Chapter VIII: The Peak in Darien: the Riddle of Death, 245 (6)

Again, there is an order of thought more practical than this, and surely more suitable to form the sequel of a service of prayer; namely, ideas concerning duty in all its forms, religious, social, and personal. It is amazing, considering the place which Christianity in every phase assigns to obedience to the will of God, how exceedingly small a space lessons and discussions concerning what _is_ that Divine Will, as regards every-day conduct, ever take in Christian instruction. We are eternally exhorted to repent; but what are the sins and failures which ought to be included in our penitence, few preachers take the pains to inform us. We are exhorted to “renounce the devil and all his works”; but what those “works” may be, as distinguished from works of righteousness in the shop, the camp, the bar, the exchange, the interior of our homes, we are left to find out for ourselves. Sermons treating carefully and thoughtfully any subject of the kind are among the most rare of clerical addresses. Bishop South confesses, indeed, that two-thirds of Christianity are a Christian temper. But how many times have any of us heard rebuked from the pulpit that odious sullenness which makes the unhappy inmates of the same home with the sulky person live in a perpetual November, or yet the despotic violence and anger which threaten them like a perpetual thunder-storm brewing in the distance? What master of a household is told, by the only man who _dare_ tell him, that his tyranny, his harshness, perhaps his cruelty, exercised hourly on wife or child or any luckless dependant, make up a sum total of misery to them and of offence on his part, worse than the results of many a sudden crime, and certainly involving no less guilt? What wife and mother is told that her selfishness, her bickerings, her discontent, her spitefulnesses, are sins for which no prate of high religious feeling or incessant fussing about church-going can possibly atone? And, again, as regards other offences,--let us say, lying and dishonesty,--when have we heard wise and just definitions of them from our pastors, or fitting exhortations to nobler standards of veracity and probity than are common in the world? In the upper classes of society, a certain slipshod rule of thumb on these subjects is pretty generally received. But where did we learn it? Certainly not when we occupied our seats in church, but rather at the dinner-table, in the playground at school, at the club, or in the drawing-room. Among the lower ranks, where this traditional code, of honor rather than of morality, does not hold equal sway, the ignorance which prevails concerning the very rudimentary principles of truth and probity is often no less startling than deplorable. The neglect of the clergy of all denominations to draw clear definitions on these matters of hourly concern, so that their flocks may at least _know_ what is right, supposing they are so fortunate as to be able to inspire them with a resolution to _do_ it when known, is of a piece with the indifference of all the churches to moral heresies of the most soul-debasing kind, while they punish to the utmost of their powers the faintest divergence from theological orthodoxy.

I cannot but think that, if women now enter the pulpit, a great many more sermons will be preached dealing with these points of practical ethics. The concrete and the personal will probably always possess keener interest for the majority of women than the abstract, the vague and the universal; and there is, moreover, if I mistake not, a very distinct superiority in the womanly propensity to translate ideas into action, over the man-of-the-world habit of admitting high and rigid principles in theory, while practising quite other rules in commerce, politics, and social affairs. A very eminent thinker and scholar, a leader of thought at Oxford, once remarked to me with characteristic simplicity, “I do not know how to account for the fact, but I notice that, when a good woman is convinced that something is true or right, she tries immediately in some way to square her beliefs and conduct accordingly; whereas when I have, perhaps by infinite labor, succeeded in convincing a man of the same thing, he goes on just as he did before, without altering his behavior a jot, and as if nothing had happened!” Now, I think this practical tendency of the feminine nature (though it will perhaps be less marked hereafter when women submit more generally to the friction of contact with many minds) will inevitably show itself in a preference for the inculcation of definite duties rather than for the vague declamations about repentance and regeneration which so often leave their hearers perfectly undisturbed and on the high way (as they think) to heaven, leading lives of odious selfishness, and combining profit and piety after the fashion of the celebrated grocer, “Sand the sugar, John--and then come in to prayers.”

It has been often remarked that the most profound difference between modern and classical civilization lies in the contrast between the value attached by each to private morals. The virtue of the individual was of old treated as altogether subordinate in importance to the interests of the State. In our time, we have almost come to recognize that states and churches--nay, society itself--exist for the sake of building up individual souls to their perfection; and there is every reason to expect that this sense of the supreme importance of morals over every other human concern will rather increase than dwindle through all time to come.

Now, it would certainly appear that this _Hebraism_, as Mr. Arnold calls it, is rather characteristic of the higher sort of women. The moment a woman rises above the passion for personal admiration and the struggle for petty social ambition or sordid matrimonial scheming, to which so large a number of unhappy ones are trained and consigned from girlhood, on the principle of “keeping women in their proper sphere,”--the moment, I say, that a woman has been lifted by education or her natural force of character above all this frivolity and baseness, we almost invariably find in her a degree of earnestness about ethical and ethico-religious questions which is far more rarely traceable among men. It is true that her exclusion from a great many fields of masculine interest naturally centres her thoughts more on such subjects, and that, when those exclusions are more or less removed, we must expect to see more frequently women absorbed in the same worldly interests as men, and perhaps some who now think night and day of a ball will be equally eager about a bill in Parliament. Still, I believe that, independently of circumstances, women have a special tendency (as Renan avers of the Celtic race) to “long after the infinite,” and to yearn to bring an element of sacredness and nobleness into the transactions of daily life such as their moral aspect alone affords. I believe that nine women out of ten (of the better sort, of whom I have spoken) would, if they had the choice, oftener speak of duty and religion than of any other themes.[35] If this be so, it would follow that, as time goes on, instead of women falling behind in the progress of humanity, that progress will constantly tend to bring women more to the front as students and expounders of morality.

