowing. O! then doubt melts away,\nand wrong dwindles, and the jubilee of victorious falsehood is but a\npeal of drunken laughter, and the spittings of guilt and contempt no\nmore than flakes of foam flung against a hero's breast-plate. Then one\nsees, as it were, with the vision of God, who looked down upon the old\ncycles, when a sweltering waste covered the face of the globe, and huge,\nreptile natures held it in dominion;--who beholds the pulpy worm,\ndown in the sea, building the pillars of continents;--so one sees the\nprincipalities of evil sliding from their thrones, and the deposits\nof humble faithfulness rising from the deep of ages. Our sympathy, our\nbenevolent effort in the work of God and humanity, how much do they need\nnot only the vision of intellectual foresight, but of the faith which,\non bended knees, sees further than the telescope!\n\nAnd alas! for him who, in his personal need and effort, has no margin of\nholier inspiration--no rim of divine splendor---around his daily life!\nWithout the vision of life's great realities we cannot see what our work\nis, or know how to do it.\n\nBut such visions must be necessarily rare and transient, or we shall\nmiss their genuine efficacy. We must work in comparative shadow, without\nthe immediate sight of these realities; and only in the place of our\nrest,--rest for higher efforts and a new career,--only there may we have\ntheir constant companionship, and build their perpetual tabernacles.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SHADOW OF DISAPPOINTMENT.\n\n     But we trusted that it had been he which should have\n     redeemed Israel.    LUKE xxiv. 21.\n\n\nIn the accounts of the disciples, contained in the New Testament, there\nis no attempt to glorify them, or to conceal any weakness. From the\nfirst to the last, they think and act precisely as men would think and\nact in their circumstances;--they are affected just as others of like\nculture would be affected by such events as those set forth in the\nrecord. And the genuineness of their conduct argues the genuineness of\nthe incidents which excited it. The divine, wonderworking, risen Jesus,\nis the necessary counterpart of the amazed, believing, erring hoping,\ndesponding, rejoicing fishermen and publicans. This stamp of reality is\nvery evident in the instance before us. The conduct and the feelings of\nthe disciples are those of men who have been involved in a succession of\nstrange experiences. For a little while they have been in communion with\nOne who has spoken as never man spoke, and who has touched the deepest\nsprings of their being. He has lifted them out of the narrow limits\nof their previous lives. From the Receipt of Customs, and the Galilean\nlake, he has summoned them to the interests and awards, the thought and\nthe work, of a spiritual and divine kingdom. At first following him,\nperhaps they hardly knew why, conscious only that he had the Words of\nEternal Life, the terms of this discipleship have grown into bonds of\nthe dearest intimacy. Their Master has become their Companion and their\nFriend, and their faith has deepened into tender and confiding love. But\nstill, theirs has been the belief of the trusting soul, rather than the\nenlightened intellect. From the fitness of the teaching, and the wonder\nof the miracle, they have felt that he was the very Christ; and yet,\nfrom this conviction of the heart they have not been able to separate\ntheir Jewish conceits. Sometimes, it may be, the language of the Saviour\nhas carried them up into a broader and more spiritual region; but\nthen, they have subsided into their symbols and shadows;--only,\nnotwithstanding the errors that have hindered, and the hints that have\nawed them, they have steadily felt the inspiration of a great hope, the\nexpectation of something glorious to be revealed in the speedy coming\nof the Messiah's kingdom. And now, does not the account immediately\nconnected with the text picture for us exactly the state of men whose\nconceptions have been broken up by a great shock, and yet in whose\nhearts the central hope still remains and vibrates with mysterious\ntenacity?--men who have had the form of their expectation utterly\nrefuted and scattered into darkness, but who still cherish its spirit?\nChrist the crowned King,--Christ the armed Deliverer,--Christ the\nAvenger, sweeping away his foes with one burst of miracle,--is to\nthem, no more. They saw the multitude seize him, and no legions came to\nrescue;--they saw him condemned, abused, crucified, buried; and so,\nin no sense of which they could conceive, was this he who should\nhave redeemed Israel. And yet the suggestion of something still to\ncome,--something connected with three days,--lingered in their minds.\nAnd, in the midst of their despondency, striking upon this very chord,\nthe startling rumor reached them that Christ had risen from the dead. It\nwas in this mood that Jesus found the two disciples whose words I\nhave selected for my text;--faith and doubt, disappointment and hope,\nalternating in their minds; their Jewish conceit laid prostrate in the\ndust, and yet the expectation of something, they knew not what, now\nstrangely confirmed. See how these feelings mingle in the passage before\nus. \"What manner of communications,\" said the undiscerned Saviour, \"are\nthese that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?\"-\"Art thou\nonly a stranger in Jerusalem,\" says one of them, \"and hast not known\nthe things which are come to pass there in these days?\" What things?\n\"Concerning Jesus of Nazareth,\" replied they, \"which was a prophet\nmighty in deed and word before God and all the people: and how the chief\npriests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have\ncrucified him. But we trusted that it had been he which should have\nredeemed Israel: and beside all this, to-day is the third day since\nthese things were done. Yea, and certain women also of our company made\nus astonished, which were early at the sepulchre; and when they found\nnot his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of\nangels, which said that he was alive. And certain of them which were\nwith us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had\nsaid: but him they saw not.\"\n\nMy hearers, I think we see, in this instance the minds of these\ndisciples working as the minds of men might be expected to work under\nlike conditions. And to me this casts a complexion of genuineness upon\nthe transactions which, as stated in the record, account for these\nmental alternations. The entire passage is alive with reality. The\ngenuine emotions of humanity play and thrill together, there, in the\nshadow of the cross and the glory of the resurrection.\n\nBut, if these feelings are thus natural, the experience itself indicated\nin that portion of this verse which constitutes the text is not entirely\nremoved from our ordinary life. The incident which occasioned these sad\nwords was an extraordinary one; but its moral significance, as it now\ncomes before us, illustrates many a passage in man's daily course.\nThe language, as we read it, appears to be the language of\ndisappointment;---it was under the shadow of disappointment, though\nalternating with hope, that these disciples spoke; and it is to the\nlessons afforded by disappointment in the course of life that I now\nespecially invite your attention.\n\nAnd the precise point in the text, bearing upon this subject, is the\nfact, that while the disciples seemed to feel as though all redemption\nfor Israel was now hopeless, that process of redemption for Israel,\nand for the world, was going on through the agency of those very events\nwhich had filled them with dismay. Even as they were speaking, in tones\nof sadness, about the crucified Christ, the living Christ, made perfect\nfor his work by that crucifixion, was walking by their side. Looking far\nthis side of that shadow of disappointment which then brooded over\nthem, we see all this, that then they did not see; but now is it with\nourselves, under the frequent shadows cast by more ordinary events? This\nsuggestion may afford us some profitable thoughts.\n\nI need hardly say, in the first place, that man is continually inspired\nby expectation. Every effort he makes is made in the conviction of\npossibility and the light of hope. This is the heart of ambition and\nthe spring of toil. It is the balm which he applies to the wounds of\nmisfortune. It is the key with which he tries the wards of nature. And\nfrom the morning of life to its last twilight he is always looking.\nforward. The saddest spectacle of all--sadder even than pain, and\nbereavement, and death--is a man void of hope. The most abject people\nis a hopeless people, in whose hearts the memories of the past, and the\npulses of endeavor, and the courage of faith are dead, and who crouch by\ntheir own thresholds and the crumbling tombstones of their fathers, and\ntake the tyrant's will, without an incentive, and without even a dream.\nThe most intense form in which misery can express itself is in the\nphrase, \"I have nothing to live for.\" And he who can actually say,\nand who really feels this, is dead, and covered with the very pall and\ndarkness of calamity. But few, indeed, are they who can, with truth, say\nthis.\n\nBut if hope or expectation is such a vital element of human experience,\nso does disappointment have its part in the mechanism of things, and,\nas we shall presently see, its wise and beneficial part. For, after all,\nhow few things correspond with the forecast of expectation! To be sure,\nsome results transcend our hope; but how many fall below it,--balk\nit,--turn out exactly opposite to it! Among those who meet\nwith disappointments in life, there are those who are expecting\nimpossibilities,--whose expectations are inordinate,--are more than the\nnature of things will admit; or who are looking for a harvest where\nthey have planted no seed. They carry the dreams of youth in among the\nrealities of the world, and its vanishing visions leave them naked and\ndiscouraged. The light of romance, that glorified all things in the\nfuture, recedes as they advance, and they come upon rugged paths of\nfact--upon plain toil and daily care,--upon the market and the field,\nand upon men as they are in their weakness, and their selfishness, and\ntheir mutual distrust. Or they belong, it may be, to that class who\nare too highly charged with hope; whose sanguine notions never go by\ninduction, but by leaps; who never calculate the difficulties, but only\nsee the thing complete and rounded in imagination;--men with plenty\nof poetry, and no arithmetic; whose theories work miracles, but whose\nattempts are failures. It is pleasant, sometimes, to meet with people\nlike these, who, clothed in the scantiest garments, and with only a\ncrust upon their tables, at the least touch of suggestion, mount into a\nregion of splendor. Their poverty all fades away;--the bare walls,\nthe tokens of stern want, the dusty world, are all transfigured with\ninfinite possibilities. Achievement is only a word, and fortune comes in\nat a stride. The palace of beauty rises, fruits bloom in waste places,\ngold drops from the rocks, and the entire movement of life becomes a\nmarch of jubilee. And they are so certain this time,--the plan they now\nhave is so sure to succeed! I repeat, it is pleasant, sometimes, to have\nintercourse with such men, who throw bloom and marvelousness upon\nthe actualities of the world, from the reservoirs of their sanguine\ninvention. At least, it is pleasant to think how this faculty of\nunfailing enthusiasm enables them to bear defeat, and to look away from\nthe cold face of necessity;--to think that, while so many are trudging\nafter the sounding wheels and the monotonous jar of life, and lying down\nby the way to die, these men are marching buoyantly to a tune inside.\nAnd yet this is pleasant only from a hasty point of view. These people\nmeet with disappointment, of course; and it is sad to think how many\nlives have come to absolutely nothing, and are all strewn over, from\nboyhood to the grave, with the fragments of splendid schemes. It is sad\nto think how all their visionary Balbecs and Palmyras have been reared\nin a real desert,--the desert of an existence producing no substantial\nthing. And among these vanishing dreams, and on that melancholy waste,\nthey learn, at last, the meaning of their disappointment. And from\ntheir experience, we too may learn, that we are placed here to be\nnot merely ideal artists, but actual toilers; not cadets of hope, but\nsoldiers of endeavor.\n\nBut there are disappointments in life that succeed reasonable\nexpectation; and these are the hardest of all to bear. I say the\nexpectation is reasonable; and yet, very possibly, the bitterness of the\ndisappointment comes from neglecting to consider the infirmity of all\nearthly things. It is hard when, not dreaming, but trying our best, we\nfail. It is hard to bear the burden and heat of the day, through all\nlife's prime, and yet, with all our toil, to earn no repose for its\nevening hours. It is hard to accumulate a little gain, baptizing every\ndollar with our honest sweat, and then have it stricken from our grasp\nby the band of calamity or of fraud. It is hard, when we have placed our\nconfidence in man's honor, or his friendship, to find that we are fools,\nand that we have been led in among rocks and serpents. And hard indeed\nis it to see those who were worthy our love and our faith drop by\nour side, and leave us alone. This dear child, the blossom of so many\nhopes,--hard is it to see him die--to fold all our expectation in his\nlittle shroud, and lay it away forever. We thought it had been he who\nshould have comforted and blessed us,--in whose life we could have\nretraced the cycle of our own happiest experience,--whose unfolding\nfaculties would have been a renewal of our knowledge, and his manhood\nnot merely the prop but the refreshing of our age. This companion of our\nlot,--this wedded wife of our heart,--why taken away now? She has shared\nour early struggles, and tempered our anxiety with cheerful assurance.\nShe has tasted the bitterness; we thought she would have been a partner\nof the joy. She has borne our fretfulness, and helped our perplexity,\nand shed a serene light into our gloom; We thought she would have been\nwith us when we could pay the debt of faithfulness; when the cares of\nbusiness did not press and disturb us so. We thought it was she whose\nvoice, sweet with the music of old, deep memories, would have consoled\nus far along; and that, in some calm evening of life, when all the\ntumult of the world was still, and we were ready to go, we should\ngo--not far apart--gently to our graves.\n\nSuch are the plans that we lay out, saying of this thing and of that\nthing, \"We trusted that it would have been so.\" But the answer has been\ndisappointment. The old, ay, perhaps the most common lesson of life, is\ndisappointment.\n\nAnd now I ask, is it not an intended lesson? Evidently it comes in as\nan element in the Providential plan in which we are involved. For we\nsee its disciplinary nature,--its wise and beneficial results in harmony\nwith that Plan. Consider whether it is not the fact, that the entire\ndiscipline of life grows out of a succession of disappointments. That\nyouthful dream, in which life has stretched out like a sunny landscape\nwith purple mountain-chains--is it not well that it is broken up, and we\nstrike upon rugged realities? Does not all the strength of manhood, and\nthe power of achievement, and the glory of existence, depend upon these\nthings which are not included in the young boy's vision of a happy\nworld. Welcome, O! disappointment of our hope that life would prove a\nperpetual holiday. Welcome experience of the fact that blessing comes\nnot from pleasure, but from labor! For in that experience alone was\nthere ever anything truly great or good accomplished. We can conceive no\npossible way by which one can be made personally strong without his\nown effort;--no possible way by which the mind can be enriched and\nstrengthened where it is lifted up, instead of climbing for itself;--no\nway, therefore, in which life could be at all a worthy achievement,\nif it were merely a plain of ease, instead of holding every ward of\nknowledge and of power under the guard of difficulty and the requisition\nof endeavor.\n\nAnd it is equally true that the greatest successes grow out of great\nfailures. In numerous instances the result is better that comes after a\nseries of abortive experiences than it would have been if it had come at\nonce. For all these successive failures induce a skill, which is so much\nadditional power working into the final achievement. Nobody passes at\nonce to the mastery, in any branch of science or of industry; and when\nhe does become a master in his work it is evident, not only in the\npositive excellence of his performance, but in the sureness with which\nhe avoids defects; and these defects he has learned by experimental\nfailures. The hand that evokes such perfect music from the instrument\nhas often failed in its touch, and bungled among the keys. And if a man\nderives skill from his own failures, so does he from the failures of\nother men. Every unsuccessful attempt is, for him, so much work done;\nfor he will not go over that ground again, but seek some new way. Every\ndisappointed effort fences in and indicates the only possible path of\nsuccess, and makes it easier to find. We should thank past ages and\nother men, not only for what they have left us of great things done,\nbut for the heritage of their failures. Every baffled effort for freedom\ncontributes skill for the next attempt, and ensures the day of victory.\nNations stripped and bound, and waiting for liberty under the shadow of\nthrones, cherish in memory not only the achievements of their heroes,\nbut the defeats of their martyrs; and when the trumpet-voice shall\nsummon them once more, as surely it will,--when they shall draw for\nthe venture of freedom, and unroll its glittering standard to the\nwinds,--they will avoid the stumbling blocks which have sacrificed the\nbrave, and the errors which have postponed former hopes. In public\nand in private action, it is true that disappointment is the school of\nachievement, and the balked efforts are the very agents that help us to\nour purpose.\n\nAnd, if life itself--life as a whole--seems to us but a series of\ndisappointments, is not this the very conviction we need to work out\nfrom it, through our own experience? Do we not need to learn that this\nlife itself is not sufficient, and holds no blessing that will fill us\ncompletely, and with which we may forever rest? The baffled hopes of our\nmortal state;--what are they but vain strivings of the human soul, out\nof the path of its highest good? The wandering bird, driven against\nthe branches, and beaten by the storm, flutters at last to the clear\nopening, by which it mounts above the cloud, and finds its way to its\nhome. This life is not ordained in vain;--it is constituted for a grand\npurpose, if through its lessons of experience we become convinced that\nthis life is not all. In the outset of our existence here, and merely\nfrom the teaching of others, we cannot comprehend the great realities of\nexistence.\n\nHow the things that have grown familiar to our eyes, and the lessons\nthat have sounded trite upon our ears, become fresh and wonderful, as\nlife turns into experience! How this very lesson of disappointment lets\nus in to the deep meanings of Scripture, for instance! The Christ of\nour youth,--a personage standing mild and beautiful upon the\nGospel-page,----a being to admire and love; how be develops to our later\nthought! how solemnly tender, how greatly real, he becomes to us, when\nwe cling to him in the agony of our sorrow, and he goes down to walk\nwith us on the waters of the sea of death! As traditional sentiment,--as\na wholesome subject for school-composition,--we have spoken and written\nof the weariness of the world-worn heart, and the frailty of earthly\nthings. But, O! when our hearts have actually become worn, and tried;\nwhen we begin to learn that the things of this life are evanescent,--are\ndropping away from us, and we slipping from them,--what inspiration of\nreality comes to us in the oft-heard invitation, \"Come unto me, all ye\nthat labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest!\" What a depth\nof meaning flowing from the eternal world, in the precept we have read\nso carelessly,--\"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where\nmoth and rust doth corrupt, and thieves break through and steal!\" Thus\nthe best results of life come from the defeats and the limitations that\nare involved with it.\n\nAnd, in all this, observe how disappointment is the instrument of higher\nblessings. See how thus life itself suggests a higher good than life\nitself can yield. And so the attitude of the disciples, after the\ncrucifixion, illustrates many experiences of our earthly lot. Those\nincidents which perplexed and grieved them were securing the very\nresults they seemed to prevent. So, in our ordinary life, the things\nthat appear most adverse to us are often the most favorable.\n\n I may say, indeed, that to any man who is rightly exercised\nby it, disappointment always brings a better result. But this statement\nrequires that I should say, likewise, that the result of disappointment\ndepends upon the level and quality of a man's spirit. \"One thing happens\nalike to the wise man and the fool.\" But how different in texture and\nsubstance is the final result of the event! Disappointment breaks down\na feeble and shallow man. There are those, again, whom it does not make\nbetter,--in fact, whom nothing, as we can see, makes better. Everything\nglides easily off from them. Now, it is a noble thing to see a man rise\nabove misfortune,--a moral Prometheus, submissive to the actual will of\nGod, but defying fate. But there are men whose very elasticity indicates\nthe superficiality of their nature. For it is good sometimes to be\nsad,--good to have depth of being sufficient for misfortune to sink\ninto, and, accomplish its proper work. But the man who rightly receives\nthe lesson of disappointment, and improves by its discipline, bent as\nhe is on some great or good work, is impelled by it only to a change\nof method,--never to a change of purpose; and the disappointment\neffectually serves the purpose. But the fact before us is most clearly\nseen when we contemplate the results of disappointment upon a religious\nand un-religious spirit. A man is not made better by disappointment to\nwhom this world is virtually everything;--to whom spiritual things are\nnot realities. To him life is a narrow stream between jutting crags, and\nits substance flows away with the objects before his eyes. Nay, some men\nof this sort are made worse by the failure of earthly hopes, and their\nnatures are compressed and hammered by misfortune into a sullen and\ngranitic defiance. But he who sees beyond these material limits, looking\nto the great end and final relations of our being, always extracts from\nmortal disappointment a better result. In the wreck of external things\nhe gathers that spiritual good which is the substance of all life;--that\nfaith, and patience, and holy love, which, when all that is mortal\nand incidental in our humanity passes away, constitute the residuum of\npersonality.\n\nOur hopes disappointed,--our plans thwarted and overthrown; but out\nof that disappointment a richer good evolving than we had conceived;\nsomething that tends more than all our effort to produce the real object\nof life. My friends, what do we make out of this fact? Why, surely this,\nthat life is not our plan, but God's. Consider what we, often, would\nhave made out of life, and compare this with what Providence has made\nout of it. Contrast the man's achievement with the boy's scheme;\nthe dream of care with the moral glory that has sprung from toil\nand trouble. Contrast the idea of the Saviour in the minds of those\ndisciples with the actual Saviour rising victorious from the conditions\nof shame and death.