The Crown of Thorns [38]
Do our affections sink back into our hearts,--become absorbed and forgotten? O, no! They reach out after that little one; they follow him into the unseen and spiritual world,--thus is it made a great and vivid reality to us,--perhaps for the first time. We have talked of it, we have believed in it; but now that our dead have gone into it, we have, as it were, entered it ourselves. Its atmosphere is around us, chords of affection draw us toward it, the faces of our departed ones look out from it--and it is a reality. And is it not worth something to make it such a reality?
We are wedded to this world. It is beautiful, it is attractive, it is real. Immortality is a pleasant thought. The spiritual land is an object of faith. But the separation between this and that is cold to think of, and hard to bear. It needs something stronger than this earth to draw us toward that spiritual world; to break some of the thousand tendrils that bind us here. My friends, though many powerful appeals, many solid arguments, cannot break our affections from this earth, the hand of a departed child can do it. The voice that calls us to unseen realities, that bids us prepare for the heavenly land, that says from heights of spiritual bliss and purity, "Come up hither;"--that voice that we loved so on earth, and gladly can we rise and follow it.
Behold, then, what a little child can perform for us through its death! It makes real and attractive to us that spiritual world to which it has gone, and calls our affections from earth to that true life which is the great end of our being, which is the object of all our discipline, our mingled joy and suffering, here upon this earth. That little child, gone from its sufferings of early,--gone
"Gentle and undefiled, with blessings on its head,"--
has it indeed become a very angel of God for us, and is it calling us to a more spiritual life, and does it win us to heaven? Is its memory around us like a pure presence into which no thought of sin can readily enter? Or is it with us, even yet, a spiritual companion of our ways? From being the guarded and the guided, has it risen in infant innocence, yet in the knowledge and majesty of the immortal life, to be the guard and the guide? Does it, indeed, make our hearts softer and purer, and cause us to think more of duty, and live more holy, thus clothing ourselves to go and dwell with it? Does it, by its death, accomplish all this? O! most important, most glorious mission of all, if we only heed it, if we only accept it. Then shall we behold already the wisdom and benevolence of our Father breaking through the cloud that overshadows us. Already shall we see that the tie, which seemed to be dropped and broken, God has taken up to draw us closer to himself, and that it is interwoven with his all-gracious plan for our spiritual profit and perfection. And we can anticipate how it will all be reconciled, when his own hand shall wipe away our tears, and the bliss of reunion shall extract the last drop of bitterness from "the cup that our Father had given us."
Our Relations to the Departed
"She is not dead, but sleepeth." Luke viii.52
A Great peculiarity of the Christian religion is its transforming or transmuting power. I speak not now of the regeneration which accomplishes in the individual soul, but of the change it works upon things without. It applies the touchstone to every fact of existence, and exposes its real value. Looking through the lens of spiritual observation, it throws the realities of life into a reverse perspective from that which is seen by the sensual eye. Objects which the world calls great it renders insignificant, and makes near and prominent things which the frivolous put off. Thus the Christian, among other men, often appears anomalous. Often, amidst the congratulations of the world, he detects reason for mourning, and is penetrated with sorrow. On the contrary, where others shrink, he walks undaunted, and converts the scene of dread and suffering into an ante-chamber of heaven. In this light,
We are wedded to this world. It is beautiful, it is attractive, it is real. Immortality is a pleasant thought. The spiritual land is an object of faith. But the separation between this and that is cold to think of, and hard to bear. It needs something stronger than this earth to draw us toward that spiritual world; to break some of the thousand tendrils that bind us here. My friends, though many powerful appeals, many solid arguments, cannot break our affections from this earth, the hand of a departed child can do it. The voice that calls us to unseen realities, that bids us prepare for the heavenly land, that says from heights of spiritual bliss and purity, "Come up hither;"--that voice that we loved so on earth, and gladly can we rise and follow it.
Behold, then, what a little child can perform for us through its death! It makes real and attractive to us that spiritual world to which it has gone, and calls our affections from earth to that true life which is the great end of our being, which is the object of all our discipline, our mingled joy and suffering, here upon this earth. That little child, gone from its sufferings of early,--gone
"Gentle and undefiled, with blessings on its head,"--
has it indeed become a very angel of God for us, and is it calling us to a more spiritual life, and does it win us to heaven? Is its memory around us like a pure presence into which no thought of sin can readily enter? Or is it with us, even yet, a spiritual companion of our ways? From being the guarded and the guided, has it risen in infant innocence, yet in the knowledge and majesty of the immortal life, to be the guard and the guide? Does it, indeed, make our hearts softer and purer, and cause us to think more of duty, and live more holy, thus clothing ourselves to go and dwell with it? Does it, by its death, accomplish all this? O! most important, most glorious mission of all, if we only heed it, if we only accept it. Then shall we behold already the wisdom and benevolence of our Father breaking through the cloud that overshadows us. Already shall we see that the tie, which seemed to be dropped and broken, God has taken up to draw us closer to himself, and that it is interwoven with his all-gracious plan for our spiritual profit and perfection. And we can anticipate how it will all be reconciled, when his own hand shall wipe away our tears, and the bliss of reunion shall extract the last drop of bitterness from "the cup that our Father had given us."
Our Relations to the Departed
"She is not dead, but sleepeth." Luke viii.52
A Great peculiarity of the Christian religion is its transforming or transmuting power. I speak not now of the regeneration which accomplishes in the individual soul, but of the change it works upon things without. It applies the touchstone to every fact of existence, and exposes its real value. Looking through the lens of spiritual observation, it throws the realities of life into a reverse perspective from that which is seen by the sensual eye. Objects which the world calls great it renders insignificant, and makes near and prominent things which the frivolous put off. Thus the Christian, among other men, often appears anomalous. Often, amidst the congratulations of the world, he detects reason for mourning, and is penetrated with sorrow. On the contrary, where others shrink, he walks undaunted, and converts the scene of dread and suffering into an ante-chamber of heaven. In this light,