There is another aspect of this matter also, which fairly deserves consideration. Many good Christians have remarked that, while they would fain take Jesus Christ as their “Great Exemplar,” they find nothing in his life indicating what his example would have been in the very closest and most important of human relations of husband or father. Surely there is no less reason for women to be conscious of a lacune in their moral instructions, when they are received exclusively either from mothers and governesses who may be utterly unfit for such an office, and who often merely pass on traditional moral heresies, or else from masculine pastors whose whole moral parallax is necessarily different from that of a woman, and who practically know next to nothing of the trials, temptations, and duties of her lot. We have had of recent years in many of our churches, and notably in St. Paul’s Cathedral, courses of sermons addressed by various clergymen to men alone, from which women have been rigidly excluded. Would it be too much to hope that some time or other, in some humble chapel (since no one would dream of devoting the national religious edifices to the exclusive use of women for a single hour), women may enjoy the privilege of being especially addressed by pastors of their own sex, who may talk to them at once with cultured minds and experienced hearts?

And, lastly, besides the Intellectual and the Moral classes of thoughts to be offered from the pulpit, there is a third,--of which, alas! we know far too little,--the Spiritual. The store of this latter class of thoughts is probably extremely small even in minds of richest experience. They seem rather to distil slowly in precious drops from the wounds in the tree of life than to be capable of manufacture by the help of culture and reflection. They are the thoughts which concern the baseness, the loathsomeness, the misery of sin (felt and considered as _Sin_, not as Error or Vice), the glory and beauty and joy of Holiness, felt as _Holiness_, not as Prudence or Virtue. They teach the laws of our spiritual existence; the hygienics of the soul; the “Way toward the Blessed Life.” In some sense, sermons which contain thoughts like these may be called Moral Discourses; for they touch the very springs of our moral nature, and send us forth heart-smitten for the past, heart-strengthened with resolutions for the future. They are the most powerful moral levers which human agency ever applies to our souls. But they are the reverse of didactic, ethical disquisitions, or expositions of the detailed code of virtue. They lie in another region of feeling and appeal to another class of our faculties than the ratiocinative. We do not sit and judge them, but they come from above and judge us. When they strike us most forcibly, we never feel the temptation (as we are so often inclined to do at the best bits in the critical or the moral discourse) to express our approbation by the familiar tokens of public applause. On the contrary, it is our own breasts we are fain to beat; while, if our lips move, it is to murmur the prayer of the publican.

Will women preach sermons of this order and filled with thoughts like these? It is impossible to foretell with certainty; yet here, if anywhere, may we expect to find the special gifts of women brought out at last from their hidden treasuries. It has been said of almost every great spiritual teacher that there has been something feminine in his nature, something more of tenderness and purity, more of insight into and sympathy with others, than belongs to lesser men. In Jesus Christ, the ideal characters of both sexes seem almost equally blended. Of course there are other qualities besides the characteristically feminine ones needed to form the highest kind of religious teacher; but the sterner qualities are no more invariably deficient in women than are the softer ones always lacking in men, and it seems the reverse of improbable that women may arise uniting both in hitherto almost unexampled degree. Let us remember that, after all, the one great Force of the spiritual world--its correlated Gravitation, Light, Electricity, Magnetism, and Vital Force, all in one--is pure Divine LOVE. This alone, radiating from the Sun of Love in the heavens, moves and vivifies the soul; and to it alone it responds as the flower to the orb of day--we know not how. The human spirit which receives from on high the largest influx of this divine light and warmth thereby becomes a focus of reflected power and fervor for all those who can be brought into spiritual contact with it. It is the “love of God shed abroad” in the heart,--the love of that goodness which God is, and for which man is made, whose germs even now the illumined eye of love discerns deep-latent in every human soul,--in a word, the love of God and love of man, in whose might all spiritual miracles are done, all leprous souls cleansed, all demon passions cast out, all blind eyes opened, all maimed and crippled faculties made whole. If we could but find the most profoundly-loving, the most unselfishly, nobly, purely loving of men or women now living upon earth, and set him or her in the midst of us to be our teacher, our friend, our guide into the ways of peace and blessedness, we should have gained a help better than all the philosophers and theologians, the monks and the hermits, could ever give. I will not take on myself to affirm that such most loving heart beats in a woman’s breast. It may well be that there are men as tender in feeling as any mother whose spirit ever yearned over her infant’s cradle. But there is at least an equal chance of a woman’s supremacy, and almost a certainty that, on a secondary level of loving-kindness and unselfishness, we should find many more women than men. It is quite impossible, I think, that this difference should not make itself felt, and a new impulse be made to flow through all the channels of spiritual life whenever the influence of women may be brought to bear directly and largely on the religious feelings of the community.