\n\nLife is God's plan; not ours. We may find this out only by effort; but\nwe do find it out.\n\nWe are responsible for the use of our materials, but the materials\nthemselves, and the great movement of things, are furnished for us.\nLet us fall into no ascetic view of life. Out of our joy and our\nacknowledged good the Supreme Disposer works his spiritual ends. But,\nespecially, how often does he do this out of our trials, and sorrows,\nand so-called evils! Once more I say life is God's plan; not ours.\nFor often on the ruins of visionary hope rises the kingdom of our\nsubstantial possession and our true peace; and under the shadow of\nearthly disappointment, all unconsciously to ourselves, our Divine\nRedeemer is walking by our side.\n\n\n\n\nLIFE A TALE\n\n\n     We spend our years as a tale that is told.  Psalm xc.9.\n\n\nWe bring our years to an end like a thought, is the proper rendering of\nthese words, according, to an eminent translator. But as the essential\nidea of the Psalmist is preserved in the common version, I employ it\nas peculiarly illustrative and forcible. It will be my object, in\nthe present discourse, to show the fitness of the comparison in the\ntext;--to suggest the points of resemblance between human life and a\npassing narrative.\n\nI observe, then, in the first place, that the propriety of this simile\nis seen in the brevity of life. What more rapid and momentary than a\nstory? It is heard, and passes. Though it beguiles us for the time,\nit dies away in sound, or melts from before, the eye. And this I say,\nstrikingly illustrates the brevity of life. The brevity of life! It is\na trite truth, and yet how little realized! Probably there is nothing,\nmore common, and yet there is nothing, more pernicious, than the habit\nof virtual dependence upon length of days. Thus the best ends of our\nmortal being are lost sight of; the solemn circumstances, the suggestive\nmysteries of life, are misconstrued. The heavens, which give a myriad\nhints of worlds beyond the grave, are, to many, impenetrable walls,\nshutting them in to mere pursuits of sense,--the upholstery of a\nworkshop or bazaar; and this earth, which is but a step,--a filmy\nplatform of our immortal course,--is to them the solid abiding place of\nall interest, and of all hope.\n\nIt is well, then, to break in upon this worldly reliance,--to consider\nhow fleeting and uncertain are the things in which we garner up so much.\nTherefore, in order that we may more vividly realize the brevity of\nlife,--how like it is to a passing tale,--let us consider the rapidity\nof its changes, even in a few short years. We are, to some degree, made\naware how fast the current of time bears us on, when we pause and remark\nthe shores; when we observe how our position to-day has shifted from\nwhat it was yesterday; how the sunny slopes of youth have been changed\nfor the teeming uplands of maturity; yea, perhaps, how already the\nstream is narrowing, and rushing more swiftly as it narrows, towards\nthose high hills that bound our present vision, upon whose summits\nlingers the departing light, and around whose base thickens the solemn\nshadow.\n\nThis rapidity of change is most strikingly illustrated when, after a few\nyears' absence, we return to the scenes of our youth. We plunged into\nthe current of the world, buoyant and vigorous; our thoughts have been\noccupied every hour, and we have not noticed the stealthy shadow of\ntime. But we come back to that early spot, and look around. Lo! The\ncompanions of our youth have grown into dignified men,--the active and\ninfluential citizens of the place. Care has set\n\n     \"Busy wrinkles round their eyes.\"\n\nThey meet us with formal deportment, or with an ill-concealed\nrestlessness, as though we hindered them in their work,--work! Which,\nwhen we parted with them, would have been flung to the winds for any\nidle sport. How quickly they have changed into this gravity and anxiety!\nOn the other hand, those who stood where they stand now,--whose names\noccupied the signs and the records which theirs now fill,--have passed\naway, or, here and there, come tottering along, bent and gray-headed\nmen. Those, too, who were mere infants-those whom we never saw-take up\nour old stations, and inspire them with the gladness of childhood. And\nexactly thus have we changed to others. We are a mirror to them and they\nto us.\n\nFrom this familiar experience, then, let us realize that the stream of\nlife does not stop, nor are we left stationary, but carried with it;\nthough our condition may appear unchanged, until we lift up our eyes,\nand look for the old landmarks. The brevity of our life! my friends.\nAmid our daily business,--in the sounding tumult of the great mart, and\nthe absorption of our thoughts,--do we think of it? Do we perceive how\nnearly we approach a goal which a little while ago seemed far before\nus? Do we observe how quickly we shoot by it? Do we mark with what\nincreasing swiftness the line of our life seems reeling off, and how\nclose we are coming to the end? Time never stops! Each tick of the clock\nechoes our advancing footsteps. The shadow of the dial falls upon it\na shorter and shorter tract, which we have yet to pass over. Even if a\nlong life lies before us, let us consider that thirty-five years is high\nnoon with us,--the meridian of that arc which comprehends but threescore\nyears and ten!\n\nBut we may be more vividly impressed with the fact of the brevity of\nlife, if we adopt some criterion wider than these familiar measurements.\nThe narrative, the story, engages our ears, in the pauses of care and\nlabor. We listen to it in the noonday rest, and around the evening fire.\nIt is a slight break in the monotony of our business,--an interlude in\nthe solemn march of life. And thus, in some respects, is life itself.\nIt is so, if we take into view a long series of existence, such as the\nsuccession of human generations, or, still more, the periods of creative\ndevelopment, and the computations of time as applied to the forms and\nchanges of the material universe. In this vast train of being, our\nindividual existence, however important to ourselves, is but an\ninterlude-a tale. Let us, then, for a while, lay aside any conventional\nmethod of estimating our life,--a method in which that life fills a\nlarge space, simply because it is brought near to the eye,--and let us\nendeavor to take a view of it, as it were, from the fixed stars, or from\nthe elevation of the immortal state.\n\nCompare, then, if you will, this life of yours or mine, not with the\npersonal standard of threescore years and ten, but with the whole course\nof human history; and instantly we appear but as bubbles in the stream\nof ages. But, again, consider how history itself is as \"a tale that is\ntold;\" and then, indeed, what a mere incident in it all is your life\nand mine! If we stand off at the distance of a few centuries, so that we\nhave no present interest in them, it is strange how the proudest empires\nassume an empty and spectral aspect. Their growth and decline occupied\nages; but what a brief achievement it appears now! Why puzzle ourselves\nabout their origin, or seek to disengage the true from the fabulous in\ntheir history? Why strain laboriously to settle names, and dates, and\ndynasties? What mere point they have occupied in the processes of\nthe great universe! Their hieroglyphic pillars, their gray old\npyramids;--what are they to the age of Uranus, or the new planet? Each\nof these empires fulfilled its mission, and relatively that mission was\na great one; but in the long sweep of God's providence, and among the\nphenomena of absolute being, what a brief link, a subordinate climax, it\nwas! The huge ribs of the earth, and the coral islands of the sea were\nlonger in building; and even these are transitory manifestations of\nGod's purposes, which stream around us through constant change\nand succession. And what, then, are these nations-these epochs of\nhumanity-but waves rising and breaking on the great sea of eternity?\nMysterious Egypt, haughty Assyria, glorious Greece, kingly Rome;--how\nspectral they have become. They stand out in no relief. As we recede\nfrom them, they sink back, flat and inanimate on the horizon. Each is a\ntale that has been told. Surely, then, if such is the life of nations,\nI need not labor to impress upon you a sense of the brevity of our\nindividual existence.\n\nBut, for a moment, turn your thoughts to estimates that far exceed the\nperiods of history, and confound all our ordinary measurements. What is\nour mortal existence, into which we crowd so much interest,--over the\nanticipated length of which we slumber,--into whose uncertain future\nwe project our lithe plans so confidently,--compared to the age of the\nheavens,--the lifetime of worlds?--compared to their march, from the\nmoment when they obeyed the creative fiat to that when they shall\ncomplete their great cycle? It takes three years for light to travel\nfrom the nearest fixed star to the earth; from another it takes twelve\nyears; while, on its journey from a star of the twelfth magnitude,\ntwenty four billions of miles away, it consumes four thousand years. And\nyet we speak of long life! Why, when the light that wraps us now shall\nbe changed for the light that is just leaping from that distant star,\nwhere in the gray bosom of the past shall we be? Sunken, forgotten,\ncrumbled to imperceptible atoms; the ashes of generations-the dust of\nempires-heaped over us! And when we compare those wide estimates to\nthat divine eternity that evolves and limits all things, how does our\nindividual existence on the earth dwindle and vanish!--a heart-throb\nin the pulses of the universal life,--a quivering leaf in the forest of\nbeing,--\"a tale that is told\"!\n\nAnd yet, my friends, our realization of existence is so intense,--the\nhorizon of the present shuts us in so completely,--that it really\nrequires an effort for us to pause and remember that we are such\ntransitory beings. It cannot be (we may unconsciously reason), that we\nto whom this earth is bound with ligaments so intimate and strong; whose\nbreathing and motion-whose contact and action here-are such realities;\nwhose ears hear these varying sounds of life; whose eyes drink in this\nperpetual and changing beauty; to whom business, study, friendship,\npleasure, domestic relations, are such fresh and constant facts; to whom\nthe dawn and the twilight, the nightly slumber and the daily meal, are\nsuch regular experiences; to whom our possessions, our houses, lands,\ngoods, money, are such substantial things;--it cannot be that we are\nnot fixed permanently here,--that the years like a swift river, sweep us\nnearer and nearer to a point where we must sink and leave it all,--that\nthe corridors of the earth echo our footsteps only as the footsteps of\na successive march-myriads going before, and myriads coming after us-and\nsoon they will catch no more murmurs of our individual life; for that\nwill be as \"a tale that is told.\"\n\nThe whole train of thought I am now pursuing strikes us with peculiar\nforce, in reading the biographies of men who have lived intensely, who\nhave realized the fulness of life, who have mingled intimately with its\nvaried experiences, and occupied a large place in it. We see how to them\nlife was, as it is to us, an absorbing fact,--how they have planned, and\nthought, and acted, as though they were to live forever; and yet we have\nnoticed the premonitions of change, the dropping away of friends, the\nfailing of vigor, the deepening of melancholy shadows, and the coming\nof the end; the business closed, the active curiosity and intermeddling\nceased, the familiar haunts abandoned, the home made desolate, the\nlights put out, the cup fallen beneath the festal board, and all the\nearnest existence stopped forever. And this, too, so quick,--filling so\nsmall a space in absolute time! From their illustration let us, then,\nrealize that our life, too, amid all these real conditions, is unfolding\nrapidly to an end, and is \"as a tale that is told.\"\n\nBut life is like a tale that is told, because of its comprehensiveness.\nIt is a common characteristic of a narrative that it contains a great\ndeal in a small compass. It includes many years, and expresses many\nresults. Sometimes it sweeps over different lands, and exhibits the\npeculiarities of various personages. In one word, it is characterized by\ncomprehensiveness. And this, I repeat, is also a characteristic of human\nlife. When the consideration of the brevity of our mortal existence\nexcites us to diligence it is well; but when we make it an argument for\nindolence, disgust, and despair, we should be reminded of the fact I\nam now endeavoring to illustrate,--the fact that even the briefest life\ncontains a great deal, and means a great deal; and that, if we estimate\nthings by a spiritual standard, a man's earthly being may contain more\nthan all the cycles of the material world. From the best point of view,\nlife is not merely a term of years and a span of action; it is a force,\na current and depth of being. Indeed, considered in its most literal\nsense, as the vital spark of our animal organism, it is something more\nthan a measurement of time;--it is a mysterious, informing essence. No\nman has yet been able to tell us what it is, where it resides, or how\nit acts. We only know that when we gaze upon the features of the dead\nwe see there the same organs that pertained to the living; but something\nhas gone,--something of light, power, motion; and that something we call\nlife.\n\nBut it is chiefly in a moral sense that I make the remark that life is\nsomething more than a term of years or a span of action. In fact, life\nis a sum of spiritual experiences; and thus one act, or result, often\ncontains more than a century of time. Who does not understand the fact\nto which I now refer? Who has not felt something of it? Has not each one\nof us, at times, realized that he lived a year in a single day,--in\na moment,--in an emotion or thought? Nay, could that experience be\nmeasured by any estimate of time? And if we should compute the length of\nany life by such experiences, and not by a succession of years, would\nit not be a long life? At least, would it not be a full and immeasurable\nlife?\n\nBut, while every man's history will furnish instances of what I mean,\nlet us, for the sake of clearer illustration, consider some of the\nexperiences which are common to all. Defining life to be depth and\nintensity of being, then,--a current of spiritual power, and not a mere\nsuccession of incidents,--how much we live when we acquire the knowledge\nof a single truth! What an inexhaustible power!--what an immeasurable\nexperience it is! We are made absolutely stronger by it; we receive more\nlife with it,--a new and imperishable fibre of being. Fortune cannot\npluck it from us, age cannot weaken it, death cannot set limits to\nit. And now, with the fulness of this one experience as a test, just\nconsider our whole mortal experience as filled up with such revelations\nof truth. Suppose we improve all our opportunities; into what boundless\nlife does education admit us, and the discoveries of every day, and the\nordinary lessons of the world! Tell me, is this life to be called merely\na brief and worthless fact, when by a little reading, for instance, I\ncan make the experience of other men, and lands, and ages, all mine?\nWhen in some favored hour, I can climb the starry galaxy with Newton,\nand pace along the celestial coast to the great harmony of numbers and\nunlock the mighty secret of the universe? When of a winter's night,\nI can pass through all the belts of climate, and all the grades of\ncivilization on our globe; scan its motley races, learn its diverse\ncustoms, and hear the groaning of lonely ice-fields and the sigh of\nIndian palms? When, with Bacon, I can explore the laboratory of nature,\nor with Locke, consult the mysteries of the soul? When Spenser can lead\nme into golden visions, or Shakespeare smite me with magic inspiration,\nor Milton bathe me in immortal song? When History opens for me all the\ngates of the past,--Thebes and Palmyra, Corinth and Carthage, Athens\nwith its peerless glory, and Rome with its majestic pomp?--when kings\nand statesmen, authors and priests, with their public deeds and secret\nthoughts are mine? When the plans of cabinets, and the debates of\nparliaments, and the course of revolutions, and the results of battle,\nare all before my eyes and in my mind? When I can enter the inner\nchamber of sainted souls, and conspire with the efforts of moral heroes,\nand understand the sufferings of martyrs? Say, when all these deep\nexperiences-these comprehensive truths-may be acquired through merely\none privilege, is life but a dream, or a breath of air? Thus, too,\ndo immeasurable experiences flow in to me from nature,--from planet,\nflower, and ocean. Thus, too, does more life come to me from contacts\nin the common round of action. And, I repeat, every truth thus gained\nexpands a moment of time into illimitable being,--positively enlarges\nmy existence, and endows me with a quality which time cannot weaken or\ndestroy.\n\nConsider, again, how much we really live in cherishing good affections,\nand in performing noble deeds. We have the familiar lines of the poet,\nto this point:\n\n     \"One self-approving hour whole years outweighs\n      Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas.\"\n\nIt is true. There is more life in one \"self-approving hour,\"-one act of\nbenevolence,--one work of self-discipline,--than in threescore years and\nten of mere sensual existence. Go out among the homes of the poor, lift\nup the disconsolate, administer comfort to the forlorn; in some way, as\nit may come across your path, or lie in the sphere of your duty, do a\ndeed of kindness; and in that one act you shall live more than in a year\nof selfish indulgence and indolent ease,--yea, more than in a lifetime\nof such. The poet, with his burning, immortal lines, while doing his\nwork, lives all the coming ages of his fame. From every marble feature\nhe chisels, the sculptor draws an intensity of being that cannot be\nimparted by a mere extension of years. The philanthropist, in his walks\nof mercy and his ministrations of love, lives more comprehensively\nthan another may in a century. His is the fathomless bliss of\nbenevolence,--the experience of God. The martyr, in his dying hour, with\nhis face shining like an angel's, does not live longer, but he lives\nmore than all his persecutors.\n\nConsider, too, the experiences of religion, of worship, of prayer. In\nthe act of communion with God, in the realization of immortality, in the\naspirations and the idea of perfection, there is a depth and scope of\nbeing from which all sensual estimates of time drop away.\n\nOur mortal life, then, is very comprehensive. If we measure it, not by\nits length of years, but by its spiritual results, be they good or evil,\nit is a full and large life. It then appears, like the immortal state,\nnot as a fact of succession, but of experience. Christ has defined\neternal life as such a fact. \"Eternal life,\" he says, \"is to know thee,\nthe only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.\" The life of\nthe blessed in heaven is not marked by years and cycles; it is not so\nmuch protracted being, as a power of knowledge,--a depth of glad and\nholy consciousness,--a constant pulsation of harmony with God.\n\nAgain, every life may be compared to \"a tale that is told,\" because it\nhas a plot. In the narrative there is a combination of agencies\nworking to a crisis. There is a main-point with which all the action is\ninvolved. And so every human life has its main-point.. I will not\nnow take up time to carry out this illustration minutely. The mere\nsuggestion that each one is working out a peculiar destiny invests even\nthe meanest life with a solemn dignity, and counteracts any disparaging\nargument drawn from its brevity.\n\nBut still I would urge, that the propriety of this comparison between\nthe peculiar tendency of an individual life and the plot of a story, is\nseen in the fact that every man is accomplishing a certain moral result\nin and for himself. This is inevitable. We may be inactive, but that\nresult is forming; the mould of habit is growing, and the inward life\nis unfolding itself, after its kind. We may think our career is\naimless, but all things give a shape to our character. And does not this\nconsideration make our mortal life of deep consequence to us?\n\nAll circumstances and experiences are chiefly important as affecting\nthis result. One of the highest views we can take of the universe is\nthat of a theatre for the soul's education. We are placed upon this\nearth not to be absorbed by it, but to use it for the highest spiritual\noccasions. We are placed among the joys and sorrows of our daily lives\nto be trained for immortal issues. Our business, our domestic duties,\nand all our various relations, constitute a school for our souls. Here\nour affections and our powers are acted upon for good or for evil.\nGrief strengthens our faith and elevates our thoughts; joy quickens\nour gratitude, our obedience, and our trust; temptation forms in us an\nexalted and spontaneous virtue, or enfeebles and enslaves us. Chiefly,\nthen, should we be solicitous about character, the plot of our life;\nand in this solicitude our earthly existence rises to the highest\nimportance.\n\nLet us, then, feel that our mortal career is not vague and aimless. Let\nus realize that each life is a special history. The poorest, the most\nobscure, has such a history; and although it may be unnoticed by men,\nangels regard it with interest. The merchant, every day, in the dust,\nand heat, and busy maze of traffic, unfolds a history. The beggar by the\nway-side, it may be, outrivals kings in the grandeur and magnitude of\nhis history. In sainted homes,--in narrow nooks of life,--in the secret\nheart of love, and prayer, and patience,--many a tale is told which\nGod alone sees, and which he approves. The needy tell a tale, in their\nunrelieved wants and unpitied sufferings. The oppressed tell a tale,\nthat goes up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. The vicious tell a\ntale of wo, and misspent opportunity, and wasted power. Let us think of\nit, I beseech you! Each one of us in his sphere of action is developing\na plot which surely tells in character,--which is fast running into a\ngreat fixed fact.\n\nOnce more, we may compare every life to \"a tale that is told,\" because\nit has a moral. Any story, good or bad,--the most pernicious work of\nfiction, the most flimsy narrative, as the grandest history,--has its\nsignificance. So it is with the life of a man. As all his conduct\nhe is building up the intrinsic results of character for\nhimself,--establishing in his own soul a fabric of welfare or of wo,--so\nis he furnishing a lesson for others, and accomplishing an end by which\nthey are affected. The purpose for which any one has lived, the point\nwhich he has attained, the personal history which he has unfolded,\nconstitute the moral of his life.\n\nFor instance, here is a man whose life is frivolous,--divided between\naimless cares and superficial enjoyments. He has no resources in\nhimself, no fountain of inward peace and joy. His spirit leaps like new\nwine in the whirl of exciting pleasure, but in the hour of solitude and\nof golden opportunity, it is \"flat, stale, and unprofitable.\" He marks\noff the year by its festivals, and distributes the day into hours of\nfood, rest, and folly. In short, he holds no serious conception of life,\nand he is untouched by lofty sentiment. The great drama of existence,\nwith its solemn shifts of scenery and its impending grandeur, is but a\npantomime to him; and he a thoughtless epicurean, a grinning courtier,\na scented fop, a dancing puppet, on the mighty stage. And surely, such\na life, a life of superficiality and heartlessness, a life of silken\nniceties and conventional masquerade, a life of sparkling effervescence,\nhas a moral. It shows us how vain is human existence when empty of\nserious thought, of moral purpose, and of devout emotion.