The Crown of Thorns [45]
to the departed in the light that has been exhibited in this discourse, is a faith that must be assimilated with our entire spiritual nature. It must be illustrated in our daily conduct, and sanctify every thought and motive of our hearts. We should not seek religion merely for its consolations, and take it up as an occasional remedy. In this way religion is injured. It is associated only with sorrow, and clothed, to the eyes of men, in perpetual sadness. It is sought as the last resort, the heart's extreme unction, when it has tried the world's nostrums in vain. It is dissociated from things healthy and active,--from all ordinary experiences,--from the great whole of life. It is consigned to the darkened chamber of mourning, and the weary and disappointed spirit. Besides, to seek religion only in sorrow,--to fly to it as the last refuge,--argues an extreme selfishness. We have served the world and our own wills, we have lived the life of the senses, and obeyed the dictates of our passions so long as they could satisfy us, and now we turn to God because we find that he only can avail us! We seek religion for the good it can do us, not for the service we can render God. We lay hold of it selfishly, as something instituted merely for our help, and lavish our demands upon it for consolation, turning away sullen and skeptical, it may be, if these demands are not immediately answered. Many come to religion for consolation who never apply to it for instruction, for sanctification, for obedience. Let us learn that we can claim its privileges only by performing its duties. We can see with the eye of its clear, consoling faith, only when it has spiritualized our entire being, and been developed in our daily conduct. Affliction may open religious ideas in the soul, but only by the soul's discipline will those ideas expand until they become our most intimate life, and we habitually enjoy celestial companionship, and that supersensual vision of faith by which we learn our relations to the departed.
That faith let us receive and cherish. If we live it we shall believe it. No sophistry can steal it from us, no calamity make us surrender it. But the keener the trial the closer will be our confidence. Standing by the open sepulchre in which we see our friends, "not dead, but sleeping," we shall say to insidious skepticism and gloomy doubt, in the earnest words of the poet,
"O! steal not thou my faith away, Nor tempt to doubt a lowly mind. Make all that earth can yield thy prey, But leave this heavenly gift behind. Our hope is but the seaboy's dream, When loud winds rise in wrath and gloom; Our life, a faint and fitful beam, That lights us to the cold, dark tomb;
Yet, since, as one from heaven has said, There lies beyond that dreary bourn A region where the faithful dead Eternally forget to mourn, Welcome the scoff, the sword, the chain, The burning waste, the black abyss:-- I shrink not from the path of pain, Which leads me to that world of bliss.
Then hush, thou troubled heart! be still;-- Renounce thy vain philosophy;-- Seek thou to work thy Maker's will, And light from heaven shall break on thee. 'Twill glad thee in the weary strife, Where strong men sink with falling breath;-- 'Twill cheer thee in the noon of life, And bless thee in the night of death."
The Voices of the Dead
"And by it he being dead yet speaketh." Hebrews xi. 4.
Much of the communion of this earth is not by speech or actual contact, and the holiest influences fall upon us in silence. A monument or symbol shall convey a meaning which cannot be expressed; and a token of some departed one is more eloquent than words. The mere presence of a good and holy personage will move us to reverence and admiration, though he may say and do but little. So is there an impersonal presence of such an one; and, though far away, he converses with us, teaches and incites us. The organs of speech are only one method of the soul's expression; and the best information which it receives
That faith let us receive and cherish. If we live it we shall believe it. No sophistry can steal it from us, no calamity make us surrender it. But the keener the trial the closer will be our confidence. Standing by the open sepulchre in which we see our friends, "not dead, but sleeping," we shall say to insidious skepticism and gloomy doubt, in the earnest words of the poet,
"O! steal not thou my faith away, Nor tempt to doubt a lowly mind. Make all that earth can yield thy prey, But leave this heavenly gift behind. Our hope is but the seaboy's dream, When loud winds rise in wrath and gloom; Our life, a faint and fitful beam, That lights us to the cold, dark tomb;
Yet, since, as one from heaven has said, There lies beyond that dreary bourn A region where the faithful dead Eternally forget to mourn, Welcome the scoff, the sword, the chain, The burning waste, the black abyss:-- I shrink not from the path of pain, Which leads me to that world of bliss.
Then hush, thou troubled heart! be still;-- Renounce thy vain philosophy;-- Seek thou to work thy Maker's will, And light from heaven shall break on thee. 'Twill glad thee in the weary strife, Where strong men sink with falling breath;-- 'Twill cheer thee in the noon of life, And bless thee in the night of death."
The Voices of the Dead
"And by it he being dead yet speaketh." Hebrews xi. 4.
Much of the communion of this earth is not by speech or actual contact, and the holiest influences fall upon us in silence. A monument or symbol shall convey a meaning which cannot be expressed; and a token of some departed one is more eloquent than words. The mere presence of a good and holy personage will move us to reverence and admiration, though he may say and do but little. So is there an impersonal presence of such an one; and, though far away, he converses with us, teaches and incites us. The organs of speech are only one method of the soul's expression; and the best information which it receives