Lastly, and chiefly. It is a truism to say that the character of our religion depends on our idea of God; but who has taken note of this familiar fact sufficiently to recognize that all the _traditional_ part of that solemn idea has come to us uniformly in a way deplorably one-sided, and that side the least lovable? I do not overestimate the importance of _any_ idea of God which comes to us through our fellow-men. It seems to me that, from the first dawn of the religious life, the child has a dim sense (apart from his teacher’s lessons) of some beneficent and righteous Power around and within him; and that when the Sun rises on any soul in the awful hour which saints have likened to a new birth, there is obtained, even through all the mists of earth, a direct vision of the ineffable glory, which evermore causes the words of other mortals, and even the man’s own attempt to render in language his sense of that great Love and Holiness, to seem unreal and worse than inadequate. When _that_ stage is reached, it is probably of little consequence what a man’s pastor may tell him about God’s character. All he says is only like a book which describes a person we ourselves have known or a place we have visited. Nobody can make the man believe (at least so long as his own living faith and open vision endure) that the Being whom he meets in the hour of prayer is less than All-good, unutterably Holy, even though the dogmas he accepts practically attribute to him a totally different character. The only injury he can suffer is a negative one: he is denied the help and sympathy which he needs, and which it is the proper office of his minister to supply to him. But at an earlier stage, when all religious experience is yet vague and dim, when faith must of necessity be provisional and taken on trust at second hand,--at that period there can be no question of the misfortune of receiving cold, hard, narrow notions about God, instilled by teachers who themselves have little love or no direct spiritual knowledge, and have chiefly borrowed their ideas from the confessedly imperfect rendering, age after age, of other men’s experience. How is a young soul ever to turn to God, when God is represented to it as One from whom it would far more naturally turn away? And let it be remembered that the attributes of God which call out the spontaneous love and adoration of the heart are precisely those whose meaning is most completely lost and evaporated in the dry formularies of the intellect, and can never be truly conveyed except by one whose own heart responds to them through all its depths. Power, Wisdom, Justice, are divine characteristics, of which the meaning may be indicated by any teacher with a clear head and command of language. But I disbelieve that any one who is not himself full of love and tenderness has ever, since the world began, yet transmitted to another soul the truth that God is Love.

There is little to wonder at, after all, in the mournful fact that the religion which as it rose from the heart of Christ was supremely the religion of Divine Love became, as the centuries went by, colder and harder and more cruel, till the irony was complete, and the doctrine of the Mount of Galilee was illustrated by the fires of the Spanish Inquisition. _Who_, we may ask, were the teachers of Christianity during the intervening ages? Who were they through whose lips and writings the lessons gathered from the lilies and the sparrows, and the story of the Prodigal, were transmitted to each new-born generation? They were _men_, exclusively men; nay, men who, in taking their office, renounced those ties of natural affection through which the Author of Nature has caused the human heart to grow tender, and to be taught the practice of unselfishness. To fit themselves to convey to the hearts of their brethren the gospel of the Fatherhood of God, they began by renouncing the experience of human fatherhood for themselves. The Apostolic Succession, of which the great Churches still boast, was for fifteen centuries a school for the transmission of ideas about a Divine Parent down a long chain of childless celibates. We Protestants have corrected this mistake, and the men who tell to _us_ the story of the Prodigal are at least able to speak out of the abundance of their hearts when they say that, “like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord hath mercy on them that fear Him.” But is there not one step even further to be taken? Is not the compassion of “a mother for the son of her womb” a still profounder image of the Divine Love than the father’s pity? Ought it not also to be brought home to our comprehensions (if in any measure human words may so bring it) through the lips of mothers and motherly-hearted women?

The loss out of our religion of all those ideas which may be classed as the doctrine of the motherhood of God has been attended with evils innumerable. The Church of Rome, in obedience to a vehement popular instinct, has sought to make up for the defect by Mariolatry. The orthodox Protestant Churches, by sternly adhering to their masculine Trinity, have indeed preserved the awe and moral reverence which the Divine Kingship and Fatherhood demand, and which the paganism of virgin worship has obliterated. But how much have they not lost by excluding those sentiments which can only be given to One in whom we recognize not only justice, holiness, and beneficence, but also tenderness, sympathy, love? The truth is we are so constituted that great benefits received,--if we think of them as bestowed merely because it is right and good to give them, and not from love for ourselves,--so far from awakening in us spontaneous emotions of gratitude, have rather an opposite tendency, and seem to lay on us an obligation to be grateful, which is a sort of burden, and from which all minds save the most generous have a proclivity to escape. To hundreds of us, large donations from just and well-meaning but unaffectionate fathers have failed to waken the smallest throb of genuine gratefulness; while some mere trifle given by a loving mother--a flower from a well-remembered rose-tree, a scrap of her needlework--has filled our eyes with tears. In excluding, then, in a great degree from view that which I may presume to call the maternal side of religion, the Churches, so far as they have done it, have dropped the golden chain whereby human hearts may be drawn, and have kept in their hands the iron one which can only control the reason and the conscience. Is it possible to estimate the amount of loss to religion which this signifies, or how many thousands of souls might have been won by _love_ to a life of piety and holiness who have refused to obey the bit and bridle of sterner motives, and have wandered off and been lost in the wilderness of practical atheism?