\n\nAnother is a skeptic. He has no genuine faith in immortality, in\nvirtue, or in God. To him, life is a sensual opportunity closing up with\nannihilation and to be enjoyed as it may. It is a mere game, and he who\nplays the most skilful(sic) hand will win. Virtue is a smooth decency,\nwhich it is well to assume in order to cover and artful selfishness;\nand it is a noteworthy fact, too, that, in the long run, those who have\ntrusted to virtue have made by it. At least, vice is inexpedient, and it\nwill not do to make a public profession of it. Religion, too, he says,\nis well enough; it does for the weak and the ignorant; though shrewd\nmen, like our skeptic know that it is all a sham, and, of course,\nscarce give it a serious thought. What is religion to a keen-minded,\nhard-headed, sagacious man of the world? What has it to do with\nbusiness, and politics, and such practical matters? Pack it away for\nSunday, and then put it on with clean clothes, out of respect for\nthe world; but if it lifts any remonstrance in the caucus or the\ncounting-room, why, like a shrewd man, laugh it out of countenance. What\nhas our skeptic to do with the future world or with spiritual relations?\nKeep bugbears to frighten more timid and credulous persons. But only see\nhow he uses the world, and plays his scheme, and foils his adversary and\ntwists and bends his plastic morality, all because he is not troubled\nwith scruples, and has no faith in God or duty!\n\nAnd yet, to the serious eye, that scans his spiritual mood, and looks\nall around his shrewd, self-confident position, there is a great moral\nin the skeptic's life. It teaches us, more than ever, the value of\nfaith, and the glory of religion. That flat negation only makes the\nrejected truth more positive. The specimen of what existence is without\nGod in the world, causes us to yearn more earnestly for the shelter\nof His presence, and the blessedness of His control. From the dark\nperspective of the skeptic's sensual view, the bleak annihilation that\nbounds all his hopes, we turn more gladly to the auroral promise of\nimmortality, to the consolations and influences of a life beyond the\ngrave. Yes, in that tale that is told, in that skeptic history, there\nis indeed a great moral. It shows how meaningless and how mean, how\ntreacherous and false, is that man's life who hangs upon the balance\nof a cunning egotism, and moves only from the impulses of selfish\ndesire-without religion, without virtue, repudiating the idea of\nmorality, and practically living without God.\n\nOr, on the other hand, suppose we call up the image of one who has well\nkept the trusts of family, and kindred, and friendship;--one who has\nmade home a pleasant place; who has filled it with the sanctities\nof affection, and adorned it with a graceful and generous\nhospitality;--before whose cheerful temper the perplexities of business\nhave been smoothed, and whose genial disposition has melted even the\nstern and selfish;--who, thus rendering life around her happier and\nbetter, attracting more closely the hearts of relatives, and making\nevery acquaintance a friend, has, chief of all, beautifully discharged\nthe sacred offices of wife and mother; encountering the day of adversity\nwith a noble self-devotion, enriching the hour of prosperity with wise\ncounsel and faithful love; unwearied in the time of sickness, patient\nand trustful beneath the dispensation of affliction; in short, by\nher many virtues and graces evidently the bright centre of a happy\nhousehold. And now suppose that, with all these associations clinging\nto her, in the bloom of life, with opportunities for usefulness and\nenjoyment opening all around her, death interferes, and suddenly\nquenches that light! Is there not left a moral which abides a sweet and\nlasting consolation? That moral is-the power of a kind heart; the worth\nof domestic virtues; the living freshness of a memory in which these\nqualities are combined.\n\nThus, then, in its brevity and its comprehensiveness, with its plot and\nits moral, we see that each human life is like \"a tale that is told.\"\nTo you, my friends, I leave the personal application of these\ntruths. Surely they suggest to each of us the most vital and solemn\nconsiderations. Surely they call us to diligence and repentance,--to\nintrospection and prayer. What we are in ourselves,--what use we shall\nmake of life;--is not this an all important subject? What lesson we\nshall furnish for others,--what influence for good or evil;--can we be\nindifferent to that? God give us grace and strength to ponder and to act\nupon these suggestions!\n\nFinally, remember under whose dominion all the sorrows and changes\nof earth take place. Let your faith in Him be firm and clear. To Him\naddress your grief;--to Him lift up your prayer. Of Him seek strength\nand consolation;--of Him ask that a holy influence may attend every\nexperience. And while all the trials of life should quicken us to\na loftier diligence, and inspire us with a keener sense of personal\nresponsibility, surely when our hearts are sore and bleeding,--when our\nhopes lie prostrate, and we are faint and troubled, it is good to rise\nto the contemplation of the Infinite Controller,--to lean back upon the\nAlmighty Goodness that upholds the universe; to realize that He does\nverily watch over us, and care for us; to feel that around and above all\nthings else He moves the vast circle of his purpose, and carries within\nit all our joys and sorrows; and that this mysterious tale of human\nlife-this tangled plot of our earthly being-is unfolded beneath His\nall-beholding eye, and by His omnipotent and paternal hand.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SORROW\n\n\n     \"A man of sorrow, and acquainted with grief\" Is. Iii. 3.\n\n\nThere is one great distinction between the productions of Heathen and of\nChristian art. While the first exhibits the perfection of physical form\nand of intellectual beauty, the latter expresses, also, the majesty\nof sorrow, the grandeur of endurance, the idea of triumph refined from\nagony. In all those shapes of old there is nothing like the glory of the\nmartyr; the sublimity of patience and resignation; the dignity of the\nthorn-crowned Jesus.\n\nIt is easy to account for this. In that heathen age the soul had\nreceived no higher inspiration. It was only after the advent of Christ\nthat men realized the greatness of sorrow and endurance. It was not\nuntil the history of the Garden, the Judgment-Hall, and the Cross had\nbeen developed, that genius caught nobler conceptions of the beautiful.\nThis fact is, therefore, a powerful witness to the prophecy in the text,\nand to the truth of Christianity. Christ's personality, as delineated\nin the Gospels, is not only demonstrated by a change of dynasties,--an\nentire new movement in the world,--a breaking up of the its ancient\norder; but the moral ideal which now leads human action,--which has\nwrought this enthusiasm, and propelled man thus strangely forward,--has\nentered the subjective realities of the soul,--breathed new inspiration\nupon it,--opened up to it a new conception; and, lo! The statue dilates\nwith a diviner expression;--lo! The picture wears a more lustrous and\nspiritual beauty.\n\nThe Christ of the text, then,--\"A man of sorrows, and acquainted with\ngrief,\"-has verily lived, for his image has been reflected in the minds\nof men, and has fastened itself there among their most intimate and\nvivid conceptions. Sorrow, as illustrated in Christ's life, and as\ninterpreted in his scheme of religion, has assumed a new aspect and\nyields a new meaning. Its garments of heaviness have become transfigured\nto robes of light, its crown of thorns to a diadem of glory; and\noften, for some one whom the rich and joyful of this world pity,--some\nsuffering, struggling, over-shadowed soul,--there comes a voice from\nheaven, \"This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.\"\n\nI remark, however, that Christianity does not accomplish this result by\ndenying the character of sorrow. It does not refuse to render homage to\ngrief. The stoic is as far from its ideal of virtue as the epicurean.\nThe heart of the true saint quivers at pain, and his eyes are filled\nwith tears. Whatever mortifications he may deem necessary as to the\npassions of this poor flesh, if he imitates the example of Christ he\ncannot deny those better affections which link us even to God; he\ncannot harden those sensitive fibres which are the springs of our\nbest action,--which if callus we become inhuman. He realizes pain; he\nrecognises sorrow as sorrow. Its cup is bitter, and to be resisted with\nprayer.\n\nThere is nothing more wonderful in the history of Jesus than his keen\nsense of sorrow, and the scope which he allows it. In the tenderness of\nhis compassion he soothed the overflowing spirit, but he never rebuked\nits tears. On the contrary, in a most memorable instance, he recognized\nits right to grieve. It was on the way to his own crucifixion, when\ncrowned with insult, and lacerated with his own sorrows. \"Daughters of\nJerusalem,\" said he, to the sympathizing women, \"weep not for me, but\nweep for yourselves and for your children.\" As though he had said, \"You\nhave a right to weep; weep, then, in that great catastrophe which is\ncoming, when barbed affliction shall pierce your hearts, and the dearest\nties shall be cut in sunder. Those ties are tender; those hearts are\nsacred. Therefore, weep!\"\n\nBut Christ did more than sanction tears in others. He wept himself.\nClosest in our consciousness, because they will be most vivid to us\nin our darkest and our last hours, are those incidents by the grave of\nLazarus, and over against Jerusalem; the sadness of Gethsemane, and\nthe divine pathos of the last supper. Never can we fully realize what\na tribute to sorrow is rendered by the tears of Jesus, and the dignity\nwhich has descended upon those who mourn, because he had not where to\nlay his head, was despised and rejected of men, and cried out in bitter\nagony from the cross. He could not have been our exemplar by despising\nsorrow-by treating it with contempt; but only by shrinking from its\npain, and becoming intimate with its anguish,--only as \"a man of\nsorrows, and acquainted with grief.\"\n\nBut, on the other hand, Christianity does not over-estimate sorrow.\nWhile it pronounces a benediction upon the mourner, it does not declare\nit best that man should always mourn. It would not have us deny the\ngood that is in the universe. Nay, I apprehend that sorrow itself is\na testimony to that good,--is the anguish and shrinking of the severed\nties that have bound us to it; that it clings closest in hearts of the\nwidest and most various sympathies; that only souls which have loved\nmuch and enjoyed much can feel its intensity or know its discipline. In\nthe language of another, \"Sorrow is not an independent state of mind,\nstanding unconnected with all others...It is the effect, and, under\nthe present conditions of our being, the inevitable effect, of strong\naffections. Nay, it is not so much their result, as a certain attitude\nof those affections themselves. It not simply flows from the love of\nexcellence, of wisdom, of sympathy, but it is that very love, when\nconscious that excellence, that wisdom, that sympathy have departed.\"\nThey, then, who deem it necessary for man's spiritual welfare that he\nshould constantly feel the pressure of chastisement, and be engirt with\nthe mist of tears, do not reason well. Jeremy Taylor reasons thus, when\nhe says in allusion to certain lamps which burned for many ages in a\ntomb, but which expired when brought into open day: \"So long as we are\nin the retirements of sorrow, of want, of fear, of sickness, we are\nburning and shining lamps; but when God lifts us up from the gates\nof death and carries us abroad into the open air, to converse with\nprosperity and temptations, we go out in darkness; and we cannot be\npreserved in light and heat but by still dwelling in the regions of\nsorrow.\" \"There is beauty, and, to a certain extent, truth in this\nfigure,\" says a writer, in reply; \"but it by no means follows that\ncontinuous suffering would be good for man; on the contrary, it would\nbe as remote from producing the perfection of our moral nature as\nunmitigated prosperity. It would be apt to produce a morbid and\nghastly piety; the 'bright lamps' of which Taylor speaks would still\nbe irradiating only a tomb.\" (Edinburgh Review No 141 The article on\nPascal) We may doubt whether there is more essential religiousness\nin this seeking of sorrow as a mortification,--in this monastic\nself-laceration and exclusion,--than in the morbid misery of the\nhypochondriac. Neither comprehends the whole of life, nor is adapted to\nits realities. Christ was \"a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;\"\nbut he was also full of sympathy with all good, and enjoyed the charm\nof friendship, and the light of existence. Around that great Life gather\nmany amenities. Below that face of agony beats a heart familiar with the\nbest affections of human nature; otherwise, we may believe, the agony\nwould not appear. The sadness of that last supper indicates the breaking\nup of many joyful communions and the history which closes in the shadow\nof the cross mingles with the festival of Cana, and lingers around the\nhome at Bethany.\n\nBut I remark, once more, that while Christianity neither despises nor\naffects to desire sorrow, it clearly recognizes its great and beneficial\nmission. In one word, it shows its disciplinary character, and thus\npractically interprets the mystery of evil. It regards man as a\nspiritual being, thrown upon the theatre of this mortal life not merely\nfor enjoyment, but for training,--for the development of spiritual\naffinities, and the attainment of spiritual ends. It thus reveals a\nweaning, subduing, elevating power, in sorrow.\n\nThe origin of evil may puzzle us;--its use no Christian can deny. A\nsensual philosophy may shrink from it, in all its aspects, and retreat\ninto a morbid skepticism or a timid submission. If we predicate mere\nhappiness as \"our being's end and aim,\" there is no explanation of evil.\nFrom this point of view, there is an ambiguity in nature,--a duality in\nevery object, which we cannot solve. The throne of infinite light and\nlove casts over the face of creation an inexplicable shadow. If we were\nmade merely to be happy, why this hostility all around us? Why these\nsharp oppositions of pain and difficulty? Why these writhing\nnerves, these aching hearts, and over-laden eyes? Why the chill of\ndisappointment, the shudder of remorse, the crush and blight of hope?\nWhy athwart the horizon flicker so many shapes of misery and sin?\nWhy appear these sad spectacles of painful dying chambers, and weary\nsick-beds?--these countless tomb-stones, too-ghastly witness to death\nand tears? Explain for me those abrupt inequalities,--the long train of\nnecessities, poverty and its kindred woes, those fearful realities that\nlie in the abysses of every city,--that hideous, compressed mass which\nwelters in the awful baptism of sensuality and ignorance,--the groans of\ninarticulate woe, the spectacle of oppression, the shameless cruelty of\nwar, the pestilence that shakes its comet-sword over nations, and famine\nthat peers with skeleton face through the corn-sheaves of plenty. Upon\nthis theory of mere happiness no metaphysical subtlety can solve\nthe fact of evil;--the coiled enigma constantly returns upon itself,\ninexplicable as ever.\n\nBut when we take the Christian view of life, we discover that not\nhappiness merely, but virtue, holiness, is the great end of man; though\nhappiness comes in as an inevitable consequence and accompaniment of\nthis result. And in the light reflected from this view, evil assumes\na powerful, and, I may say, a most beautiful office. It is just as\nnecessary for the attainment of virtue as prosperity, or any blessing.\nNay, in this aspect, it is itself a great blessing, and\n\n    \"Every cloud that spreads above\n     And veileth love, itself is love.\"\n\nIt is evident that, without the contact of sin and the pressure of\ntemptation, there might be innocence, but not virtue. Equally evident\ndoes it seem that, without an acquaintance with grief, there would soon\nbe but little of that uplifting tendency-that softening of the heart,\nand sanctifying of the affections-which fit us for the dissolution of\nour earthly ties, and for the communions of the spirit world. Beautiful\nis this weaning efficacy of sorrow. By the ordinance of God, youth is\nmade to be content with this outward and palpable life. The sunshine and\nthe air-the flow of animal pleasures, encircled mysteriously with the\nguardianship of parents, and the love of friends-are sufficient for the\nchild. But as we grow in years, there springs up a dissatisfaction, a\nrestlessness, of which we may be only half conscious, and still less\nknow how to cure. With some, this may subside into merely a fearful\nand worldly discontent; others may heed the prophecy and lay hold on\na celestial hope, an immortal possession as the only remedy. In this\nsecret sense of want, which neither nature nor man can fill they will\nhear already that low, divine voice,--\"Come unto me, all ye that labor\nand are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.\" But generally another\nand more emphatic missionary is necessary. It is the veiled angel of\nsorrow, who plucks away one thing and another that bound us here in ease\nand security, and in the vanishing of these dear objects indicates the\ntrue home of our affections and our peace. Thus, by rupture and loss we\nbecome weaned from earth, and the dissatisfaction and discontent which\nsorrow thus induces are as kind and providential as the carelessness of\nyouth.\n\nWho does not see that it is so,--that as we journey on in life there\nare made in our behalf preparations for another state of\nbeing,--unmistakable premonitions of that fact which the author of\nthe Epistle to the Hebrews so eloquently states, that \"here have we no\ncontinuing city\"? The gloss of objects in which we delighted is worn off\nby attrition,--is sicklied o'er by care; the vanity of earthly things\nstartles us suddenly, like a new truth; the friends we love drop away\nfrom our side into silence; desire fails; the grasshopper becomes\na burden; until, at length, we feel that our only love is not here\nbelow,--until these tendrils of earth aspire to a better climate, and\nthe weight that has been laid upon us makes us stoop wearily to the\ngrave as a rest and a deliverance. We have, even through our tears,\nadmired that discipline which sometimes prepares the young to die;\nwhich, by sharp trials of anguish, and long days of weariness, weans\nthem from that keen sense of mortal enjoyment which is so naturally\ntheirs; which, through the attenuation of the body, illuminates the\nsoul, and, as it steals the bloom from the cheek, kindles the lustre of\nfaith in the eye, and makes even that young spirit look, unfaltering,\nacross the dark river, and, putting aside its earthly loves and its\nreasonable expectations, exclaim, \"Now I am ready!\" But it would appear\nthat equal preparation, though in different forms, is provided for most\nof us, in the various experiences of sorrow which we are called upon to\nknow, and which, if we would but heed them, have a celestial mission,\nseeking to draw us up from this lower state, to induce us to lay up our\ntreasure where neither moth nor rust corrupts. And in the Christian view\nof man as an heir of the spiritual word, does not sorrow, in this its\nweaning tendency, receive a most beautiful explanation?\n\nAnd, because it accomplishes this work, may be the reason why sorrow\nalways wears a kind of supernatural character. It is true that\nblessings, equally with afflictions, come from Heaven; but this truth is\nnot so generally felt. A sharp disappointment will suddenly drive us to\nGod. The mariner of life sails, unthinking, over its prosperous seas,\nbut a flaw of storm will bring him to his prayers. And religion, reason\nas we will, is peculiarly associated with affliction. And does not\nsorrow possess this supernatural air, not merely because it interrupts\nthe usual order of things, but because, more than joy, it has a weaning\nand spiritual tendency,--is sent, as it were, more directly from God\nfor this specific purpose? At least, after the sanctifying experience of\nsorrow, we hold our joys more religiously.\n\nThere are other tendencies of sorrow akin to this, upon which I might\ndwell, and which show the explanation that it receives in the Christian\nlight. The humbling effect that it has upon the proud and hard-hearted;\nthe equalizing result which it works, making the rich and poor, the\nobscure and the great, stand upon the level of the common humanity,--the\ncommon liability and dependence. I might, expanding the topic already\ntouched upon, speak of the influence which sorrow sheds abroad,\nchastening the light, at tempering the draught of joy, and thus keeping\nour hearts better balanced than otherwise. But I have sufficiently\nillustrated its mission. I have shown its use, even its beauty, in\nthe Christian view. I have shown why Christianity, as the universal\nreligion, is rightly styled the \"religion of sorrow,\" and why Christ, as\nthe perfect teacher and example, was \"a man of sorrows, and acquainted\nwith grief.\"\n\nLet us all, then, recognize the fact that life itself is a discipline.\nThat for each of us sorrow is mingled with joy in order that this\ndiscipline may be accomplished. No one reaches the noon of life without\nsome grief, some disappointment, some sharp trial, which assures him, if\nhe will but heed it, that life is already declining, and that his\nspirit should train itself for a higher and more permanent state. In the\nfailure of mortal excellence let him recognize the proof of an immortal\ngood, and from the bitterness that mingles with these earthly waters,\nturn to drink of the celestial fountain. Of all things, let us not\nreceive sorrow indifferently, or without reflection. Its mission is\nfor discipline, but we feel it to be discipline only by recognizing\nits source and its meaning; \"it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of\nrighteousness\" only \"to them that are exercised thereby.\" Otherwise,\nit may come and go as the storm that rends the oak, or the drenching\ntempest that glides off as it falls. It may startle us for a moment,--it\nmay hurt us with a sense of pain and loss,--it may awe us with its\nmystery; but unless it rouses us to solemn thought upon the meaning\nof life, to self-communion and prayer, to higher and holier action, it\navaileth little. It should not smite the heart's chords to wring from\nthem a mere shriek of distress, but to inspire it with a deeper and more\nelevated tone, and by the element of sadness which it infuses make a\nmore liquid and exquisite melody.\n\nBut while we are thus taught to chasten our views of life, and to hold\neven our joys with seriousness, and with wise forethought, let us not\nlook upon things with any morbid vision, or cast over them a monotonous\nhue. Let us not live in gloom and bitterness. The Christian, of all\nothers, is the best fitted for a cheerful and proper enjoyment of\nlife, because he wisely recognizes the use of things, understands their\nevanescent nature, and sees the infinite goodness that has so ordained\nit. He is not surprised by sudden terrors. He is prepared for sorrow,\nand thus can rest in peace with the good that he has; while those who\nbury heart and soul in the present enjoyment, and know nothing but\nsensual good, are broken down by calamity. The sudden change, like a\nthunder-gust, puts out their light, and darkens all their life; and it\nis they who are apt to fall from the summit of delight into a morbid\ngloom; while the Christian, with his balanced soul, inhabits neither\nextreme.\n\nFinally, let us remember that it is not the object of sorrow to\novercome, but to elevate; not to conquer us, but that we, by it, should\nconquer. It converts the thorns that wound us into a crown. It makes\nus strong by the baptism of tears. The saint is always a hero. This\nexplains that grand distinction between Heathen and Christian art, of\nwhich I spoke in the commencement; that expression of power blended with\nagony,--of celestial beatitude refining itself upon the face of grief.\nChristianity has made martyrdom sublime, and sorrow triumphant. Christ\nis \"the Captain of our salvation,\"-the leader of \"many sons unto glory;\"\nfor he was \"a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHRISTIAN CONSOLATION IN LONELINESS\n\n\n     \"And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.\"\n     John xvi.32.\n\n\nThese words are found in the farewell address of Jesus to his disciples.\nThey were uttered in the dark hour of coming agony, and in the face of\nignominious death. Because Christ was divinely empowered, and possessed\nthe spirit without measure, let us not suppose that to him there was no\npain or sorrow, in that great crisis. With all his supernatural dignity,\nhe appears to us far more attractive when we consider him as impressible\nby circumstances,--as moved by human sympathies. He is thus not merely a\nteacher, but a pattern for us. In all our trials he not only enables us\nto endure and to triumph, but draws us close to himself by the affinity\nof his own experience. We see, too, how the best men, men of the\nclearest faith, may still look upon death with a shudder, and shrink\nfrom the dark and narrow valley; not because they fear death as such,\nbut because of the agony of dissolution, the rupture of all familiar\nties, and the solemn mystery of the last change.\n\nBut death and suffering, as Jesus was now to meet them, appeared in no\nordinary forms. He was to bear affliction with no friendly consolations\naround him; but alone!--alone in the wrestling of the garden, and amid\nthe cruel mockery. Not upon the peaceful death-bed, but upon the bare\nand rugged cross, torn by nails, pierced with the spear, crowned with\nthorns, taunted by the revilings of the multitude, the vinegar and the\ngall. He must be deserted, and encounter these trials alone. He must be\nrejected, betrayed, crucified alone. And as he spoke to his disciples\nthose words of affection and holiness-those words so full of counsel and\nsublime consolation-he remembered all this; he remembered that they who\nnow clung to him, and listened in sorrow to his parting accents, would\nsoon be scattered as sheep without a shepherd, and leave him to himself\nin all that shame and agony. But even as he foretold it there gleamed\nupon his spirit the sunshine of an inner consciousness,--a comfort that\nno cloud could darken; and instantly he added, \"And yet I am not alone,\nbecause the Father is with me.\"\n\nHaving thus considered the circumstances in which these words were\nspoken, I now proceed to draw from them a few reflections.\n\nI would say, then, in the first place, that the great test which proves\nthe excellence of the religion of Christ is its adaptation to man in\nsolitude,--to man as a solitary being; because it is then that he\nis thrown upon the resources of his own soul,--upon his inner and\neverlasting life. In society he finds innumerable objects to attract his\nattention and to absorb his affections. The ordinary cares of every\nday, the pursuit of his favorite scheme, the converse of friends, the\nexciting topics of the season, the hours of recreation, all fill up his\ntime, and occupy his mind with matters external to himself. And looking\nupon him merely in these relations, if we could forget its great social\nbearings, and the harmonies which flow from its all-pervading spirit out\ninto every condition of life, we might, perhaps, say that man could get\nalong well enough without religion. If this world were made up merely of\nbusiness and pleasure, perhaps the atheist's theory would suffice,\nand we might feel indifferent whether controlled by plastic matter or\nintelligent mind. We will admit that happiness, in one sense of the\nterm, does not essentially depend upon religion. Nay, we must admit this\nproposition. A man may be happy without being religious. Good health,\ngood spirits;--how many, possessing these really enjoy life, without\nbeing devout, or religious according to any legitimate meaning of that\nterm.\n\nBut change the order of circumstances. Remove these external\nhelps,--substitute therefor sorrow, duty, the revelations of our own\ninner being,--and all this gayety vanishes like the sparkles from a\nstream when a storm comes up. The soul that has depended upon outward\ncongenialities for its happiness has no permanent principle of\nhappiness; for that is the distinction which religion bestows. He who\ncannot retire within himself, and find his best resources there, is\nfitted, perhaps, for the smoother passages of life, but poorly prepared\nfor all life. He who cannot and dare not turn away from these outward\nengrossments, and be in spiritual solitude,--who is afraid or sickens at\nthe idea of being alone,--has a brittle possession in all that happiness\nwhich comes from the whirl and surface of things. One hour may scatter\nit forever. And poorly, I repeat, is he prepared for all life,--for some\nof the most serious and important moments of life. These, as I shall\nproceed to show, we must meet alone, and from within; and therefore, it\nconstitutes the blessedness of the Christian religion that it enables\nman when in solitude to have communion, consolation, and guidance. In\nfact, it makes him, when alone, to be not alone,--to say, with glad\nconsciousness, \"I am not alone, because the Father is with me.\"\n\nTo illustrate this truth, then, I say, that so far as the communion and\nhelp of this outward world and of human society are concerned, there are\nmany and important seasons when man must be alone. In the first place,\nin his most interior and essential nature, man is a solitary being. He\nis an individual, a unit, amid all the souls around him, and all other\nthings,--a being distinct and peculiar as a star. God, in all the\nvariety of his works, has made no man exactly like another. There is an\nindividual isolation, a conscious personality, which he can share with\nno other; which resists the idea of absorption; which claims its own\ndistinct immortality; which has its own wants and woes, its own sense of\nduty, its own spiritual experiences. Christianity insists upon nothing\nmore strongly than this. Piercing below all conventionalisms, it\nrecognizes man as an individual soul, and, as such, addresses him with\nits truths and its sanctions. Indeed, it bases its grand doctrine of\nhuman brotherhood and equality upon the essential individuality of each\nman, because each represents all,--each has in himself the nature of\nevery other. It demands individual repentance, individual holiness,\nindividual faith. One cannot believe for another. One cannot decide\nquestions of conscience for another. One cannot bear the sins or\nappropriate the virtues of another. It is true, we have relations to the\ngreat whole, to the world of mankind, and to the material universe. We\nare linked to these by subtle affinities. We are interwoven with them\nall,--bound up with them in arterial unity and life. They have all\npoured their results into our souls, and helped to form us, and do now\nsupport us; and we, in like manner, react upon them, and upon others.\nThis truth is a vital one, not to be neglected. But a deeper truth than\nthis and one upon which this depends, is the individual peculiarity of\neach,--his integral distinctiveness, without which there would be no\nsuch thing as union, or relationship; nothing but monotony and inertia.\n\nThe great fact, then, which I would impress upon you is, that,\nessentially as spiritual beings, we are alone. And I remark that there\nare experiences in life when we are made to feel this deep fact; when\neach must deal with his reason, his heart, his conscience, for himself;\nwhen each is to act as if the sole-existent in the universe, realizing\nthat he is a spirit breathed from God, complete in himself, subject\nto all spiritual laws, interested in all spiritual welfare; when no\nstranger soul, though it be that of his dearest friend, can intermeddle\nwith all that occupies him, or share it.\n\nSuch experiences we have when reflection binds us to the past.\nMemory then opens for us a volume that no eye but God's and ours can\nread;--memories of neglect, of sin, of deep secrets that our hearts have\nhidden in their innermost folds. Such experiences sometimes there\nare when we muse upon the external universe; when we reflect upon the\nvastness of creation, the littleness of human effort, the transciency\nof human relations; when our souls are drawn away from all ordinary\ncommunions, and we feel that we are drifting before an almighty will,\nbound to an inevitable destiny, hemmed in by irresistible forces. Then,\nwith every tie of association shrinking from us; then, keeping the\nsolitary vigil; then with cold, vast nature all around us, we are alone.\nOr, there is a solitude which oppresses us even in the heart of the\ngreat city;--a solitude more intense even than that of naked nature;\nwhen all faces are strange to us; when no pulse of sympathy throbs from\nour heart to the hearts of others when each passes us by, engaged with\nhis own destiny, and leaving us to fulfil ours. In this tantalizing\nsolitude of the crowd, in this sense of isolation from our fellows, if\nnever before, do we feel, with sickness of heart, that we are alone.\nThere is a solitude of sickness,--the solitude of the watcher or of the\npatient,--a solitude to which, at times, duty and Providence call us\nall. There are, in brief, countless circumstances of life when we shall\nrealize that we are indeed alone, and sad enough will be that solitude\nif we have no inner resource,--no Celestial companionship;--if we cannot\nsay and feel as we say it, that we are not alone, for the Father is with\nus.\n\nBut, while I cannot specify all these forms of solitude, let me dwell\nupon two or three of the experiences of life in which we are peculiarly\nalone.\n\nFirst, then, I would say, that we must be alone in the pursuit of Truth\nand the work of Duty. Others may aid me in these, but I must decide and\nact for myself. I must believe for myself. I must do right for myself;\nor if I do wrong, it is also for myself, and in myself I realize the\nretribution. By my own sense of right and wrong-by my own standard of\ntruth and falsehood-I must stand or fall. There is in this world\nnothing so great and solemn as the struggles of the solitary soul in its\nresearches after the truth,--in its endeavors to obey the right. We may\nbe indifferent to these vital questions,--it is to be feared that many\nare; we may glide along in the suppleness of habit, and the ease\nof conventionalism; we may never trouble ourselves with any pungent\nscruples; we may never pursue the task of introspection, or bring to\nbear upon the fibres of motive and desire within us the intense focus\nof God's moral law; we may never vex our souls with tests of faith, but\nrest contented with the common or hereditary standard;--but he who will\nbe serious in the work of spiritual discipline, who will act from a\nvital law of duty, must endure struggles and conflicts than which, I\nrepeat, there is nothing more solemn under the sun. He will often find\nhimself opposed to the general current of human faith and action. His\nposition will be singular. His principle will be tried. Interest will\ndirect him another way; his strictness will be ridiculed, his motives\nquestioned, his sincerity misunderstood and aspersed. Alone must he\nendure all this,--along cling to the majestic ideal of right as it rises\nto his own soul. And thus he must wage a bitter conflict with fear and\nwith seduction,--with sophistries of the heart, and reluctance of the\nwill.\n\nOften, too, must he question his own motives with a severer judgment\nthan that of the world, as his scrutiny is more close, and his\nself-knowledge more minute. He knows the secret sin, the mental act, the\nspiritual aberration. He knows the distance between his highest effort\nand that lofty standard of perfection to which he has pledged his\npurposes. Alone, alone does the great conflict go on within him. The\nstruggle, the self-denial, the pain, and the victory, are of the very\nessence of martyrdom,--are the chief peculiarities in the martyr's\nlot. His, too, must be the solitude of prayer, when, by throwing by all\nentanglements,--in his naked individuality,--he wrestles at the Mercy\nSeat, or soars to the bliss of Divine communion. In such hours,--in\nevery hour of self-communion,--when we ask ourselves the highest\nquestions respecting faith and duty, it is the deepest comfort to the\nreligious soul to feel and to say, \"I am not alone, for the Father is\nwith me.\"\n\nAgain; there are experiences of Sorrow in which we are peculiarly alone.\nHow often does the soul feel this when it is suffering from the loss\nof friends! Then we find no comfort in external things. Pleasure charms\nnot; business cannot cheat us of our grief; wealth supplies not the\nvoid; and though the voice of friendship falls in consolation upon the\near, yet with all these, we are alone,--alone! No other spirit can\nfully comprehend our woe, or enter into our desolation. No human eye can\npierce to our sorrows; no sympathy can share them. Alone we must realize\ntheir sharp suggestions, their painful memories, their brood of sad\nand solemn thoughts. The mother bending over her dead child;--O! what\nsolitude is like that?--where such absolute loneliness as that which\npossesses her soul, when she takes the final look of that little pale\nface crowned with flowers and sleeping in its last chamber, with\nthe silent voice of the dead uttering its last good night? What more\nsolitary than the spirit of one who, like the widow of Nain, follows to\nthe grave her only son?--of one from whom the wife, the mother, has been\ntaken? The mourner is in solitude,--alone, in this peopled world;--O,\nhow utterly alone! Through the silent valley of tears wanders that\nstricken spirit, seeing only memorials of that loss.\n\nIndeed, sorrow of any kind is solitary. Its deepest pangs, its most\nsolemn visitations, are in the secrecy of the individual soul. We labor\nto conceal it from others. We wear a face of unconcern or gayety amid\nthe multitude. Society is thronged with masked faces. Unseen burdens of\nwoe are carried about in its busy haunts. The man of firm step in the\nmart, and of vigorous arm in the workshop, has communions in his chamber\nthat make him weak as a child. Nothing is more deceitful than a happy\ncountenance. Haggard spirits laugh over the wine-cup, and the blooming\ngarland of pleasure crowns an aching head. For sorrow is secret and\nsolitary. Each \"heart knoweth its own bitterness.\"\n\nHow precious, then, in the loneliness of sorrow, is that faith\nwhich bids us look up and see how near is God, and feel what divine\ncompanionship is ours, and know what infinite sympathy engirds us,--what\nconcern for our good is, even in this darkness, shaping out blessings\nfor us, and distilling from this secret agony everlasting peace for the\nsoul. How precious that faith in the clear vision of which we can say,\n\"I am not alone, for the Father is with me.\"\n\nFinally, we must experience Death alone. As I said in the commencement,\nthe best, the most pious soul, may naturally shrink from this great\nevent. We may learn to anticipate it with resignation, to look upon it\nwith trust; but indifference respecting it is no proof of religion. It\nwould be, rather, a bad sign for one to approach it without emotion; for\nhowever his faith may penetrate beyond, the religious spirit will, with\ndeep awe, lift that curtain of mystery which hangs before the untried\nfuture. That is a fact which we must encounter alone. Friends may gather\naround us; their ministrations may aid, their consolations soothe us.\nThey may be with us to the very last; they may cling to us as though\nthey would pluck us back to the shores of time; their voices may fall,\nthe last of earthly sounds, upon our ears; their kiss awaken the last\nthrob of consciousness; but they cannot go with us, they cannot die in\nour stead; the last time must come,--they must loosen their hold\nfrom us, and fade from our vision, and we become wrapt in the solemn\nexperience of death, alone! Alone must we tread the dark valley,--alone\nembark for the unseen land. No, Christian! not alone. To your soul, thus\nseparated in blank amazement from all familiar things, still is that\nvision of faith granted that so often lighted your earthly perplexities;\nto you is it given, in this most solitary hour, to say, \"I am not alone\nfor the Father is with me!\"\n\nI repeat, then, in closing, that the test which proves the excellence\nof the religion of Christ is the fact that it fits us for those solemn\nhours of life when we must be alone. Mere happiness we may derive from\nother sources; but this consolation not all the world can give,--the\nworld cannot take it away.\n\nLet us remember, then, that though we seldom look within-though our\naffections may be absorbed in external things-these solitary seasons\nwill come. It behoves us, therefore, as we value true peace of mind,\ngenuine happiness, which connects us to the throne of God with golden\nlinks of prayer,--it behoves each to ask himself, \"Dare I be alone? Am\nI ready to be alone? And what report will my soul make in that hour of\nsolitude? If I do wrong, if I cleave to evil rather than the good, what\nshall I do when I am alone, and yet not alone, but with the Father? But\nif I do right, if I trust in Him, and daily walk with Him, what crown\nof human honor, what store of wealth, what residuum of earthly pleasure,\ncan compare with the glad consciousness that wherever I rest or wander,\nin every season and circumstance, in the solitary hours of life, and the\nloneliness of death, God is verily with me?\"\n\nSurely no attainment is equal to that strength of Christ, by which,\nwhen approaching the cross, he was able to say, \"I am not alone, for the\nFather is with me.\" By this strength, he was able to do more than to\nsay and feel thus. He was able to strengthen others,--to exclaim, \"Be of\ngood cheer, I have overcome the world.\" So we, by spiritual discipline,\nhaving learned of Christ to be thus strong, not only possess a spring\nof unfailing consolation for ourselves, but there shall go out from us\na benediction and a power that shall gladden the weary and fortify the\nweak,--that shall fill the solitude of many a lonely spirit with\nthe consolations of the Father's love, and the bliss of the Father's\npresence.\n\n\n\n\nRESIGNATION\n\n\n     \"The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink\n     it?\" John xvii.11.\n\n\nThe circumstances in which these words were uttered have, doubtless,\noften arrested your attention,--have often been delineated for you\nby others. Yet it is always profitable for us to recur to them. They\ntranspired immediately after our Saviour's farewell with his disciples.\nThe entire transaction in that \"upper room\" had been hallowed and\nsoftened by the fact of his coming death. He saw that fact distinctly\nbefore him, and to his eye everything was associated with it. As he took\nthe bread and broke it, it seemed to him an emblem of himself, pierced\nand dying; and from the fulness of his spirit he spoke, \"Take, eat, this\nis my body, broken for you.\" As he took the cup and set it before\nthem, it reminded him of his blood, that must flow ere his mission\nwas fulfilled, and he could say, \"It is finished.\" And then, when the\ntraitor rose from that table to go out and consummate the very purpose\nthat should lead to that event, as one who had arrayed himself in robes\nof death, and was about to declare his legacy, he broke forth in that\nsublime strain commencing, \"Now is the Son of man glorified, and God\nis glorified in him;\"-that strain of mingled precept, and promise, and\nwarning, and prayer, from which the weary and the sick-hearted of all\nages shall gather strength and consolation, and which shall be read in\ndying chambers and houses of mourning until death and sorrow shall reign\nno more.\n\nLaden, then, with the thought of his death, he had gone with his\ndisciples into the garden of Gethsemane. There, in the darkness and\nloneliness of night, the full anguish of his situation rushed upon his\nspirit. He shrank from the rude scenes that opened before him,--from\nthe mocker's sneer and the ruler's scourge; from the glare of impatient\nrevenge, and the weeping eyes of helpless friendship; from the insignia\nof imposture and of shame; and from the protracted, thirsty, torturing\ndeath. He shrank from these,--he shrank from the rupture of tender\nties,--he shrank from the parting with deeply-loved friends,--his soul\nwas overburdened, his spirit was swollen to agony, and he rushed to his\nknees, and prayed, \"Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from\nme.\" Yet even then, in the intensity of his grief, the sentiment that\nlay deep and serene below suggested the conditions, and he added,\n\"Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done.\" But still the painful\nthought oppressed him, and, though more subdued now, he knelt and prayed\nagain, \"O, my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me except I\ndrink it, thy will be done.\" And once more, as he returned from his\nweary, sleeping disciples, and found himself alone, the wish broke\nforth-yet tempered by the same obedient compliance.\n\nAnd here I pause to ask, if, in all that scene of agony, anything is\ndeveloped inconsistent with the character of Christ? If we would have it\notherwise? If these tears and groans of anguish are tokens of a weakness\nthat we would conceal from our convictions,--that we would overlook, as\nmarring the dignity and the divinity of the Saviour? For one, I would\nnot have it otherwise. I would not have the consoling strength, the\nsympathizing tenderness, the holy victory that may be drawn from\nthence,--I would not have these left out from the Life that was given us\nas a pattern. Jesus, we are told, \"was made perfect through suffering.\"\nThis struggle took place that victory might be won;--this discipline of\nsorrow fell upon him that perfection and beauty might be developed. By\nthis we see that Christ's was a spirit liable to trial,--impressible by\nsuffering; and from this fact does the victory appear greater and more\nreal. In this we see one striving with man's sorrow,--seeking, like man,\nto be delivered from pain and grief, yet rising to a calm obedience,--a\nlofty resignation. Had Jesus passed through life always serene, always\nunshrinking, we should not have seen a man, but something that man is\nnot, something that man cannot be in this world; and that calm question,\n\"The cup that my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?\" would\nlose its force and significance. Otherwise, why should not Jesus be\nas resigned as before? He had betrayed no sense of suffering, no\nimpressibility by pain; why should he not be willing, seeing he was\nalways able to meet the end? But O! when that deep, holy calmness has\nfallen upon a soul that has been tossed by sorrow, and that has shrunk\nfrom death,--when the brow has come up smooth and radiant from the\nshadow of mourning,--when that soul is ready for the issue, not because\nit has always felt around it the girdle of Omnipotence, but because,\nthrough weakness and suffering, it has risen and worked out an\nunfaltering trust, and taken hold of the hand of God by the effort of\nfaith,--then it is, I say, that resignation if beautiful and holy,--then\ndo we wonder and admire.