If there be, then, as I humbly believe and trust, in the nature of our great Parent above, certain characters of tenderness and sympathy with His creatures which are more perfectly shadowed, more vividly reflected, in the love of human mothers for their children than by aught else on earth; if there be, in short, a real meaning in the old lesson that God created woman as well as man in His own image,--the image being only complete in the complete humanity,--then I think it follows that there is urgent need that woman’s idea of God should have its due place in all our teaching of religion. I think that there must be truths in this direction which only a woman’s heart will conceive and only a woman’s lips can teach,--truths, perchance, which have come to her when baby-fingers have clung round her neck in the dark while infant trust overcame infant terror, and she has asked herself was there anything in heaven or earth which could make her cast down to destruction, or even let slip from her clasp of care and guardianship, the helpless little child thus lying in her arms,--a living parable of all our race in the everlasting arms of God.

FOOTNOTES:

[27] It will be seen that I differ _toto caelo_ on this point from Mr. Mahaffy in his interesting recent essay on the _Decay of Preaching_. He seems to me only to recognize the _moral and intellectual_ forces which move men, and these compared with the spiritual are only what mechanical ones are to the electric.

[28] Ingoldsby’s rendering of this world-famous story, the favorite theme of so many eminent painters, is probably no very exaggerated reading of the general impression of the monastic mind respecting the fair sex:--

“There are many devils which walk this world,
Devils great and devils small,
Devils short and devils tall;
Bold devils which go with their tails unfurled,
Sly devils which carry them quite upcurled;

* * * * *

But a laughing woman with two bright eyes
Is the worsest devil of all!”

[29] I know not on what authority the familiar jovial couplet has been attributed to the great Reformer:--

“Wer liebt nicht Wein, Weib, und Gesang
Der bleibt ein Narr sein Leben lang.”

The ascetic spirit had very far departed, at all events, from the author who composed it.

[30] I. Cor. xiv., 26. If this graphic description had applied to a _female_ assembly, should we have ever been allowed to forget the circumstance?

[31] “The Hebrew Woman,” by Constance de Rothschild (Mrs. Cyril Flower).

[32] A sermon by this lady on “The Sacrament of Life,” preached and printed at Melbourne, would amply justify, I think, to every reader the above remark.

[33] In the case of the M.P., this would need to be a majority of _men_, seeing that the whole female contingent of qualified voters will only (if admitted) add about a fifth or sixth to the register.

[34] This at least is the impression left on me by the female speakers (some twenty perhaps) whom I have chanced to hear. I never knew one of them “hum” or “haw,” or stammer, or break down, even when (as in one very remarkable case) the gentle and learned speaker had never addressed an audience till the occasion, when she had already passed middle life. Among the most remarkable phenomena of the present day, I reckon the preaching of Mrs. Booth, the wife of the General of the Salvation Army. The combination of fervent zeal with practical good sense in her extempore discourses must be admired even by those who differ most widely from her views.

[35] A curious illustration of this is to be found in a passage in the first series of Mrs. Kemble’s charming autobiography published three years ago. She describes the late Lady Byron as often expressing envy of her (Mrs. Kemble’s) public readings, and her longing to have similar crowds in sympathy with her own impressions. “I made her laugh,” says Mrs. Kemble, “by telling her that more than once, when looking from my reading-desk over the sea of faces uplifted toward me, a sudden feeling had seized me that I must say something _from myself_ to all those human beings whose attention I felt at that moment entirely at my command, and between whom and myself a sense of sympathy thrilled powerfully and strangely through my heart as I looked steadfastly at them before opening my lips; but that on wondering afterwards what I might, could, would, or should have said to them from myself, I never could think of anything but two words--‘_Be good!_’” (Page 317.)

THE HOUSE ON THE SHORE OF ETERNITY.

AN ALLEGORY.

Two simple-minded men, who had dwelt all their lives in a country far inland, at last undertook a long journey together. This happened many ages ago, when there were no such things as printed books or village schools, and when the people in isolated districts saw no travellers, and knew nothing of the great world beyond the hills which closed their horizon.