\n\nSo it was with Jesus. A little while ago we saw him bowed with sorrow,\nhis eyes lifted with tears to heaven. We saw that he keenly felt the\napproaching pain, and shame, and death. A little while ago, the still\nnight air was laden with his cry, \"Father, if it be thy will, let this\ncup pass from me.\" And now, as one who is strong and ready, he says\ncalmly to Peter, \"The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not\ndrink it?\" Truly, a battle has been fought, and a victory won, here; but\nwe should not be the better for it, were it not for that very process\nof suffering in which that battle was waged, and from which that victory\nwas wrung. Now, when we sorrow, we know who also sorrowed; we remember\nwhose agony the still heavens looked upon with all their starry\neyes,--whose tears moistened the bosom of the bare earth,--whose cry of\nanguish pierced the gloom of night. Now, too, when we sorrow, we know\nwhere to find relief; we learn the spirit of resignation, and under what\nconditions it may be born. Thank God, then, for the lesson of the lonely\ngarden and the weeping Christ-we, too, may be \"made perfect through\nsuffering.\"\n\nSuch, then, were the circumstances that illustrate the words of the\ntext. Scarcely had Jesus risen from his knees, and wakened the drowsy\ndisciples, when the light of lanterns flashed upon him, and Judas came\nwith a multitude to bear him to that death from which, but now, he\nshrunk with agony. But he shrank no more. The trial was over,--the\ndarkness had vanished,--an angel had strengthened him; and when the\nimpetuous Peter drew his sword and smote off the servant's ear, his\nmaster turned to him, with the calm rebuke, \"Put up thy sword into his\nsheath; the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?\"\nYes, cold and bitter as that cup was, pressed next to his very lips, he\nhad learned to drink it. God had given him strength, and no more did\nhe falter, no more did he groan-save once, for a moment, when, upon the\ncross, drooping, and racked with intense pain, he cried out, \"My God, my\nGod, why hast thou forsaken me?\" But that passed away in the triumphant\nejaculation, \"It is finished!\"\n\nSuch was the resignation of Jesus; a trait in his character which, like\nall the rest, is not only to be admired, but imitated;--not an abstract\nvirtue, manifested by a being so perfect and so enshrined in the\nsanctity of a divine nature that we cannot approach it, and in our\nmortal, work-day trials can never feel it; but a virtue which should\nbe throned in every heart, the strength and consolation of which every\nsuffering soul may experience. Nay, if there is one virtue which is more\noften needed than any other, which lies at the base of true happiness,\nand than which there is no surer seal of piety, it is this virtue of\nresignation. And let me proceed to say, that by resignation I mean not\ncold and sullen apathy, or reckless hardihood, but a sweet trust and\nhumble acquiescence, which show that the soul has submitted itself to\nthe Father who knows and does best, and that it meets his dispensations\nwith obedience and his mysteries with faith. The apathy and hardihood\nto which I have alluded are very far from the trust and piety of a\nreligious spirit. The fatalist acquiesces in the course of things\nbecause he cannot help it. He has reasoned to the conclusion that his\nmurmuring and weeping will not alter matters and he has resolved to take\nthings as they come. But here is no resignation to the will of God, but\nto the necessity of things. Here is no faith that all things are wisely\nordered, and that sorrow is but the shadow of the Father's hand. No;\nhere is the simple belief that things are as they are, and cannot be\naltered,-that an arbitrary law is the eternal rule, not a benevolent\nand holy purpose; and the philosopher would be just as resigned if he\nbelieved all things to be under the guidance of a blind fate, whose iron\nmachinery drives on to level or exalt, unintelligent and remorseless,\nwhether in its course it brings about good or evil,-whether it gladdens\nhuman hearts or crushes them. Such resignation as this may be quite\ncommon in the world, manifested in various phases, and by men of\ndifferent religious opinions. Do we not often hear the expression,\n\"Well, things are as they are,-we do best to take them as they come;\"\nand here the matter ends? No higher reference is made. The things\nalluded to may issue from the bosom of material nature, may be sent into\nthe world by chance, or may come from the good Father of all; but the\nminds of these reasoners reach not so far. Now I repeat, there is no\nreligion and no true philosophy in this method; certainly it is not\nsuch resignation as Jesus manifested. In fact, it indicates total\ncarelessness as to the discipline of life, and will generally be found\nwith men in whose thoughts God is not, or to whose conceptions he is\nthe distant, inactive Deity, not the near and ever-working Controller. I\ncannot admire the conduct of that man who when the bolt of sorrow falls,\nreceives it upon the armor of a rigid fatalism, who wipes scarcely a\ntear from his hard, dry face, and says, \"Well, it cannot be helped;\nthings are so ordered.\" Below all this there is often a sulky,\nhalf-angry sentiment, as though the victim felt the blow, but was\ndetermined not to wince,-as though there was an acknowledgment of\nweakness, but also a display of pride,-a feeling that we cannot resist\nsorrow, yet that sorrow has no business to come, and now that it\nhas come the sufferer will not yield to it. This, evidently, is not\nresignation, religious resignation, but only sullen acquiescence, or\nreckless hardihood.\n\nIn a certain sense it is true that we do well to take things as they\ncome,-that we cannot help the eternal laws that control events. But we\nmust go behind this truth. Whence do events come, and for what purpose\ndo they come? What is life, and for what end are all its varied\ndispensations? Religion points us up beyond the cloud of materialism,\nand behind the mechanism of nature, to an Infinite Spirit, to a God, to\na Father. All things are moved by infinite Love. Life is not merely\na phenomenon, it is a Lesson. Its events do not come and go, in a\ncauseless, arbitrary manner; they are meant for our discipline and our\ngood. In whatever aspect they come, then, let their appropriate lesson\nbe heeded. This is the religious view of life, and is wide apart from\nthe philosophy that lets events happen as they will, as though we were\nin the setting of a heady current, and were borne along among other\nmatters that now help us, now jar and wound us,-that happen without\norder and without object; all, like ourselves, driven along and taking\nthings as they come. In the religious view, all things stream from God's\nthrone, and whatever sky hangs over them, the infinite One is present;\nprosperity is the sunshine that he has sent, and Faith, as she weeps,\nbeholds a bow in the clouds.\n\nThe religious man takes things as they come, but how? In a reverent and\nfilial spirit, a spirit that obeys and trusts because God has ordained.\nHe refers, behind the event, to the will that declares it. And yet, this\nwill be no formal lifeless resignation. He will not be stripped of his\nmanhood, or become unnatural in his religion. His resignation will not\nbe the cold assent of reason, or the mere rote and repetition of the\nlips. No, it will be born in struggling and in sorrow. Religion is not\na process that makes our nature callous to all fierce heats or drenching\nstorms. Neither is he the most religious man who is calmest in the keen\ncrisis of trouble. I say in the crisis of trouble-for to human\nvision there always is a crisis. We cannot penetrate to the secret\ndeterminations of God, and in the season of care and affliction there\nis a time when the issue is uncertain,-when we cannot say it is sealed.\nWhat shall we do then? Is human agency nothing? Grant that we are\ndriving down a stream,-can we use no effort? Is there not a time when\ndeeds, struggles, prayers, are of some avail?-when the spirit, in its\nintense agony, with swollen strength and surging tears, heaves against\nthe catastrophe, if yet, perchance, it may ward it off? Truly, there\nis such a time, and the humblest disciple of Christ may weep as he also\nwept. But let him also strive as Christ strove. Let him not dash his\ngrief in rebellious billows to the throne; let not his groans arise in\nresentful murmurs; let the remembrance of what God is and why he does,\nbe with him, and let the filial, reverent trust steal in,--\"Not my will,\nbut thine be done.\" That reference to God, that obedience to him, rising\nfrom the very depths of sorrow, and clung to without faltering, is\nRESIGNATION. It shall bestow peace and victory in the end. O! how\ndifferent from that sullen fatalism that lets things come as they\nwill. To such a soul things do come as they will, and it hardens under\nthem,-they do come as they will, but it sees not, cares not, why they\ncome. No thought goes up beyond the cloud to God,-no strength is born\nthat shall make life's trials lighter,-no love and faith that will seek\nthe Father's hand in the darkest hour, and shed an enduring light over\nthe thorny path of affliction, and upon the bosom of the grave. Look at\nthese two. Outwardly, their calmness may be the same. Nay, the one may\nevince emotion and tears, while the other shall stand rigid in the hour\nof calamity, with a bitter smile, or a frown of endurance. But in the\none is strength, in the other rigidity; in the one is power to triumph\nover sorrow, in the other only nervous capacity to resist it. The one\nis man hardened to indifference, sullen because of irreligion, upon whom\nsome sorrow will one day fall that will peel him to the quick, and he\nwill not know where to flee for healing. The other is man contending\nagainst evil, yet not against God,-man with all the tenderness and\nstrength of his nature, impressible yet unconquerable, walking with feet\nthat bleed among the wounding thorns, and a heart that shrinks from the\nheavy woe, yet, all lacerated as he is, able to walk through, because he\nholds by the hand of Omnipotence. The one is the unbending tree, peeled\nby the lightning and stripped by the North wind, lifting its gnarled\nhead in sullen defiance to the storm, which, when the storm does\novercome it, shall be broken. The other also is rooted in strength,\nand meets the rushing blast with a lofty front. But as \"it smiles in\nsunshine, so it bends in storm,\" trustful and obedient, yet firm and\nbrave, and nothing shall overwhelm it.\n\nI trust I have succeeded in impressing upon you the difference between\nChristian resignation and mere hardihood, or indifference. Resignation\nis born of discipline, and lives only in a truly religious soul. We\nhave seen that it is not incompatible with tenderness; nay, it is more\nvaluable, because it springs up in natures that have thus suffered and\nwept. To see them become calm and pass with unfaltering step through\nthe valley of affliction, when, but now, they shrunk from it, is a proof\nthat God indeed has strengthened them, and that they have had communion\nwith him. The unbeliever's stubbornness may endure to the end, but no\nhuman power could inspire this sudden and triumphant calmness.\n\nAnd even when the crisis is past, when the sorrow is sealed, it is not\nrebellion to sigh and weep. Our Father has made us so. He has opened the\nsprings of love that well up within us, and can we help mourning when\nthey turn to tears and blood? He has made very tender the ties that bind\nus to happiness, and can we fail to shrink and suffer when they are cut\nasunder? When we have labored long in the light of hope, and lo! It goes\nout in darkness, and the blast of disappointment rushes upon us, can we\nhelp being sad? Can the mother prevent weeping when she kisses the lips\nof her infant that shall prattle to her no more; when she presses its\ntiny hand, so cold and still,-the little hand that has rested upon her\nbosom and twined in her hair; and even when it is so sweet and beautiful\nthat she could strain it to her heart forever, it is laid away in the\nenvious concealment of the grave? Can the wife, or the husband, help\nmourning, when the partner and counsellor is gone,-when home is made\nvery desolate because the familiar voice sounds not there, and the\ncast-off garment of the departed is strangely vacant, and the familiar\nface has vanished, never more to return? Can the child fail to lament,\nwhen the father, the mother,-the being who nurtured him in infancy,\nwho pillowed his head in sickness, who prayed for him with tears on\nhis sinful wandering, who ever rejoiced in his joy and wept in\nhis sorrows,-can he fail to weep when that venerable form lies all\nenshrouded, and the door closes upon it, and the homestead is vacant,\nand the link that bound him to childhood is in the grave? Say, can we\ncheck the gush of sorrow at any of life's sharp trials and losses?\nNo; nor are we forbidden to weep, nor would we be human if we did not\nweep,-if, at least, the spirit did not quiver when the keen scathing\ngoes over it. But how shall we weep? O! Thou, who didst suffer in\nGethsemane, thou hast taught us how. By thy sacred sorrow and thy pious\nobedience thou has taught us; by thy great agony and thy sublime\nvictory thou has taught us. We must refer all to God. We must earnestly,\nsincerely say, \"Thy will be done.\" Then our prayers will be the source\nof our strength. Then our sorrowing will bring us comfort. \"They will\nbe done;\" repeat this, feel this, realize its meaning and its relations,\nand you shall be able to say, with a rooted calmness, \"The cup which my\nFather hath given me, shall I not drink it?\"\n\n\"The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?\" Who\nshall be able to say this as Jesus said it? They who struggle as he\nstruggled,-who obey as he obeyed,-who trust as he trusted. There are\nthose upon earth who have been able to say it. It has made them stronger\nand happier. There are those in heaven who have been able to say it.\nThey have gone up from earthly communions to the communion on high. Do\nyou not see them there, walking so serenely by the still waters, with\npalms about their brows? Serenely-for in their faces nothing is left of\ntheir conflict but its triumph; nothing of their swollen agony but the\nmassy enduring strength it has imparted. They have ceased from their\ntrials, but first they learned how to endure them. They submitted, but\nthey were not overwhelmed. When sorrow came, each pious soul struggled,\nbut trusted; and so was able to meet the last struggle,-was able to say\nas the shadow of death fell upon it, \"The cup which my Father hath given\nme, shall I not drink it?\" They were resigned. Behold-theirs is the\nvictory!\n\n\n\n\nTHE MISSION OF LITTLE CHILDREN\n\n\n     \"And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in\n     the midst of them.\"  Matthew xviii.2.\n\n\nEverything has its mission. I speak not now of the office which each\npart of the great universe discharges. I speak not of the relation\nbetween these parts,--that beautiful ordinance by which the whole is\nlinked together in one common life, by which the greatest is dependent\nupon the least, and the least shares in the benefactions of the\ngreatest. In this sense, everything has, strictly, its mission. But I\nspeak of the influence, the instruction, which everything has, or may\nhave, for the soul of man. The flower, and the star, the grass of the\nfield, the outspread ocean, are full of lessons; they perform a mission\nto our spiritual nature, if we will receive it. We may pass them by as\nsimply material forms, the decorations or conveniencies(sic) of this\nour natural life. But if we will come to them in a religious spirit, and\nstudy all their meaning, they will be to us ministers of God, impressive\nand eloquent as human lips, and filled with truths instructive as any\nthat man can utter.\n\nJesus illustrated his teachings by these objects. He made everything\nthat was at hand perform a mission for the human soul. The lilies of the\nfield were clothed with spiritual suggestion, and the fowls of the air,\nas they flew through the trackless firmament, bore a lesson of truth and\nconsolation. As if to show that there is nothing, however small, that\nis insignificant, and that has not its mission, he selected the falling\nsparrow to be a minister of wisdom, and dignified the wayside well as a\nclear and living oracle of the divinest truth.\n\nIn the instance before us, the object selected was a little child. In\nreply to the question, \"Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?\"\nJesus set this little one in the midst of his disciples and said,\n\"Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little\nchildren, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.\" Thus did he\nrebuke their sensuous ideas of greatness by a spiritual truth, and make\na little child the teacher of profound and beautiful wisdom. I do not\npropose, however, at this time, to dwell upon the precise doctrines\nwhich Christ taught in the instance, but having, as it were, the little\nchild set in our midst, to draw from it further lessons that may do us\ngood. In one word, I propose to speak of the mission of little children.\n\nIn using this term \"mission,\" I wish to have no obscurity about my\nmeaning. I refer, by it, to the influence which little children may\nexert upon us,--to the effects which they may produce,--rather than to\nany direct object which they can have in view, or for which they set\nthemselves to work. They may be unconscious missionaries; indeed, to a\ngreat extent, they are so. But so are the lilies of the field and the\nbirds of the air. Yet if we believe that God is the ordainer of all\nwisdom and of all good, that he uses an object or event in numberless\nways, and makes it the unconscious instrument of many of his plans,\nthen we may say that children are sent by him for the express purpose of\nproducing these effects, and in that sense have a mission.\n\nI pass to consider some of the modes in which that mission is\naccomplished.\n\nI. Little children give us a sincere and affectionate manifestation\nof human nature. I know that even a child will soon become artful,\nand imbibe the spirit of dealing and of policy. But in a strongly\ncomparative sense, the child is artless. The thoughts of the heart leap\nspontaneously from the lips. The bubbling impulse is closely followed\nby the action. Its desire, its aversion, its love, its curiosity,\nare expressed without modification. The broken prattle, those\nhalf-pronounced words, are uttered with clear, ringing tones of\nsincerity. There is no coil of deceit about the heart. There are no\nsecrets chambered in the brain. The countenance has put on no disguise.\nThere is no manoeuvring with lips or actions, no suspicion or plotting\nin the eyes. It is simple human nature fresh from the hands of God, with\nall its young springs in motion, trying themselves in their simplicity\nand their newness. The eyes open upon the world, not with speculation,\nbut with wonder. To them, the ancient hills and the morning stars are\njust created, new phenomena burst upon them every moment, and nature in\na thousand channels pours itself into the young soul. And how soon it\nlearns the meaning of a mother's smile, and the protection of a father's\nhand! How soon the fountains of affection are unsealed and the mystery\nof human love takes possession of the hear! But the tides of that love\nare controlled by no calculation, are fettered by no proprieties, but\nflow artlessly and freely.\n\nHumanity soon runs into deceit, and the sincerest man wears a mask.\nWe cannot trust our most familiar friends, to the whole extent. We all\nretain something in our inmost hearts that nobody knows but we and\nGod. The world bids us be shrewd and politic. We walk in a mart of\nselfishness. Eyes stare upon us, and we are afraid of them. We meet as\ntraders, as partisans, as citizens, as worshippers, as friends-brothers,\nif you will-but we must not express all we think, we must school\nourselves in some respects,--must adopt some conventionalities. There is\nsome degree of isolation between ourselves and every other one. But\nfrom the world's strife and sordidness, its wearisome forms and cold\nsuspicions, we may turn to the sanctity of home, and if we have a child\nthere, we shall find affection without alloy, a welcome that leaps from\nthe heart in sunshine to the face, and speaks right from the soul;--a\ncompanion who is not afraid or ashamed of us, who makes no calculation\nabout our friendship, who has faith in it, and requires of us perfect\nfaith in return, and whose sincerity rebukes our worldliness, and makes\nus wonder at the world. And if all this makes us better and happier,\nif it keeps our hearts from hardness and attrition, if it begets in us\nsomething of the same sincerity, and hallows us with something of\nthe same affection, if it softens and purifies us at all, then do not\nchildren, in this respect perform a mission for us?\n\nAnd shall we not learn from them more confidence in human nature, seeing\nthat \"the child is father to the man,\" and that much that seems cold and\nhard in men may conceal the remains of childhood's better feeling? And,\nalso, shall it not make us deplore and guard against those influences\nwhich can change the sincere and loving child into the deceitful and\nselfish man-that cover the spring of genuine feeling with the thick rime\nof worldliness, and petrify the tender chords of the heart into rough,\nunfeeling sinews? The man should not be, in all respects, as the child.\nThe child cannot have the glory of the man. If it is not polluted by his\nvices, it is not ennobled by his virtues. But in so much as the child\nawakens in us tenderness, and teaches us sincerity, and counteracts our\ncoarser and harder tendencies, and cheers us in our isolation from human\nhearts, by binding us close with a warm affection, and sheds ever around\nour path the mirrored sunshine of our youth and our simplicity, in so\nmuch the child accomplishes for us a blessed mission.\n\nII. Children teach us faith and confidence. Man soon becomes proud with\nreason, and impatient of restraint. He thinks he knows, or ought to\nknow, the whole mystery of the universe. It is not easy for him to take\nanything upon trust, or to lie low in the hand of God. But the child is\nfull of faith. He is not old enough to speculate, and the things he sees\nare to him so strange and wonderful that he can easily believe in \"the\nthings that are unseen.\" He propounds many questions, but entertains no\ndoubts as to God and heaven. And what confidence has he in his father's\ngovernment and his mother's providence!\n\nI do not say, here, that a man's faith should be as a child's faith. Man\nmust examine and reason, contend with doubt, and wander through mystery.\nBut I would have him cherish the feeling that he too is a child, the\ndenizen of a Father's house, and have sufficient confidence in that\nFather to trust his goodness; and to remember, if things look perplexed\nand discordant to him, that his vision is but a child's vision-he cannot\nsee all. Indeed, there is a beautiful analogy between a child in its\nfather's house and man in the universe, and much there is in the filial\nsentiment that belongs to both conditions. Beautifully has it been shown\nby a recent writer how the natural operation of this sentiment in the\nchild's heart, and in the sphere of home, stands somewhat in the place\nof that religion which man needs in his maturer conditions. \"God\nhas given it, in its very lot,\" says he, \"a religion of its own, the\nsufficiency of which it were impiety to doubt. The child's veneration\ncan scarcely climb to any loftier height than the soul of a wise and\ngood parent...How can there be for him diviner truth than his father's\nknowledge, a more wonderous world than his father's experience, a better\nprovidence than his mother's vigilance, a securer fidelity than in their\nunited promise? Encompassed round by these, he rests as in the embrace\nof the only omniscience he can comprehend.