Wolfgang and Athelstane, so our pilgrims were called, walked on over downs and heaths, and through the vast forests of oak which then overspread the land, till at last, after a night’s toilsome march, they came, in the early dawn, to a spot which seemed to them the strangest they had ever visited. Walls of rock shut out any distant view; but immediately before them on a gentle declivity there stood a structure, much larger than the humble cottages which Wolfgang and Athelstane had inhabited, and of a singularly different form. Instead of a pointed roof of thatch or tiles, there was, on the top, a flat floor of boards; while beneath, where there should have been a solid square foundation, there was a long thin wedge, almost like a roof which had been reversed and turned downward. Also, through the floor rose up two long, slender, tree-like erections, with all the branches carefully smoothed away. Crossbars were slung on these poles, and ropes connected them together; while a great roll of coarse woven stuff, like sackcloth, lay folded up beside them. At one end, and outside of the wooden structure, hung a huge beam, standing, as it seemed, in some unaccountable relation to the rest of the fabric, and connected with it by machinery passing into the interior. All these singular things were slowly and carefully noted by our two humble travellers, as they walked round the wooden building in the morning twilight. No one was near who could afford them an explanation of the use or purpose of what they saw; and their doubts and wonder grew every moment.

“What can it mean?” said Wolfgang. “What did the builder--whoever he can have been--intend by such a mansion as this?”

“It is clear enough,” answered Athelstane, thoughtfully, “that it is the work of some very ingenious hands. How soundly and skilfully it is all fitted together!”

“True,” replied his comrade; “and yet ought we to say it is well made before we can tell for what purpose it is constructed? To me it seems that our own old huts of wattled willow and turf were, after all, of a better shape for a house to stand on the ground.”

“Do you think this is a house, _only_ a house?” said Athelstane, suddenly looking up.

“Well, if it be not a house, what else can it be?” said Wolfgang. “Let us try to look inside of it, and examine it more closely.”

The two men soon contrived to enter the edifice which so puzzled them; and presently Wolfgang exclaimed triumphantly:--

“See! there can be no question more on the matter. This is only a house. Here are seats and tables for men to sit at, and beds for them to sleep in; and here is a fire-place and a great iron pot to cook food. Now, you can have no hesitation. It is just a wooden house, and rather stupidly planned.”

“I have no doubt,” said Athelstane, “that it is intended for a habitation; but is it not inexplicable that a builder who can work so cleverly should construct it so unsuitably for a common house? Why is it not made to stand squarely and steadily on the ground? What is the sense of these long soaring poles standing up through the middle, with the coils of ropes and bales of sacking? And this? This is the most mysterious thing of all,” said Athelstane, placing his hand on a wheel, which instantly stirred the great beam at the back.

“They are strange certainly,” replied Wolfgang,--“very strange and useless things, I should say, about a house which would be much more comfortable and answer its purpose better without them. I cannot agree with you that the builder was really a clever man, or knew what he was about, else he would never have erected those poles or made that senseless, upside-down roof, instead of a foundation; or, above all, have constructed that totally unmeaning apparatus behind the whole structure.”

“I differ from you,” said Athelstane, after some moments more of reflection. “I think it is we who are not clever or ingenious, and who cannot find out what the carpenter who made this building intends to do with it. I do not believe that singular form beneath (so little fit for a building only intended for a house), nor those poles and ropes and vast sheets of woven stuff, nor yet that mysterious great beam, were all added to a mere house for nothing,--for no purpose whatever. I think, Wolfgang,” and Athelstane laid his hand on his friend’s arm earnestly,--“I think what we are looking at is something _more than a house_. I think _it is not intended to stand always where we see it_.”

“You are dreaming, Athelstane,” said Wolfgang, with a short laugh. “Where on earth should a house go, if it is not to stand always where it is built? Who would want to move such a structure as this?”

“I do not know,” said Athelstane, humbly. “I do not profess to understand the mystery of it: only I see that the master carpenter who built it must have been a very great carpenter indeed; and I cannot believe that he has made all these things in vain, or for no important purpose. If he wanted only a house, why did he not simply build a house standing flat on the ground, and with no shafts piercing the air, and no vast guiding beam at the back? Trust me, friend Wolfgang, this is something more than the common abode of which alone you seem able to think.”

While the two simple-minded men yet talked together, the sun had risen, and there was a sound of many waters and of rising waves; and through an opening in the rocks, which the travellers had not perceived in the twilight, the great ocean became revealed to their eyes. Higher and higher rose the tide, till it almost reached where the strange wooden building still lay motionless; and the travellers retreated a little up the shore, and stood, awe-struck and breathless, watching what might happen. Then down from the cliff above ran a band of mariners, and leaped on board the vessel, and hauled in the anchor; and presently the waves lifted up the ship, and she floated bravely on the waters. Very soon, the mariners set the sails, which had lain idly on the deck, the pilot placed his hand on the rudder and guided the noble barque, and she was borne by the winds of heaven far off beyond the uttermost ken of the two poor travellers upon the shore.

Then, after a time, Wolfgang turned to his companion, and said: “Athelstane, you spoke truth. Yon House-of-the-Sea was made, as you foresaw, for other use than to stand upon the ground. It was planned for a different element,--the free world of waters. And now we see what was the purport of so many things which before seemed to us useless,--the keel, the masts, the sails, the marvellous and mysterious rudder. How wonderful it is! How wise and far-seeing the great carpenter who made the ship!”