\" (Martineau)\n\nBut O! my friends, when our childhood has passed by, and we go out to\ndrink the mingled cup of life, and cares come crowding upon us, and\nhopes are crushed, and doubts wrestle with us, and sorrow burdens our\nspirits, then we need a deeper faith, and look up for a stronger Father.\nA kind word will not stifle our grief then. We cannot go to sleep upon\nour mother's arms, and forget it all. There is no charm to hold our\nspirits within the walls of this home, the earth. Our thoughts crave\nmore than this. Our souls reach out over the grave, and cry for\nsomething after! No bauble will assuage this bitterness. It is spiritual\nand stern, and we must have a word from heaven-a promise from one who is\nable to fulfill. We look around us, and find that Father, and his\nvary nature contains the promise that we need. And as the child in his\nignorance has faith, not because he can demonstrate, but because it\nis his father, so let us, in our ignorance, feel that in this great\nuniverse of many mansions, of solemn mysteries, of homes beyond the\nearth, of relationships that reach through eternity, of plans only a\nportion of which is seen here; so let us look up as to a Father's\nfare, take hold of his hand, go in and out and lie down securely in his\npresence, and cherish faith. If children only teach us to do this, how\nbeautiful and how great is their mission!\n\nIII. Children waken in us new and powerful affections. Nobody but a\nparent can realize what these affections are, can tell what a fountain\nof emotion the newborn child unseals, what chords of strange love are\ndrawn out from the heart, that before lay there concealed. One may\nhave all powers of intellect, a refined moral culture, a noble and\nwide-reaching philanthropy, and yet a child born to him shall awaken\nwithin him a depth of tenderness, a sentiment of love, a yearning\naffection, that shall surprise him as to the capacity and the mystery of\nhis nature.\n\nAnd the relation of a mother to her child; what other is like it?\nWithout it, how undeveloped is the great element of affection, how small\na horn of its orb is filled and lighted! What was she until that new\nlove woke up within her, and her heart and soul thrilled with it, and\nfirst truly lived in it? Of all the degrees of human love, how amply is\nthis the highest! In all the depths of human love, how surely is this\nthe nethermost! When illustrations fail us, how confidently do we seize\nupon this! The mother nurturing her child in tenderness, watching over\nit with untiring love! O! that is affection stronger than any of this\nearth. It has a power, a beauty, a holiness like no other sentiment.\nWhen that child has grown to maturity, and has gone out from her in\nprofligacy and in scorn; when the world has denounced him, and justice\nsets its price upon his head, and lovers and companions fall off from\nhim in utter loathing-we do not ask, we know, there is one heart that\ncannot reject him. No sin of his can paralyze the chord that vibrates\nthere for him. No alienation can cancel the affection that was born at\nhis birth, that pillowed him in his infancy, centred in him its life,\nclasped him with its strength, and shed upon him its blessings, its\nhopes, and its prayers.\n\nAnd no one feels the death of a child as a mother feels it. Even the\nfather cannot realize it thus. There is a vacancy in his home, and a\nheaviness in his heart. There is a chain of association that at\nset times comes round with its broken link; there are memories of\nendearment, a keen sense of loss, a weeping over crushed hopes, and a\npain of wounded affliction. But the mother feels that one has been taken\naway who was still closer to her heart. Hers has been the office of\nconstant ministration. Every gradation of feature has developed before\nher eyes. She has detected every new gleam of intelligence. She heard\nthe first utterance of every new word. She has been the refuge of his\nfears; the supply of his wants. And every task of affection has woven a\nnew link, and made dear to her its object. And when he dies, a portion\nof her own life, as it were, dies. How can she give him up, with all\nthese memories, these associations? The timid hands that have so often\ntaken hers in trust and love, how can she fold them on his breast, and\nsurrender them to the cold clasp of death? The feet whose wanderings she\nhas watched so narrowly, how can she see them straitened to go down\ninto the dark valley? The head that she has pressed to her lips and her\nbosom, that she has watched in burning sickness and in peaceful slumber,\na hair of which she could not see harmed, O! how can she consign it\nto the chamber of the grave? The form that not for one night has been\nbeyond her vision or her knowledge, how can she put it away for the long\nnight of the sepulchre, to see it no more? Man has cares and toils that\ndraw away his thoughts and employ them; she sits in loneliness, and all\nthese memories, all these suggestions, crowd upon her. How can she bear\nall this? She could not, were it not that her faith is as her affection;\nand if the one is more deep and tender than in man, the other is more\nsimple and spontaneous, and takes confidently hold of the hand of God.\n\nThus, then, do children awaken within us deep and mighty affections; and\nis it not their mission to do so? Do we not see many beautiful offices\ncreated and discharged by these affections--tender and far-reaching\nrelationships into which they run? Do we not see how they win the heart\nfrom frivolity and selfishness, and make it aware of duties, and quick\nwith sympathies? I shall not enter into detailed considerations of the\nresults of this affection thus awakened in us by children. A little\nreflection will render them obvious to you. Let me simply say, that in\nawakening these affections children discharge an important and beautiful\nmission.\n\nIV. I might speak of other offices discharged by little children; of the\ninfluence upon us of their purity and their innocence; their importance\nin the social state; of the benefits conferred upon us by the very\nduties which we exercise toward them. But merely suggesting these, I\nwill speak at this time of but one more mission which they perform\nfor us, and this, my friends, is performed through sadness and through\ntears. The little child performs it by its death. It has been with us a\nlittle while. We have enjoyed its bright and innocent companionship by\nthe dusty highway of life, in the midst of its toils, its cares, and its\nsin. It has been a gleam of sunshine and a voice of perpetual gladness\nin our homes. We have learned from it blessed lessons of simplicity,\nsincerity, purity, faith. It has unsealed within us this gushing,\nnever-ebbing tide of affection. Suddenly, it is taken away. We miss the\ngleam of sunshine. We miss the voice of gladness. Our homes are dark and\nsilent. We ask, \"Shall it not come again?\" And the answer breaks upon\nus through the cold gray silence, \"Nevermore!\" We say to ourselves again\nand again, \"Can it be possible?\" \"Do we not dream?\" \"Will not that life\nand affection return to us?\" \"Nevermore!\" O! nevermore! The heart is\nlike an empty mansion, and that word goes echoing through its desolate\nchambers. We are stricken and afflicted. But must this, should this, be\nalways and only so? Are we not looking merely at the earthly aspect of\nthe event? Has it not a spiritual phase for us? Nay, do we not begin to\nconsider how through our temporal affection an eternal good is wrought\nout for us? Do we begin to realize that in our souls we have derived\nprofit from it already? Do we not begin to learn that life is not a\nholiday or a workday only, but a discipline,--that God conducts that\ndiscipline in infinite wisdom and benevolence,--mingles the draught,\nand, when he sees fit, infuses bitterness? Not that constant sweet\nwould not please us better, but that our discipline, which is of more\nimportance than our indulgence, will be more effectual thereby. This is\noften talked about; I ask, do not we who are called upon to mourn the\nloss of children realize it,--actually realize that that loss is for\nour spiritual gain? If we do not, we are merely looking upon the earthly\nphase of our loss. If we do not realize this spiritual good, we may.\n\nYes, in death the little child has a mission for us. Through that very\ndeparture he accomplishes for us, perhaps, what he could not accomplish\nby his life. These affections which he has awakened, we have considered\nhow strong they are. They are stronger, are they not, than any\nattachment to mere things of this earth? But that child has gone from\nus,--gone into the unseen, the spiritual world. What then? Do our\naffections sink back into our hearts,--become absorbed and forgotten?\nO, no! They reach out after that little one; they follow him into the\nunseen and spiritual world,--thus is it made a great and vivid reality\nto us,--perhaps for the first time. We have talked of it, we have\nbelieved in it; but now that our dead have gone into it, we have, as\nit were, entered it ourselves. Its atmosphere is around us, chords of\naffection draw us toward it, the faces of our departed ones look out\nfrom it--and it is a reality. And is it not worth something to make it\nsuch a reality?\n\nWe are wedded to this world. It is beautiful, it is attractive, it is\nreal. Immortality is a pleasant thought. The spiritual land is an object\nof faith. But the separation between this and that is cold to think of,\nand hard to bear. It needs something stronger than this earth to draw us\ntoward that spiritual world; to break some of the thousand tendrils\nthat bind us here. My friends, though many powerful appeals, many solid\narguments, cannot break our affections from this earth, the hand of a\ndeparted child can do it. The voice that calls us to unseen realities,\nthat bids us prepare for the heavenly land, that says from heights of\nspiritual bliss and purity, \"Come up hither;\"--that voice that we loved\nso on earth, and gladly can we rise and follow it.\n\nBehold, then, what a little child can perform for us through its death!\nIt makes real and attractive to us that spiritual world to which it has\ngone, and calls our affections from earth to that true life which is the\ngreat end of our being, which is the object of all our discipline, our\nmingled joy and suffering, here upon this earth. That little child, gone\nfrom its sufferings of early,--gone\n\n     \"Gentle and undefiled, with blessings on its head,\"--\n\nhas it indeed become a very angel of God for us, and is it calling us\nto a more spiritual life, and does it win us to heaven? Is its memory\naround us like a pure presence into which no thought of sin can readily\nenter? Or is it with us, even yet, a spiritual companion of our ways?\nFrom being the guarded and the guided, has it risen in infant innocence,\nyet in the knowledge and majesty of the immortal life, to be the guard\nand the guide? Does it, indeed, make our hearts softer and purer,\nand cause us to think more of duty, and live more holy, thus clothing\nourselves to go and dwell with it? Does it, by its death, accomplish all\nthis? O! most important, most glorious mission of all, if we only heed\nit, if we only accept it. Then shall we behold already the wisdom and\nbenevolence of our Father breaking through the cloud that overshadows\nus. Already shall we see that the tie, which seemed to be dropped and\nbroken, God has taken up to draw us closer to himself, and that it\nis interwoven with his all-gracious plan for our spiritual profit and\nperfection. And we can anticipate how it will all be reconciled, when\nhis own hand shall wipe away our tears, and the bliss of reunion shall\nextract the last drop of bitterness from \"the cup that our Father had\ngiven us.\"\n\n\n\n\nOUR RELATIONS TO THE DEPARTED\n\n\n     \"She is not dead, but sleepeth.\"  Luke viii.52\n\nA Great peculiarity of the Christian religion is its transforming\nor transmuting power. I speak not now of the regeneration which\naccomplishes in the individual soul, but of the change it works upon\nthings without. It applies the touchstone to every fact of existence,\nand exposes its real value. Looking through the lens of spiritual\nobservation, it throws the realities of life into a reverse perspective\nfrom that which is seen by the sensual eye. Objects which the world\ncalls great it renders insignificant, and makes near and prominent\nthings which the frivolous put off. Thus the Christian, among other men,\noften appears anomalous. Often, amidst the congratulations of the world,\nhe detects reason for mourning, and is penetrated with sorrow. On the\ncontrary, where others shrink, he walks undaunted, and converts the\nscene of dread and suffering into an ante-chamber of heaven. In this\nlight, the Apostle Paul speaks of himself and others, \"As sorrowful, yet\nalways rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and\nyet possessing all things.\" Indeed, all the beatitudes are based upon\nthis peculiarity; for the true blessing, the inward, everlasting riches,\nare for those who, in the world's eye, are poor, and mourning, and\npersecuted. Jesus himself weeps amid triumphant psalms and sounding\nhosannas, while on the cross he utters the prayer of forgiveness, and\nthe ejaculation of peace.\n\nNo wonder, then, that the believer views the ghastliest fact of all in\na consoling and even a beautiful aspect; and death itself becomes but\nsleep. Well was that trait of our religion which I have now suggested\nillustrated at the bed-side of Jairus' daughter. Well did that noisy,\nlamenting group represent the worldly who read only the material fact,\nor that flippant skepticism which laughs all supernatural truth to\nscorn. And well did Jesus represent the spirit of his doctrine, and its\ntransforming power, when he exclaimed, \"She is not dead, but sleepeth.\"\n\nYes! beautifully has Christianity transformed death. To the eye of flesh\nit was the final direction of our fate,--the consummate riddle in this\nmystery of being,--the wreck of all our hopes,--\n\n     \"The simple senses crowned his head,\n         Omega! thou art Lord, they said;\n         We find no motion in the dead.\"\n\nEver, though with higher desires and better gleamings, the mind has\nstruggled and sunk before this fact of decay, and this awful silence of\nnature; while in the waning light of the soul, and among the ashes of\nthe sepulchre, skepticism has built its dreary negation. And though the\nmother could lay down her child without taking hints which God gave her\nfrom every little flower that sprung on that grassy bed,--though the\nunexhausted intellect has reasoned that we ought to live again, and\nthe affections, more oracular, swelling with the nature of their great\nsource, have prophesied that we shall,--never, until the revelation\nof Christ descended into our souls, and illuminated all our spiritual\nvision, have we been able to say certainly of death, it is a sleep.\nThis has made its outward semblance not that of cessation, but of\nprogression--not an end, but a change--converting its rocky couch to a\nbirth-chamber, over-casting its shadows with beams of eternal morning,\nwhile behind its cold unconsciousness the unseen spirit broods into\nhigher life. \"He fell asleep,\" says the sacred chronicler, speaking\nof bloody Stephen. \"Our friend Lazarus sleepeth,\" said Christ to his\ndisciples; and yet again, as here in the text, the beautiful synonyme is\nrepeated, \"She is not dead, but sleepeth.\"\n\nBut I proceed to remark, if the Christian religion thus transforms\ndeath, or, in other words, abolishes the idea of its being annihilation,\nor an end, then it gives us a new view of our relations to the departed.\nWhat are these relations? The answers to this question will form the\nburden of the present discourse.\n\nI. There is the relation of memory. It is true, we may argue that\nthis relation exists whether the Christian view of death be correct or\nnot;--so long have those who are now gone actually lived with us,--so\nvivid are their images among the realities of the soul,--though the\ngrave should forever shut them from our communion. But this relation\nof memory has peculiar propriety and efficacy when associated with a\nChristian faith. If the dead live no more, what would memory be to us\nbut a spectre and a sting? Should we not then seek to repress those\ntender recollections,--to close our eyes to those pale, sad visions of\ndeparted love? Should we not invoke the glare and tumult of the world\nto distract or absorb our thoughts? Would we not say, \"Let it come, the\npleasure, the occupation of the hour, that we may think no more of the\ndead, plucked from us forever,--let us drive thoughtlessly down this\nswift current of life, since thought only harrows us,--let us drive\nthoughtlessly down, enjoying all we can, until we too lie by the side\nof those departed ones, like them to moulder in everlasting\nunconsciousness.\" I don not say that this would always be the case\nwithout religious hope, but it is a very natural condition of the\nfeelings in such circumstances,--it is the most humane alternative that\nwould then be left. At least, no one so well as the Christian can go\ninto the inner chambers of memory, feel the strength of its sad yet\nblissful associations, and calmly invoke the communion of the dead.\n\nI speak not now of what occurs in those first bitter days of grief, when\nthe heart's wound bleeds afresh at every touch,--when we are continually\nsurprised by the bleak fact that the loved one is actually dead. But I\nspeak of those after seasons, those Indian summers of the soul, in which\nall the present desolation is blended with the bloom and enjoyment of\nthe past. Then do we find that the tie which binds us so tenderly to the\ndeparted is a strong and fruitful one. We love, in those still retired\nseasons, to call up the images of the dead, to let them hover around us,\nas real, for the hour, as any living forms. We linger in that communion,\nwith a pleasing melancholy. We call up all that was lovely in their\ncharacter, all that was delightful in their earthly intercourse. They\nlive again for us, and we for them.\n\nIn this relation of memory, moreover, we realize the fact, that while\nthe departed were upon earth we enjoyed much with them. This is a truth\nwhich in any estimate of our loss we should not overlook. Do we mourn\nthat the dead have been taken from us so soon? Are we not also thankful\nthat they were ours so long? In our grief over unfulfilled expectation,\ndo we cherish no gratitude for actual good? So much bliss has God\nmingled in our cup of existence that the might have withheld. He lent it\nto us thus far; why complain, rather, that he did not intrust us with it\nlonger? O! these fond recollections, this concentrated happiness of past\nhours which we call up with tears, remind us that so much good we have\nactually experienced.\n\nIn close connection with this thought is the fact, that, by some\ndelicate process of refinement, we remember of the dead only what was\ngood. In the relation of memory we see them in their best manifestation,\nwe live over the hours of our past intercourse. Though in extraordinary\ninstances it may be true that \"the evil which men do lives after them,\"\nyet even in regard to the illustrious dead, their imperfections are\noverlooked, and more justice is done to their virtues than in their own\ntime. Much more is this the case with those around whom our affections\ncling more closely. The communion of memory, far more than that of life,\nis unalloyed by sharp interruptions, or by any stain. That communion\nnow, though saddened, is tender, and without reproach.\n\nAnd even if we remember that while they lived our relations with them\nwere all beautiful, shall we not believe that when they were taken away\ntheir earthly mission for us was fulfilled? Was not their departure as\nessential a work of the divine beneficence as their bestowal? Who knows\nbut if they had overstayed the appointed hour, our relations with them\nmight have changed?--some new element of discontent and unhappiness\nbeen introduced, which would have entirely altered the character of\nour recollections? At least, to repeat what I have just suggested,\nwhat Christian doubts that their taking away--this change from living\ncommunion to the communion of memory--was for an end as wise and kind as\nwere all the love and intercourse so long vouchsafed to us?\n\nVital, the, for the Christian, is this relation which we have with the\ndead by memory. We linger upon it, and find in it a strange and\nsweet attraction, and is not much of this because, though we may be\nunconscious of it, the current of faith subtilely intermingles with\nour grief, and gives its tone to our communion? We cannot consider the\ndeparted as lost to us forever. The suggestion of rupture holds a latent\nsuggestion of reunion. The hues of memory are colored by the reflection\nof hope. Religion transforms the condition of the departed for us, and\nwe consider them not as dead, but sleeping.\n\nII. There is another relation which we have with the dead,--the relation\nof spiritual existence. We live with them, not only by communion with\nthe past, by images of memory, but by that fine, mysterious bond which\nlinks us to all souls, and in which we live with them now and forever.\nThe faith that has converted death into a sleep has also transformed the\nwhole idea of life. If the one is but a halt in the eternal march,--a\nslumbrous rest preceeding a new morning,--the other is but the flow\nof one continuous stream, mated awhile with the flesh, but far more\nintimately connected with all intelligences in the universe of God. What\nare the conditions of our communion with the living--those with whom we\ncome in material contact? The eye, the lip, the hand, are but symbols,\ninterpretations;--behind these it is only spirit that communes with\nspirit, even in the market or the street. But not to enter into so\nsubtle a discussion, of what kind are some of the best communions which\nwe have on earth? We take up some wise and virtuous book, and enter into\nthe author's mind. Seas separate us from him,--he knows us not; he never\nhears our names. But have we not a close relation to him? Is there not\na strong bond of spiritual communion between us? Nay, may not the\nintercourse we thus have with him be better and truer than any which we\ncould have from actual contact,--from local acquaintance? Then, some icy\nbarrier of etiquette might separate us,--some coldness of temperament\nupon his part,--some spleen or disease; we might be shocked by some\ntemporary deformity; some little imperfection might betray itself. But\nhere, in his book, which we read three thousand miles away from him, we\nreceive his noblest thoughts,--his best spiritual revelations; and we\nknow him, and commune with him most intimately, not through local but\nthrough spiritual affinities.\n\nAnd how pleasing is the though that not even death interrupts this\nrelation. Years, as well as miles--ages may separate us from the great\nand good man; but we hold with him still that living communion of the\nspirit. Our best life may flow to us from this communion. Some of our\nrichest spiritual treasures have been deposited in this intercourse of\nthought. Some of our noblest hopes and resolutions have been animated by\nthose whose lips have long since been sealed,--whose very monuments have\ncrumbled.\n\nA dear friend goes away from us to a foreign land. We watch the\nreceeding sail, and feel that that is a bond between us, until it fades\naway in the far blue horizon. Then it is a consolation to walk by the\nshore of that sea, and to realize that the same waters lave the other\nshore, where he dwells,--to watch some star, and know that at such an\nhour his eye and thought are also directed to it. Thus the soul will not\nentertain the idea of absolute separation, but makes all those material\nobjects agents for its affinities. But how much nearer does that absent\none come to us, when we know that at such an hour we both are kneeling\nin prayer, and that our spirits meet, as it were, around the footstool\nof God!\n\nThus we see that even in life there are spiritual relations which bind\nus to our fellows, and that often these are dearer and stronger than\nthose of local contact. Why should we suppose that death cuts off all\nsuch affinities? It does not cut them off. It only removes the loved\nfrom our converse and our sight; but if, when absent in some distant\nland of this earth, we are conscious of still holding relations to them,\ndo we not retain the same though they have vanished into that mysterious\nand unseen land which lies beyond the grave? \"She is not dead, but\nsleepeth.\" Christianity has taught us to look away from the ghastly\nsecrets of the sepulchre, and not consider that changing clay as the\nfriend we mourn, but as only the cast-off and mouldering garment. It has\nkindled within us a lively appreciation of the continued existence of\nthose who have gone from us; taught us to feel that the thoughts, the\nlove, the real life of the departed, all, in fact, that communed with\nus here below, still lives and acts. And our relations to them are\nrelations which we bear, not to abstractions of memory, to phantoms\nof by-gone joy, but to spiritual intelligences, whose current of being\nflows on uninterrupted, with whose current of being our own mingles.\nI know not how it is with others, but to me there is inexpressible\nconsolation in this thought.\n\nBut I would suggest that, as spiritual beings, we bear even a closer\nrelation to the departed. I said that Christianity has transformed the\nwhole idea of life. It has shown that we are essentially spirits, and\nthat our highest relations are spiritual. If so, it seems an arrogant\nassumption to deny that any intercourse may exist between ourselves\nand the spiritual world. Possessing as we do this mysterious nature,\nthrobbing with the attraction of the eternal sphere, who shall say that\nit touches no spiritual confines,--that it has communion only with\nthe beings that we see? It is a dull atheism which repudiates all such\nintimations as superstitious or absurd. To speak more distinctly, I\nallude to the consoling thought which springs up almost intuitively,\nthat the departed may, at times, see us, and be present with us, though\nwe do not recognize them. For wise and good reasons, our senses may so\nconstrain us that we cannot perceive these spiritual beings. But the\nsame reasons do not exist to shut them from beholding and visiting us.\nThe most essential idea of the immortal state is that it yields certain\nprerogatives which we cannot possess in our mortal condition. May it\nnot be, therefore, that while it is our lot to be restricted to sensuous\nvision, and to behold only material forms, it is their privilege, having\nreceived the spiritual sight, to see both spiritual and material things?\n\nNor need we imagine that immortality implies distance from us,--that\nchange of state requires any great change of place. Looking through\nthis earthly glass, we see but darkly; but when death shatters it we\nmay behold close around us the friends we have loved, and find their\nspiritual peculiarity is not incompatible with such near residence.\nThe homes of departed spirits may be all around us,--these spirits\nthemselves may be ever hovering near, unseen in our blindness of the\nsenses. At all events, we deem it one of the grand distinctions of\nspirit that it is not confined to one region of space, but may pass,\nquick as its own intelligence, from sphere to sphere. And while I would\nrebuke rash speculation, I would also rebuke the cold materialism which\nunhesitatingly rejects an idea like this which I have now suggested.\n\nI maintain, moreover, that such speculation is not all idle. It serves\nto quicken within us the thought of how near the dead may be to us, to\npurify that thought, and to breathe upon our fevered hearts a consoling\nhope. And when I combine its intrinsic reasonableness with the spirit\nand spiritualism of Christianity, and that intuitive suggestion which\nsprings up in so many souls, I can urge but faint objection to those\nwho entertain it, and would, if possible, share and diffuse the comfort\nwhich it gives. Nearer, than, than we imagine--close as in mortal\ncontact, and more intimately--may be those whom we, with earthly vision\nbehold no more; visiting us in hours of loneliness, and affording unseen\ncompanionship; watching us in the stillness of slumber, and reflecting\nthemselves in our dreams.\n\nBut, whether we indulge this notion or not, let us realize the relation\nwhich we have with the departed by the ties of mutual spirituality. Let\nus not coldly restrict or weaken this relation. If the material world is\nfull of inexplicable things,--if we cannot explain the secret affinities\nof the star and the flower,--let us feel how full of mystery and how\nfull of promise is this spiritual universe of which we are parts, and\nwhose conditions we so little know. Let us cherish that transcendent\nfaith, that quick, spiritual sympathy, which says of the departed, \"They\nare not dead, but sleeping.\"\n\nIII. Finally, we have with the dead the relation of discipline. Though\nwe should see them only in the abstractions of memory,--though it should\nbe true that they have no spiritual intercourse with us,--yet their\nagency in our behalf has not ceased. They still accomplish a work for\nus. That work is in the moral efficacy of bereavement and sorrow. In\ntheir going away they lead our thoughts out beyond the limits of the\nworld. They quicken us to an interest in the spiritual land, as one who\nlooks upon a map, and listlessly reads the name of some foreign shore,\nso, often, do we open this blessed revelation not heeding its recital of\nthe immortal state. But as, when some friend goes to that distant coast,\nthat spot on the map becomes, of all places, most vivid and prominent,\nso when our loved ones die, the spiritual country largely occupies our\nthoughts and attracts our affections. They depart that we may be weaned\nfrom earth. They ascend that we may \"look steadfastly towards heaven.\"\nIf this is not our everlasting home, why should they all remain here\nto cheat us with that thought? If we must seek a better country, should\nthere not be premonitions for us, breaking up, and farewells, and the\nhurried departure of friends who are ready before us? I need not dwell\non this suggestion. We are too much of the earth, earthy, and bound\nup in sensual interests. It is often needful that some shock of\ndisappointment should shake our idea of terrestrial stability--should\nawake us to a sense of our spiritual relations--should strike open some\nchasm in this dead, material wall, and let in the light of the unlimited\nand immortal state to which we go. We need the discipline of bereavement\nin temporal things, to win us to things eternal. And so, in their\ndeparture, the loved accomplish for us a blessed and spiritual result,\nand instead of being wholly lost to us, become bound to us by a new and\nvital relation.\n\nBut these loved ones depart, no merely to bind our affections to another\nstate, but to fit us better for the obligations of this. Perhaps, in the\nindulgence of full communion, in the liquid ease of prosperity, we have\nscantily discharged our social duties. We have not appreciated love,\nbecause we have never felt its absence. We have shocked the tenderest\nties, because we were ignorant of their tenderness. We have withheld\ngood offices, because we knew not how rare is the opportunity to fulfil\nthem. But when one whom we love passes away, then, realizing a great\nloss, we learn how vital was that relation, how inestimable the\nprivilege which is withdrawn forever. How quick then is our regret\nfor every harsh word which we have spoken to the departed, or for any\nmomentary alienation which we have indulged! This, however, should not\nreduce us to a morbid sensitiveness, or an unavailing sorrow, seeing\nthat it is blended with so many pleasant memories; but it should teach\nus our duty to the living. It should make our affections more diligent\nand dutiful. It should check our hasty words, and assuage our passions.\nIt should cause us, day and night, to meet in kindness and part in\npeace. Our social ties are golden links of uncertain tenure, and, one by\none, they drop away. Let us cherish a more constant love for those who\nmake up our family circle, for \"not long may we stay.\" The allotments of\nduty, perhaps, will soon distribute us into different spheres of action;\nour lines, which now fall together in a pleasant place, will be wide\napart as the zones, or death will cast his shadow upon these familiar\nfaces, and interrupt our long communion. Let us, indeed, preserve this\ntemper with all men--those who meet us in the street, in the mart, in\nthe most casual or selfish concerns of life. We cannot remain together a\ngreat while, at the longest. Let us meet, then, with kindness, that when\nwe part no pang may remain. Let not a single day bear witness to the\nneglect or violation of any duty which shall lie hard in the heart when\nit is excited to tender and solemn recollections. Let only good-will\nbeam from faces that so soon shall be changed. Let no root of bitterness\nspring up in one man's bosom against another, when, ere long, nature\nwill plant flowers upon their common grave. \"Let not the sun go down\nupon our wrath,\" when his morning beams may search our accustomed places\nfor one or both of us, in vain.\n\nThus, if the dead teach us to regard more dutifully the living, they\nwill accomplish for us a most beautiful discipline. Their departure may\nalso serve another end. It may teach us the great lessons of patience\nand resignation. We have been surrounded by many blessings, and yet\nperhaps, have indulged in fretfulness. A slight loss has irritated us.\nWe have chafed at ordinary disappointments, at little interruptions in\nthe current of our prosperity. We have been in the habit of murmuring.\nAnd now this great grief has overtaken us, that we may see at what\nlittle things we have complained,--that we may learn that there is a\nmeaning in trouble which should make us calm,--that we had no right to\nthese gifts, the privation of which has offended us, but that all\nhave flowed from that mercy which we have slightly acknowledged, and\npeevishly accused. This great sorrow has stricken us, piercing through\nbone and marrow, in order to reach our hearts, and touch the springs of\nspiritual life within us, that henceforth, we may look upon all sorrow\nin a new light. Little troubles have only disturbed the surface of our\nnature, making it uneasy, and tossing it into fretful eddies; this heavy\ncalamity, like a mighty wind, has plunged into the very depths, and\nturned up the foundations, leaving us, at length, purified and serene. I\nbelieve we shall find it to be the general testimony that those who have\nthe least trouble are the loudest complainers; while, often, the souls\nthat have been fairly swept and winnowed by sorrow are the most patient\nand Christ-like. The pressure of their woe has broken down all ordinary\nreliances, and driven them directly to God, where they rest in sweet\nsubmission and in calm assurance. Such is the discipline which may be\nwrought out for us by the departure of those we love. Such, and other\nspiritual results, their vanishing may secure for us, which we never\ncould have gained by their presence; and so it may be said by some\ndeparting friend,--some one most dear to our hearts,--in a reverent\nsense, as the Master said to his disciples, \"It is expedient for you\nthat I go away; for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto\nyou.\"\n\nAs I have already touched upon the region of speculation, I hardly dare\ndrop a hint which belongs here, though it grows out of a remark made\nunder the last head. But I will say that it is not unreasonable to\nsuppose that the departed may perform a more close and personal agency\nthan this which I have just dwelt upon. Often, it may be, they are\npermitted messengers for our welfare; guardians, whose invisible wings\nshield us; teachers, whose unfelt instructions mysteriously sway us.\nThe child may thus discharge an office of more than filial love for the\nbereaved parents. The mother may watch and minister to her child.\nThe father, by unseen influences, win to virtue the heart of his\npoor prodigal. But whether this be so or not, certain are we that the\ndeparted do discharge such an agency, if not by spiritual contact with\nus, or direct labor in our behalf, by the chastening influence that\ntheir memory sheds upon us, by uplifting our thoughts, by spiritualizing\nour affections, by drawing our souls to communion with things celestial\nand with God.\n\nLet us see to it, then, that we improve this discipline; that we quench\nnot the holy aspiration which springs up in our sorrow; that we neglect\nnot the opportunity when our hearts are softened; that we continue the\nprayer which first escaped our lips as a sigh and a call of distress;\nthat the baptism of tears lets us into the new life of reconciliation,\nand love, and holiness. Otherwise, the discipline is of no avail, and,\nit may be, we harden under it.\n\nAnd, finally, let me say, that the faith by which we regard our\nrelations to the departed in the light that has been exhibited in this\ndiscourse, is a faith that must be assimilated with our entire spiritual\nnature. It must be illustrated in our daily conduct, and sanctify every\nthought and motive of our hearts. We should not seek religion merely for\nits consolations, and take it up as an occasional remedy. In this way\nreligion is injured. It is associated only with sorrow, and clothed, to\nthe eyes of men, in perpetual sadness. It is sought as the last resort,\nthe heart's extreme unction, when it has tried the world's nostrums\nin vain. It is dissociated from things healthy and active,--from all\nordinary experiences,--from the great whole of life. It is consigned to\nthe darkened chamber of mourning, and the weary and disappointed spirit.\nBesides, to seek religion only in sorrow,--to fly to it as the last\nrefuge,--argues an extreme selfishness. We have served the world and our\nown wills, we have lived the life of the senses, and obeyed the dictates\nof our passions so long as they could satisfy us, and now we turn to God\nbecause we find that he only can avail us! We seek religion for the good\nit can do us, not for the service we can render God. We lay hold of it\nselfishly, as something instituted merely for our help, and lavish our\ndemands upon it for consolation, turning away sullen and skeptical,\nit may be, if these demands are not immediately answered. Many come\nto religion for consolation who never apply to it for instruction,\nfor sanctification, for obedience. Let us learn that we can claim its\nprivileges only by performing its duties. We can see with the eye of its\nclear, consoling faith, only when it has spiritualized our entire being,\nand been developed in our daily conduct. Affliction may open religious\nideas in the soul, but only by the soul's discipline will those ideas\nexpand until they become our most intimate life, and we habitually enjoy\ncelestial companionship, and that supersensual vision of faith by which\nwe learn our relations to the departed.\n\nThat faith let us receive and cherish. If we live it we shall believe\nit. No sophistry can steal it from us, no calamity make us surrender it.\nBut the keener the trial the closer will be our confidence. Standing\nby the open sepulchre in which we see our friends, \"not dead, but\nsleeping,\" we shall say to insidious skepticism and gloomy doubt, in the\nearnest words of the poet,\n\n     \"O! steal not thou my faith away,\n         Nor tempt to doubt a lowly mind.\n     Make all that earth can yield thy prey,\n         But leave this heavenly gift behind.\n     Our hope is but the seaboy's dream,\n         When loud winds rise in wrath and gloom;\n     Our life, a faint and fitful beam,\n         That lights us to the cold, dark tomb;\n\n     Yet, since, as one from heaven has said,\n         There lies beyond that dreary bourn\n     A region where the faithful dead\n         Eternally forget to mourn,\n     Welcome the scoff, the sword, the chain,\n         The burning waste, the black abyss:--\n     I shrink not from the path of pain,\n         Which leads me to that world of bliss.\n\n     Then hush, thou troubled heart! be still;--\n         Renounce thy vain philosophy;--\n     Seek thou to work thy Maker's will,\n         And light from heaven shall break on thee.\n     'Twill glad thee in the weary strife,\n         Where strong men sink with falling breath;--\n     'Twill cheer thee in the noon of life,\n         And bless thee in the night of death.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE VOICES OF THE DEAD\n\n\n     \"And by it he being dead yet speaketh.\"  Hebrews xi. 4.\n\n\nMuch of the communion of this earth is not by speech or actual contact,\nand the holiest influences fall upon us in silence. A monument or symbol\nshall convey a meaning which cannot be expressed; and a token of some\ndeparted one is more eloquent than words. The mere presence of a good\nand holy personage will move us to reverence and admiration, though he\nmay say and do but little. So is there an impersonal presence of such an\none; and, though far away, he converses with us, teaches and incites us.\nThe organs of speech are only one method of the soul's expression; and\nthe best information which it receives comes without voice or sound. We\nhear no vocal utterance from God, yet he speaks to us through all the\nforms of nature. In the blue, ever-arching heaven he tells us of his\ncomprehensive care and tender pity, and \"the unwearied sun\" proclaims\nhis constant and universal benevolence. The air that wraps us close\nbreathes of his intimate and all-pervading spirit; and the illimitable\nspace, and the stars that sparkle abroad without number, show forth his\nmajesty and suggest infinitude. The gush of silent prayer--the sublimest\nmood of the spirit--is when we are so near to him that words cannot come\nbetween; and the power of his presence is felt the most, felt in the\nprofoundest deep of our nature, when the curtains of his pavilion\nhang motionless around us. And it is so, I repeat, with all our best\ncommunions. The holiest lessons are not in the word, but the life. The\nvirtues that attract us most are silent. The most beautiful charities\ngo noiseless on their mission. The two mites reveal the spiritual\nwealth beneath the poor widow's weeds; the alabaster box of ointment is\nfragrant with Mary's gratitude; the look of Christ rebukes Peter into\npenitence; and by his faith Abel, being dead, yet speaketh.\n\nYes, even the dead, long gone from us, returning no more, their places\nleft vacant, their lineaments dimly remembered, their bodies mouldering\nback to dust, even these have communion with us; and to speak of \"the\nvoices of the dead\" is no mere fancy. And it is to that subject that I\nwould call your attention, in the remainder of a brief discourse.\n\n\"He being dead yet speaketh.\" The departed have voices for us. In order\nto illustrate this, I remark, in the first place, that the dead speak to\nus, and commune with us, through the works which they have left behind\nthem. As the islands of the sea are the built-up casements of myriads\nof departed lives,--as the earth itself is a great catacomb,--so we who\nlive and move upon its surface inherit the productions and enjoy the\nfruits of the dead. They have bequeathed to us by far the larger portion\nof all that influences our thoughts, or mingles with the circumstances\nof our daily life. We walk through the streets they laid out. We inhabit\nthe houses they built. We practise the customs they established. We\ngather wisdom from books they wrote. We pluck the ripe clusters of their\nexperience. We boast in their achievements. And by these they speak to\nus. Every device and influence they have left behind tells their story,\nand is a voice of the dead. We feel this more impressively when we enter\nthe customary place of one recently departed, and look around upon his\nwork. The half-finished labor, the utensils hastily thrown aside,\nthe material that exercised his care and received his last touch, all\nexpress him, and seem alive with his presence. By them, though dead, he\nspeaketh to us, with a freshness and tone like his words of yesterday.\nHow touching are those sketched forms, those unfilled outlines in\nthat picture which employed so fully the time and genius of the\ngreat artist--Belshazzar's feast! In the incomplete process, the\ntransition-state of an idea from its conception to its realization, we\nare brought closer to the mind of the artist; we detect its springs\nand hidden workings, and therefore feel its reality more than in\nthe finished effort. And this is one reason why we are impressed at\nbeholding the work just left than in gazing upon one that has been for\na long time abandoned. Having had actual communion with the contriving\nmind, we recognize its presence more readily in its production; or else\nthe recency of the departure heightens the expressiveness with which\neverything speaks of the departed. The dead child's cast-off garment,\nthe toy just tossed aside, startles us as though with his renewed\npresence. A year hence, they will suggest him to us, but with a\ndifferent effect.\n\nBut though not with such an impressive tone, yet just as much, in fact,\ndo the productions of those long gone speak to us. Their minds are\nexpressed there, and a living voice can do little more. Nay, we are\nadmitted to a more intimate knowledge of them than was possessed by\ntheir contemporaries. The work they leave behind them is the sum-total\nof their lives--expresses their ruling passion--reveals, perhaps, their\nreal sentiment. To the eyes of those placed on the stage with them, they\nwalked as in a show, and each life was a narrative gradually unfolding\nitself. We discover the moral. We see the results of that completed\nhistory. We judge the quality and value of that life by the residuum. As\n\"a prophet has no honor in his own country,\" so one may be misconceived\nin his own time, both to his undue disparagement, and his undue\nexaltation; therefore can another age better write his biography than\nhis own. His work, his permanent result, speaks for him better--at least\ntruer--than he spoke for himself. The rich man's wealth,--the sumptuous\nproperty, the golden pile that he has left behind him;--by it, being\ndead, does he not yet speak to us? Have we not, in that gorgeous result\nof toiling days and anxious nights,--of brain-sweat and soul-rack,--the\nman himself, the cardinal purpose, the very life of his soul? which we\nmight have surmised while he lived and wrought, but which, now that it\nremains the whole sum and substance of his mortal being, speaks far\nmore emphatically than could any other voice he might have used. The\nexpressive lineaments of the marble, the pictured canvas, the immortal\npoem;--by it, Genius, being dead, yet speaketh. To us, and not to its\nown time, are unhoarded the wealth of its thought and the glory of its\ninspiration. When it is gone,--when its lips are silent, and its heart\nstill,--then is revealed the cherished secret over which it toiled,\nwhich was elaborated from the living alembic of the soul, through\npainful days and weary nights,--the sentiment which could not find\nexpression to contemporaries,--the gift, the greatness, the lyric power,\nwhich was disguised and unknown so long. Who, that has communed with\nthe work of such a spirit, has not felt in every line that thrilled his\nsoul, in every wondrous lineament that stamped itself upon his memory\nforever, that the dead can speak, yes, that they have voices which\nspeak most truly, most emphatically when they are dead? So does Industry\nspeak, in its noble monuments, its precious fruits! So does Maternal\nAffection speak, in a chord that vibrates in the hardest heart, in the\npure and better sentiment of after-years. So does Patriotism speak, in\nthe soil liberated and enriched by its sufferings. So does the martyr\nspeak, in the truth which triumphs by his sacrifice. So does the great\nman speak, in his life and deeds, glowing on the storied page, so does\nthe good man speak, in the character and influence which he leaves\nbehind him. The voices of the dead come to us from their works, from\ntheir results and these are all around us.