As Wolfgang spoke, Athelstane lifted his head, which had drooped in heavy thought, and he saw the wide ocean leaping in the morning light stretched out before him, and the new-risen sun smote his face with glory. And Athelstane laid his hand on Wolfgang’s arm, and spoke as his friend had never heard him speak before, for it was as a man in whose soul a great new thought had sprung to life: “Aye, Wolfgang, aye,” he said; “but if that marvellous work of human hands was not made only for earth, do you think _we_ were made for nothing better than the life which now we lead,--to eat and drink, and marry, and toil, and sleep, and die, and be forgotten? Are not _we_ too, O Wolfgang, made for other things than these? Are we not fitted for some other element than that in which now we have our being, some other existence than that which yet we lead? If we were intended only to live our few years of animal life on earth and then perish, why were we given minds to plough the seas of thought, and aspirations to point to heaven, and love to swell beneath the breath of affection, and conscience to guide us on our way as the pilot lays on it his mighty hand? O Wolfgang! we could perceive that the ship was intended to float on the great ocean which we had never beheld. Can we not see that we and all our race are made to live in a world yet unseen, wider, freer, grander a thousand times than earth,--a world which we shall enter whensoever the tide of death shall lift us up and bear us away?”

THE PEAK IN DARIEN: THE RIDDLE OF DEATH.

It is somewhat singular that the natural longing to penetrate the great secret of mortality should not have suggested to some of the inquirers into so-called “Spiritual” manifestations that, before attempting to obtain communication with the _dead_ through such poor methods as raps and alphabets, they might more properly, and with better hope of gaining a glimpse through the “gates ajar,” watch closely the _dying_, and study the psychological phenomena which accompany the act of dissolution. Thus, it might be possible to ascertain, by comparison of numerous instances, whether among these phenomena are any which seem to indicate that the mind, soul, or self of the expiring person, is not undergoing a process of extinction, but exhibiting such tokens as might be anticipated, were it entering upon a new phase of existence and coming into possession of fresh faculties. It is at least conceivable that some such indications might be observed, were we to look for them with care and caution, under the rare conditions wherein they could at any time be afforded; and, if this should prove to be the fact, it is needless to dilate on the intense interest of even such semblance of confirmation of our hopes. I must earnestly protest, however, at starting, that, in my opinion, to regard anything which could be so noticed as being _more_ than such a confirmation, or, as if it could constitute an argument for belief in a future life, would be foolish in the extreme, seeing the great obscurity and the evanescent nature of all such phenomena. Our faith in immortality must be built on altogether different ground, if it is to be of any value as a part of our religion or of our philosophy. But, assuming that we are, individually, already convinced that the quasi-universal creed of the human race is not erroneous, and that “the soul of a man never dies,”[36] we may not unreasonably turn to the solemn scene of dissolution, and ask whether there does not sometimes occur, under one or two perhaps of its hundred forms, some incidents which point in the direction of the great fact which we believe to be actually in process of realization? According to our common conviction, there is a moment of time when the man whom we have known in his garb of flesh casts it aside, actually, so to speak, before our eyes, and “this mortal puts on immortality.” As in Blanco White’s beautiful sonnet, he is, like Adam, watching his first sunset, and trembling to lose sight of the world, and the question to be solved is whether darkness has enshrouded him, or whether

“Hesperus with the hosts of heaven came,
And, lo! Creation widened in his view”;

and he may have asked himself,--

“Who would have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O Sun? or deemed,
While flower and leaf and insect stood revealed,
That to such countless orbs thou mad’st us blind?”

and life, like light, had been only a deception and a veil.

We have walked in company with our brother, perchance for years, through the “wilderness of this world,” over its arid plains of toil and through its sweet valleys of love and pleasure; and then we have begun to climb the awful Andes which have always loomed before us at our journey’s end,--their summits against the sky,--and beyond them the undiscovered land. Onward, a little before us, as chance may decide, our companion perhaps mounts the last acclivity; and we see him slowly approach the mountain’s crown, while our lagging steps yet linger on the slopes below. Sometimes, ere he reach the hill-top, he is enveloped in cloud, and then we see him no more; but again, sometimes, he remains in the full sunlight, and though distant from us, and beyond the reach of our voice, it is yet possible for us to watch his attitude and motions. Now, we see him nearing the summit. A few steps more, and there must break on his vision whatever there may be of the unknown world beyond,--a howling wilderness or a great Pacific of joy. Does he seem, as that view bursts on him, whatsoever it may be,--does he seem to be inspired with hope or cast down with despair? Do his arms drop in consternation, or does he lift them aloft with one glad gesture of rapture, ere he descend the farther slope, and is lost to our sight forever?

It appears to me that we may, though with much diffidence, answer this question as regards some of our comrades in life’s journey, who have gone before us, and of whom the last glimpse has been one full of strange, mysterious, but most joyful promise. Let us inquire into the matter calmly, making due allowance both for natural exaggeration of mourning friends, who recall the most affecting scenes, and also for the probable presence of cerebral disturbance and hallucination at the moment of physical dissolution.

Of course, it is quite possible that the natural law of death may be that the departed always sink into a state of unconsciousness, and rather dip beneath a Lethe than leap a Rubicon. It is likewise possible that the faculties of a disembodied soul, whatever that may be, may need time and use, like those of an infant, before they can be practically employed. But there is also at least a _possibility_ that consciousness is not always lost, but is continuous through the passage from one life to another, and that it expands rather than closes at the moment when the bonds of the flesh are broken, and the man enters into possession of his higher powers and vaster faculties, symbolled by the beautiful old emblem of Psyche’s emancipated butterfly quitting the shell of the chrysalis.[37] In this latter case there is a certain _prima facie_ presumption that close observation ought to permit us occasionally to obtain some brief glimpse, some glance, though but of lightning swiftness and evanescence, revealing partially this transcendent change.

In a majority of deaths, the accompanying physical conditions hide from the spectators whatever psychological phenomena may be taking place. The sun of our poor human life mostly sets behind an impenetrable cloud. Of all forms of death, the commonest appears to be the awful “agony” with its unconscious groans and stertorous breath. The dying person seems to sink lower and lower, as if beneath the waters of an unfathomable sea; a word, a motion, a glance, rising up at longer and longer intervals, till the last slow and distant sighs terminate the woful strife, and the victory of Death is complete. When this is the mode of dissolution, it is of course hopeless to look for any indication of the fate of the soul at its exodus; and the same holds good as regards death in extreme old age, or after exhausting disease, when the sufferer very literally “falls asleep.” Again, there are deaths which are accompanied by great pain or delirium, or which are caused by sudden accidents, altogether hiding from our observation the mental condition of the patient. Only in a small residue of cases, the bodily conditions are such as to cause neither interference with nor yet concealment of the process of calm and peaceful dissolution in the full light of mental sanity; and it is to these only we can look with any hope of fruitful observation. I ask whether in such cases instances have ever been known of occurrences having any significance taken in connection with the solemn event wherewith they are associated. Does our forerunner on the hill-top show by his looks and actions, since he is too far off to speak to us, that he beholds from his “Peak in Darien” an Ocean yet hidden from our view?

I should hesitate altogether to affirm positively that such is the case; but, after many inquiries on the subject, I am still more disinclined to assert the contrary. The truth seems to be that, in almost every family or circle, a question will elicit recollections of death-bed scenes, wherein, with singular recurrence, appears one very significant incident,--namely, that the dying person, precisely at the moment of death, and when the power of speech was lost, or nearly lost, seemed _to see something_; or rather, to speak more exactly, to become conscious of something present (for actual sight is out of question) of a very striking kind, which remained invisible to and unperceived by the assistants. Again and again, this incident is repeated. It is described almost in the same words by persons who have never heard of similar occurrences, and who suppose their own experience to be unique, and have raised no theory upon it, but merely consider it to be “strange,” “curious,” “affecting,” and nothing more. It is invariably explained that the dying person is lying quietly, when suddenly, in the very act of expiring, he looks up,--sometimes starts up in bed,--and gazes on (what appears to be) vacancy with an expression of astonishment, sometimes developing instantly into joy, and sometimes cut short in the first emotion of solemn wonder and awe. If the dying man were to see some utterly unexpected but instantly recognized vision, causing him a great surprise or rapturous joy, his face could not better reveal the fact. The very instant this phenomenon occurs, death is actually taking place, and the eyes glaze even while they gaze at the unknown sight. If a breath or two still heave the chest, it is obvious that the soul has already departed.

A few narrations of such observations, chosen from a great number which have been communicated to the writer, will serve to show more exactly the point which it is desired should be established by a larger concurrence of testimony. The following are given in the words of a friend on whose accuracy every reliance may be placed:--

“I have heard numberless instances of dying persons showing unmistakably by their gestures, and sometimes by their words, that they saw in the moment of dissolution what could not be seen by those around them. On three occasions, facts of this nature came distinctly within my own knowledge; and I will therefore limit myself to a detail of that which I can give on my own authority, although the circumstances were not so striking as many others known to me, which I believe to be equally true.

“I was watching one night beside a poor man dying of consumption. His case was hopeless, but there was no appearance of the end being very near. He was in full possession of his senses, able to talk with a strong voice, and not in the least drowsy. He had slept through the day, and was so wakeful that I had been conversing with him on ordinary subjects to while away the long hours. Suddenly, while we were thus talking quietly together, he became silent, and fixed his eyes on one particular spot in the room, which was entirely vacant, even of furniture. At the same time, a look of the greatest delight changed the whole expression of his face, and, after a moment of what seemed to be intense scrutiny of some object invisible to me, he said to me in a joyous tone, ‘There is Jim.’ Jim was a little son whom he had lost the year before, and whom I had known well; but the dying man had a son still living, named John, for whom we had sent, and I concluded it was of John he was speaking, and that he thought he heard him arriving. So I answered,--

“‘No. John has not been able to come.’