\n\nBut I remark, in the second place, that the dead speak to us in memory\nand association. If their voices may be constantly heard in their works,\nwe do not always heed them; neither have we that care and attachment for\nthe great congregation of the departed which will at any time call them\nup vividly before us. But in that congregation there are those whom we\nhave known intimately and fondly, whom we cherished with our best love,\nwho lay close to our bosoms. And these speak to us in a more private and\npeculiar manner,--in mementos that flash upon us the whole person of the\ndeparted, every physical and spiritual lineament--in consecrated hours\nof recollection that upon up all the train of the past, and re-twine its\nbroken ties around our hearts, and make its endearments present still.\nThen, then, though dead, they speak to us. It needs not the vocal\nutterance, nor the living presence, but the mood that transforms the\nscene and the hour supplies these. That face that has slept so long\nin the grave, now bending upon us, pale and silent, but affectionate\nstill,--that more vivid recollection of every feature, tone, and\nmovement, that brings before us the departed just as we knew them in the\nfull flush of life and health,--that soft and consecrating spell which\nfalls upon us, drawing in all our thoughts from the present, arresting,\nas it were, the current of our being, and turning it back and holding it\nstill as the flood of actual life rushes by us,--while in that trance\nof soul the beings of the past are shadowed--old friends, old days, old\nscenes recur, familiar looks beam close upon us, familiar words reecho\nin our ears, and we are closed up and absorbed with the by-gone, until\ntears dissolve the film from our eyes, and some shock of the actual\nwakes us from our reverie;--all these, I say make the dead to commune\nwith us as really as though in bodily form they should come out from\nthe chambers of their mysterious silence, and speak to us. And if life\nconsists in experiences, and not mere physical relations,--and if love\nand communion belong to that experience, though they take place in\nmeditation, or in dreams, or by actual contact,--then, in that hour of\nremembrance, have we really lived with the departed, and the departed\nhave come back and lived with us. Though dead, they have spoken to us.\nAnd though memory sometimes induces the spirit of heaviness,--though it\nis often the agent of conscience, and wakens u to chastise,--yet, it is\nwonderful how, from events that were deeply mingled with pain, it\nwill extract an element of sweetness. A writer, in relating one of\nthe experiences of her sick-room, has illustrated this. In an hour of\nsuffering, when no one was near here, she went out from her bed and her\nroom to another apartment, and looked out upon a glorious landscape of\nsunrise and spring-time. \"I was suffering too much to enjoy this picture\nat the moment,\" she says, \"but how was it at the end of the year? The\npains of all those hours were annihilated,--as completely vanished as if\nthey had never been; while the momentary peep behind the window-curtain\nmade me possessor of this radiant picture for evermore.\" \"Whence came\nthis wide difference,\" she asks, \"between the good and the evil? Because\ngood is indissolubly connected with ideas,--with the unseen realities\nwhich are indestructible.\" And though the illustration which she thus\ngives may bear the impression of an individual personality, instead of\na universal truth, still, in the instance to which I apply it, I believe\nit will very generally hold true, that memory leaves a pleasant rather\nthan a painful impression. At least, there is so much that is pleasant\nmingled with it that we would not willingly lose the faculty of\nmemory,--the consciousness that we can thus call back the dead, and hear\ntheir voices,--that we have the power of softening the rugged realities\nwhich only suggest our loss and disappointment, by transferring the\nscene and the hour to the past and the departed. And, as our conceptions\nbecome more and more spiritual, we shall find the real to be less\ndependent upon the outward and the visible,--we shall learn how much\nlife there is in a thought,--how veritable are the communions of spirit;\nand the hour in which memory gives us the vision of the dead will be\nprized by us as an hour of actual experience and such opportunities will\ngrow more precious to us. No, we would not willingly lose this power\nof memory. One would not say, \"Let the dead never come back to me in a\nthought, or a dream; let them never glide before me in the still\nwatch of meditation; let me see, let me hear them no more, even in\nfancy;\"--not one of us would say this; and, therefore, it is\nevident, that whatever painful circumstance memory or association may\nrecall,--even though it cause us to go out and weep bitterly,--there\nis a sacred pleasure, a tender melancholy, that speaks to us in these\nvoices of the dead, which we are willing to cherish and repeat. It makes\nour tears soft and sanctifying as they fall; it makes our hearts purer\nand better,--makes them stronger for the conflict of life.\n\nI remark, finally, that the dead speak to us in those religious\nsuggestions--those consolations, invitations, and hopes--which the\nbereaved spirit indulges. Our meditations, concerning them naturally\ndraw us more closely to these spiritual realities which lie beyond the\ngrave, and beget in us those holier sentiments which we need. That such\nis the tendency of these recollections experience assures us. They\nopen for us a new order of thought; they bring us in contact with the\nloftiest but most neglected truths. Even the hardest heart feels this\ninfluence. It is softened by the stroke of bereavement and, for the time\nbeing, a chastening influence falls upon it, and it always thinks of\nthe dead with tenderness and awe. They speak to our affections with an\nirresistible influence; they soothe our turbulent passions with their\nmild and holy calmness; they rebuke us in their spiritual majesty for\nour sensuality and our sin. They have departed, but they are not silent.\nThough dead, they speak to us. Sweet and sanctifying is their communion\nwith us. They utter words of warning, too, and speak to us by the silent\neloquence of example. By this they bid us imitate all that was good in\ntheir lives, all that is dear to remember. By this, too, they tell us\nthat we are passing swiftly from the earth, and hastening to join their\nnumber. A little while ago, and they were as we are;--a little while\nhence, and we shall be as they. Our work, like theirs, will be left\nbehind to speak for us. How important, then, that we consider what work\nwe do! They assure us that nothing is perpetual here. They bid us not\nfasten our affections upon earth. In long procession they pass us by,\nwith solemn voices telling of their love and hatred, their interests\nand cares, their work and device;--all abandoned now and passed away, as\nlittle worth as the dust that blows across their graves. Upon all that\nwas theirs, upon every memorial of them, broods a melancholy dimness and\nsilence. They recede more and more from the associations of the living.\nNew tides of life roll through the cities of their habitation, and upon\nthe foot-worn pavements of their traffic other feet are busy. Their\nlovely labor, or their stately pomp, is forgotten. No one weeps or cares\nfor them. Their solicitous monuments are unheeded. The companions of\ntheir youth have rejoined them. The young, who scarcely remembered them,\nare giving way to another generation. The places that knew them know\nthem no longer. \"This, this,\" their solemn voices preach to us, \"is the\nchangeableness of earth, and the emptiness of its pursuits!\" They urge\nus to seek the noblest end, the unfailing treasure. They bid us to find\nour hope and our rest, our only constant joy in Him, who alone, amid\nthis mutability and decay, is permanent,--in God!\n\nWell, then, is it for us to listen to the voices of the dead. By so\ndoing, we are better fitted for life, and for death. From that audience\nwe go purified and strengthened into the varied discipline of our mortal\nstate. We are willing to stay, knowing that the dead are so near us, and\nthat our communion with them may be so intimate. We are willing to go,\nseeing that we shall not be widely separated from those we leave behind.\nWe will toil in our lot while God pleases, and when he summons us we\nwill calmly depart. When the silver cord becomes untwined, and the\ngolden bond broken,--when the wheel of action stands still in the\nexhausted cistern of our life,--may we lie down in the light of that\nfaith which makes so beautiful the face of the dying Christian, and has\nconverted death's ghastly silence to a peaceful sleep; may we rise to a\nholier and more visible communion, in the land without a sin and without\na tear; where the dead shall be closer to us than in this life; where\nnot the partition of a shadow, or a doubt, shall come between.\n\n\n\n\nMYSTERY AND FAITH\n\n\n     \"For we walk by faith, not by sight.\"  II Corinthians v. 7.\n\nIt needs only common experience, and but little of that, to convince us\nthat this life is full of mystery, and at every step we take demands of\nus faith. For at every step we take we literally walk by faith; in every\nwork we do we must have confidence in something which is not by sight,\nin something which is not yet demonstrated. Skepticism carried to its\nultimate consequences is the negation of everything. It closes up the\nissues of all knowledge, and sunders every ligament that binds us\nto practical life. We must have faith in something or we stand on\nno promises; we can predicate nothing. It may be said that in the\nexperience of the past we have a guide for the future; but then, must we\nnot have faith in experience? Do we not trust something which is not\nyet demonstrated when we say \"This cause which produced that effect\nyesterday will produce a similar effect today or tomorrow?\" How do we\nknow--positively know, that it will produce that effect, and what are\nthe grounds of our knowledge? This boasted \"cause and effect,\" this\n\"experience,\" what right have we to rely upon it for one moment of\nthe future? Not for that moment has it demonstrated anything;--it\ndemonstrated for the time being, and the time being only; and our\nconfidence that it will do so again is faith, not sight--faith in\ncause and effect, faith in experience, but faith after all. Hume, the\nphilosopher, has illustrated the positions which have now been taken.\n\"As to past experience,\" says he, \"it can be allowed to give direct\nand certain information of those precise objects only, and that precise\nperiod of time which fell under its cognizance; but why this experience\nshould be extended to future times, and to other objects, which for\naught we know may be only in appearance similar; this is the main\nquestion on which I would insist. The bread which I formerly ate\nnourished me; that is, a body of such sensible qualities was, at that\ntime, endued with such secret powers; but does it follow that other\nbread must also nourish me at another time, and that like sensible\nqualities must also be attended with like secret powers? The consequence\nseems nowise necessary.\" And yet we eat our bread, day by day, without a\ndoubt or a fear. We sow the grain and we reap the wheat, but for all the\nwork is done in faith, and the whole process is steeped in mystery.\nIn that scattering of the golden seed, what confidence is expressed\nin elements that we cannot see, in beneficent agencies that we cannot\ncontrol, in results that are beyond our power, and that in their growth\nand development are full of wonder exceeding our wisdom. Give up faith;\nsay that we will act only upon that which is demonstrated and known,\nsay that we will walk only so far as sight reaches, and we completely\nseparate the present from the future, and stop all the mechanism of\npractical life.\n\nBut if we take a wider view of things, and consider this material\nuniverse in which we live, the great fact of mystery and the need of\nfaith will be urged upon us by a larger and more impressive teaching.\nThe more we learn of nature the more clearly is revealed to us this\nfact--that we know less than we thought we did; positively, we know\nmore, but relatively we know less, because as we have advanced nature\nhas stretched out into wider and wider relations. The department that\nwas unknown to us yesterday is explored to-day. Yesterday, we thought\nit was all that remained to be explored, but the torch of investigation\nthat guided us through it now flares out upon new regions we did not\nsee before. Like one who goes with a candle into some immense cavern,\npresently a little circle becomes clear, the shadows vanish before him,\nand undefined forms grow distinct, he thinks he is near the end, when\nlo! what seemed a solid boundary of rock dissolves and floats away into\na depth of darkness, the path opens into an immense void, new shapes of\nmystery start out, and he learns this much that he did not know before,\nthat instead of being near the end, he is only upon the threshold. We do\nnot mean to imply by this that we have no positive knowledge, or that\nwe do not increase in knowledge. With every new discovery we positively\nknow more and more. But the new discovery reveals the fact that more is\nyet to be known; it lays open new regions, it unfolds new relations that\nwe had not before suspected.\n\nWe follow some tiny thread a little way, and hold it secure, but it is\nconnected with another ligament, and this branches out into a third; and\ninstead of exhausting the matter, we find ourselves at the root of an\ninfinite series, of an immense relationship, upon which we have only\njust opened; and yet what we have is positive knowledge, is something\nmore added to our stock. The circle of the known has positively widened,\nbut the horizon of the unknown has widened also, and, instead of being\nto us now, as it seemed some time ago, a solid and ultimate limit, it\nis only an ethereal wall, only to us a relative boundary, and behind are\ninfinite depths and mystery. Our scientific knowledge at the present day\nreaches this grand result--it clears up the deception that the system\nof nature is mere flat, dead materiality, a few mechanical laws, a few\nrigid forms. It shows that these are only the husks, the outer garments\nof mighty forces of subtile, far-reaching agencies; and the most common,\nevery-day truths, that seemed stale and exhausted, become illuminated\nwith infinite meaning, and are the blossoms of an infinite life.\n\nThe wider our circle of discovery, the wider our wonder; the more\nstartling our conclusions, the more perplexing our questions. We have\nnot exhausted the universe;--we have just begun to see its harmony of\nproportion and of relations, without penetrating a fathom into its\nreal life. How and what is that power that works in the shooting of\na crystal, and binds the obedience of a star; that shimmers in the\nnorthern Aurora, and connects by its attraction the aggregated universe;\nthat by its unseen forces, its all-prevalent jurisdiction, holds the\nlittle compass to the north, blooms in the nebula and the flower, weaves\nthe garment of earth and the veil of heaven, darts out in lightning,\nspins the calm motion of the planets, and presides mysteriously over\nall motion and all life? And what is life, and what is death, and what\na thousand things that we touch, and experience, and think we know all\nabout? O! as science, as nature opens upon us, we find mystery after\nmystery, and the demand upon the human soul if for faith, faith in high,\nyes, in spiritual realities; and this materialism that would shut us in\nto death and sense, that denies all spirit and all miracle, is shattered\nlike a crystal sphere, and the soul rushes out into wide orbits and\ninfinite revolutions, into life, and light, and power, that are of\neternity,--that are of God!\n\nThus the scale is prepared for us to rise from things of sense to things\nof spirit, to rise from faith in nature to faith in Revelation, from\nthe faith of LaPlace to the faith of Paul. No one who has studied nature\nwill reject Christianity because it reveals truths that he cannot\nsee with his naked eye,--because it speaks of things that he cannot\ncomprehend. No one who has considered the shooting of a green blade\nwill dogmatically deny its miracles. No one who has found in the natural\nworld the intelligent wisdom that pervades all things, will wonder that\nhe discovers a revelation of perfect love in Jesus Christ. \"We walk by\nfaith, not by sight,\" said Paul. So says every Christian; and it is of\nall things the most rational. Faith in something higher and greater\nthan we can see, faith in something above this narrow scene, faith in\nsomething beyond this present life, faith in realities that are not of\ntime or sense; from all that we have now considered we claim such faith\nto be most rational, most natural. God, spirit, immortality, instead\nof being inconsistent with what we know, are what we most legitimately\ndeduce from it,--what we might expect from the light that trembles\nbehind the curtain of mystery which bounds all our sensuous knowledge.\nWe do believe, the veriest skeptic believes in something behind that\ncurtain of mystery; nor can he withhold his faith because it attaches to\nthat which is unseen and incomprehensible, without, as has already\nbeen shown, cutting every nerve that binds us to practical life, and\nsmothering every suggestion that speaks from outward nature. If he do\nnot believe in a God, then, or in Christ, or in immortality, let him not\nsneer at others because they walk by faith and not by sight; for he also\nmust do so, though his faith be not in such high truths, such spiritual\nrealities.\n\nThe Christian's faith is an Infinite Father and an immortal life, and\nthough he cannot see them, cannot come in material contact with them, he\nbelieves them to be the greatest of all realities, and he sees them by\nfaith, a medium as legitimate as that of sight. They are mysteries,\nbut everything contains a mystery; they demand of him what every day's,\nevery hour's events demand of him--faith. Let us understand, however,\nthat faith is not the surrendering of our minds to that which is\nirrational and inconsistent. These terms should not be confounded with\nthe mysterious and the incomprehensible. That the earth moves and yet\nstands still is not a proposition that demands faith. It is in the\nprovince of reason to say that it cannot move and stand still at the\nsame time. It is an inconsistency. But how the earth moves on its axis,\nwhat is that law that makes it move, is an incomprehensibility. An\nincomprehensibility is one thing, an inconsistency is another thing.\nThe one conflicts with our reason, the other is beyond it. In that which\nconflicts with our reason we cannot have faith, but as to that which is\nbeyond it we exercise faith every day; for we literally walk by faith\nand not by sight.\n\nWho shall say, then, that God, immortality, and those high truths\nrevealed by Jesus, are inconsistent? Do they not conform to the highest\nreason? Do not our deepest intuitions demand that these revelations\nshould be true? Consult your nature, examine your own heart, consider\nwhat you are, what you want, what you feel, deeply want, keenly feel,\nand then say whether the Revelation of a God, a Father, and an immortal\nlife, satisfies you as nothing else can. Take them away, and would there\nnot be a dreary and overwhelming void? And because you have not seen\nGod, because you have not realized immortality, because they reach\nbeyond your present vision, because the grave shuts you in, because they\nare high and transcendent truths, will you reject them? Do so, and try\nto walk by sight alone. With that nature of yours, so full of love, with\nthat intellect of yours so limitless in capacity, you are apparently a\nchild of the elements, a thing of physical nature, born of the dust,\nand returning to it. With desires that reach out beyond the stars, with\nfaculties that in this life just begin to bud, with affections whose\nbleeding tendrils cling around the departed, wrestle with death, and say\nto the grave, \"Give up the dead! they are not thine, but mine; I\nfeel they must be mine forever,\" with all these desires, capacities,\naffections, you walk--so far as mere sight helps you--among graves and\ndecay, with nothing more enduring, nothing better, than three-score\nyears and ten, the clods of the valley, the crumbling bone, and\nthe dissolving dust! Because God and immortality are mysterious,\nincomprehensible, reject them, and walk only by sight? The humblest\noutpouring of human affection rebukes thy skepticism; the most narrow\ndegree of human intellect prophesies beyond all this; the darkest heart,\nwith that spark of eternal life, the yearning that moves beneath all\nits sensualities, and speaks for better, for more enduring things,--that\nrebukes thee; and in man's moral nature, in his heart and his mind,\nthere is that which only can be satisfied, only can be explained by\nGod and immortality. They alone, then, are rational, they alone have\ncomprehensive vision, who walk by faith, and not by sight.\n\nMystery and faith, then; let what we have said concerning these be not\nalone for the skeptic, but for the Christian who has faith but cannot\nfully justify and confirm it, or who feels it faltering under some heavy\nburden, or who is overwhelmed by the magnitude of the truths to which\nit attaches, or who wishes, with a kind of half-doubt, that these things\nmight be seen and felt. They are great, they are incomprehensibly great;\nbut are they therefore untrue? Does not your heart of hearts tell you\nthey are true? Does not that Revelation of Christ steal into your soul\nand feed it, satisfy it, as nothing else can, with a warm, benignant\npower, that makes you know its truth?\n\nMysteries are all about us, but faith sees light beyond and around them\nall. Have you recently laid down the dead in their place of rest? Cold\nand crushing, then, is that feeling of vacancy, that dreary sense of\nloss, that rushes upon you, as you look through the desolate chambers\nwithout,--through the desolate chambers of the heart within. But will\nnot He who calls out from the very dust where yon sleepers lie the\nflowers of summer, and who, in the snows that enwrap their bed,\ncherishes the germs of the glorious springtime, will not He who works\nout this beautiful mystery in nature bring life back from the tomb,\nand light out of darkness? It is truly a great mystery; but everything\nwithin us responds to it as reasonable; and though it demands our faith,\nwho, who, in this limited and changing world, can walk by sight alone?","title":"The Crown of Thorns: A Token for the Sorrowing","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":38061}