“The man turned to me impatiently, and said: ‘I do not mean John, I know he is not here: it is Jim, my little lame Jim. Surely, you remember him?’

“‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I remember dear little Jim who died last year quite well.’

“‘Don’t you see him, then? There he is,’ said the man, pointing to the vacant space on which his eyes were fixed; and, when I did not answer, he repeated almost fretfully, ‘Don’t you see him standing there?’

“I answered that I could not see him, though I felt perfectly convinced that something was visible to the sick man, which I could not perceive. When I gave him this answer, he seemed quite amazed, and turned round to look at me with a glance almost of indignation. As his eyes met mine, I saw that a film seemed to pass over them, the light of intelligence died away, he gave a gentle sigh and expired. He did not live five minutes from the time he first said, ‘There is Jim,’ although there had been no sign of approaching death previous to that moment.

“The second case was that of a boy about fourteen years of age, dying also of decline. He was a refined, highly educated child, who throughout his long illness had looked forward with much hope and longing to the unknown life to which he believed he was hastening. On a bright summer morning, it became evident that he had reached his last hour. He lost the power of speech, chiefly from weakness; but he was perfectly sensible, and made his wishes known to us by his intelligent looks. He was sitting propped up in bed, and had been looking rather sadly at the bright sunshine playing on the trees outside his open window for some time. He had turned away from this scene, however, and was facing the end of the room, where there was nothing whatever but a closed door, when all in a moment the whole expression of his face changed to one of the most wondering rapture, which made his half-closed eyes open to their utmost extent, while his lips parted with a smile of perfect ecstasy. It was impossible to doubt that some glorious sight was visible to him; and, from the movement of his eyes, it was plain that it was not one, but many objects on which he gazed, for his look passed slowly from end to end of what seemed to be the vacant wall before him, going back and forward with ever-increasing delight manifested in his whole aspect. His mother then asked him, if what he saw was some wonderful sight beyond the confines of this world, to give her a token that it was so by pressing her hand. He at once took her hand, and pressed it meaningly, giving thereby an intelligent affirmative to her question, though unable to speak. As he did so, a change passed over his face, his eyes closed, and in a few minutes he was gone.

“The third case, which was that of my own brother, was very similar to this last. He was an elderly man, dying of a painful disease, but one which never for a moment obscured his faculties. Although it was known to be incurable, he had been told that he might live some months, when somewhat suddenly the summons came on a dark January morning. It had been seen in the course of the night that he was sinking; but for some time he had been perfectly silent and motionless, apparently in a state of stupor, his eyes closed and his breathing scarcely perceptible. As the tardy dawn of the winter morning revealed the rigid features of the countenance from which life and intelligence seemed to have quite departed, those who watched him felt uncertain whether he still lived; but suddenly, while they bent over him to ascertain the truth, he opened his eyes wide, and gazed eagerly upward with such an unmistakable expression of wonder and joy that a thrill of awe passed through all who witnessed it. His whole face grew bright with a strange gladness, while the eloquent eyes seemed literally to shine, as if reflecting some light on which they gazed. He remained in this attitude of delighted surprise for some minutes, then in a moment the eyelids fell, the head drooped forward, and with one long breath the spirit departed.”

* * * * *

A different kind of case from those above narrated by my friend was that of a young girl known to me, who had passed through the miserable experiences of a sinful life at Aldershot, and then had tried to drown herself in the river Avon, near Clifton. She was in some way saved from suicide, and placed for a time in a penitentiary; but her health was found to be hopelessly ruined, and she was sent to die in the quaint old workhouse of St. Peter’s at Bristol. For many months, she lay in the infirmary, literally perishing piecemeal of disease, but exhibiting patience and sweetness of disposition quite wonderful to witness. She was only eighteen, poor young creature, when all her little round of error and pain had been run; and her innocent, pretty face might have been that of a child. She never used any sort of cant (so common among women who have been in Refuges), but had apparently somehow got hold of a very living and real religion, which gave her comfort and courage, and inspired her with the beautiful spirit with which she bore her frightful sufferings. On the wall opposite her bed, I had hung by chance a print of the “Lost Sheep”; and Mary S., looking at it one day, said to me, “That is just what I was and what happened to me; but I am being brought safe home now.” For a long time before her death, her weakness was such that she was quite incapable of lifting herself up in bed, or of supporting herself when lifted; and she, of course, continued to lie with her head on the pillow, while life gradually and painfully ebbed away, and she seemingly became nearly unconscious. In this state she had been left one Saturday night by the nurse in attendance. Early at dawn next morning,--an Easter morning, as it chanced,--the poor old women who occupied the other beds in the ward were startled from their sleep by seeing Mary S. suddenly spring up to a sitting posture in her bed, with her arms outstretched and her face raised, as if in a perfect rapture of joy and welcome. The next instant, the body of the poor girl fell back a corpse. Her death had taken place in that moment of mysterious ecstasy.