The Ascent of the Soul Part 10

If immortal existence means the possibility of unceasing growth, then every reason which prompts prayer for those who are bodily present remains a motive when they have entered the state which is purely spiritual.

But what efficacy will prayers for the dead have? My answer is two-fold.

All the efficacy that prayer ever has. If death is relative only to a single state of existence, and if those whom we call dead are living, and still free agents, then they may still choose good and evil, and they may still grow toward virtue. Choice always implies a possibility of freedom; and freedom is a necessity when there is moral responsibility. If prayer helps any one, why not those who have pa.s.sed from our sight? Surely we must believe them still to possess the power of choice and, therefore, that of choosing evil as well as good.

You ask why pray at all. My answer is simple and free from all attempts at casuistry: simply because we must. Prayer is not so much a Christian doctrine as a human necessity. It is as natural as breathing. By prayer I mean not only spoken pet.i.tions but, equally, the longing and pleading of the soul, either blindly or intelligently, for things which are beyond our reach, and which only a higher Power can provide. Those longings may have formal expression, and they may not. Prayer so far as it is pet.i.tion is the soul pleading with the Unseen for what it deeply desires. I do not suppose that G.o.d needs light from any mortal man, but all men do need many things from Him, and, as naturally as children present their desires to earthly parents, even though they know them to be already favorable, we go with our deeper needs to our Heavenly Father.

Much time has been wasted in trying to formulate a rational basis for prayer. When a child in the smaller family no longer asks his father to accede to his wishes, when he no more pleads with his father for his brother or his sister, then it will be time enough to inquire if, in the larger family which we call humanity, we may do without prayer. Until then let us believe,

"More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of."

Leaving now the apologetic side of the subject, which is alluring, we observe one evident blessing which always attends praying for the dead.

It keeps ever before our minds the thought that they are actually alive.

It makes the doctrine of the communion of saints a sacred reality. If I may in this essay be allowed to a.s.sume a hortatory tone I will say, if you have been in the habit of praying for your friend, do not give it up simply because he has ceased to breathe. As regularly as ever continue to pray for him, and he will be to you more than a memory. What would have been but an occasional remembrance will then be a daily communion; and what would have been only formal praying to G.o.d will be an hour, or a moment, of a.s.sociation with those who will grow nearer and dearer, and not farther and vaguer, with the pa.s.sing years. The hour of devotion will thus be hallowed, because it will be a holy tryst with absent friends, as well as a time for making our requests known to our Heavenly Father. Who can exaggerate the delight and benefit of such an exercise?

What sources of strength are to be found in spiritual a.s.sociation with our beloved! If we are thus helped why should we presume that they may not also, by such sweet hours, be strengthened for their duties? I know this may seem fanciful. I ask no one to follow me who is not ready to do so. I do not speak dogmatically, but with great earnestness, when I say that prayer for our beloved after they are gone is a privilege and a help--I would fain believe both to them and to us.

But it may be objected that the moral state of men is fixed at death, and that nothing that we or they can do can influence it by a hair's breadth. That this has been a popular opinion is true; and it is equally true that many have supposed that all who have had faith on the earth are in bliss; and that all who have been without faith are in misery; and that the beat.i.tude of all the good is equal and alike, and that the misery of all unbelievers is the same.

Such inferences, though held by many for whose scholarship and character I have profound reverence, seem to me to be contrary to Scripture, to the a.n.a.logies of nature, and to the moral sense. Such a theory is contrary to Christian Scriptures; for the parable of the talents shows that some will have greater and some lesser reward; and the parable of Dives and Lazarus has relation only to Hades, or to the state which in the thought of that time intervened between death and the judgment.

This theory is contrary to the a.n.a.logies of life on earth. Here change indicates not a finality but a new opportunity. Every crisis of life is an opening into a newer and larger world. Why should we say that what we call death, alone of all the changes through which we pa.s.s, leads to that which is unchangeable?

The theory is contrary to the moral sense of all earnest souls. Who does not have to compel himself to believe, and that with difficulty, that death determines forever the fate of all, and that there is neither possibility of progress nor of going backward after the body is laid aside?

Let me quote a n.o.ble pa.s.sage from Bishop Welldon: "But if a variety of destinies in the unseen world, whether of happiness or of suffering, is reserved for mankind, and yet more, if the principle of that world is not inactivity but energy or character or life, it is reasonable to believe that the souls which enter upon the future state with the taint of sin clinging to them, in whatever form or degree, will be slowly cleansed by a disciplinary or purifactory process from whatever it is that, being evil in itself, necessarily obstructs or obscures the vision of G.o.d." He continues, "And this is the benediction of human nature, to feel that, as souls upon earth are fortified and elevated by the prayers offered for them in the unseen world, so too by our prayers may the souls which have pa.s.sed behind the veil be lifted higher and higher into the knowledge and contemplation and fruition of G.o.d."[10]

[Footnote 10: The Hope of Immortality, page 337.]

We do not know that death forever determines the condition of the soul.

On the other hand, as I grow older, the idea seems to me to be opposed to Scripture, to the a.n.a.logies of nature and history, to reason, and to the universal moral sense.

If any one should object to prayers for the dead because the privilege and duty seem so distinctively a doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, my only reply is that we should never ask who are the advocates of any teaching, but, only, is it true? Each branch of the church emphasizes some phase of truth. The Roman Church has given more prominence to prayers for the dead than Protestants, and because of that it will have the grat.i.tude of many honest souls who cannot believe that they are entirely and forever severed from those whom they have loved and still love.

I am well aware that there are many difficult questions concerning this subject which it is impossible for me to answer. Some truths are clearly revealed and of others we have only glimpses. Concerning some we feel more than we know, and feelings which are not selfish are prophetic.

What an earnest and inquiring spirit feels must be true is quite as likely to be found true as conclusions which seem to have been reached by a process of faultless logic.

I fully believe that we are justified in praying for those who have departed this life, that the good may grow better, that the clouds which obscure the vision of the unbelieving may be removed, that all taints of animalism may be washed away; and that we should pray even for the wicked, that the disciplinary processes through which they are pa.s.sing may some time and somehow lead them to submit their wills to the love and truth of G.o.d. We may pray for our loved ones, not simply by way of asking something for them, but in order that there may be a meeting place,--a time for communion and fellowship between those here and those beyond the veil. That meeting place must be found in our common approach to G.o.d.

Does this teaching seem mystical and fanciful? What if it does? It is in line with the human heart's deepest desires, and with the soul's immortal aspirations. What they most earnestly affirm in their hours of deepest need, and highest illumination, cannot be altogether without foundation in reason and in the Scriptures.

The unity of life cannot be too strongly emphasized. Life is one. It is all under the eye and in the strength of G.o.d. It has to do with spirit; death, if there is any such thing, has to do with matter. Spirits always grow because they always live. The universe is not composed of two hemispheres, in the upper one of which are to be gathered all the good and in the lower all the evil. It is saner and better to believe that the universe is a sphere in which, in their own places, are all the spirits of men, some beautiful with the holiness of G.o.d; some only beginning to rise toward Him, like seed that has broken the soil and begun to move toward the light; and still others like seed whose possibilities are all hidden, but which are not destroyed and which some day also will hear the divine call, feel the touch of G.o.d's light, and begin to move toward Him.

We live in the midst of mystery. In the future we shall probably find that our best attempts at rational answers to many questions have gone wide of the mark. The most that any of us can do is to be true to ourselves, and to respond to every call from above. In the midst of the gloom of mortal existence it is safe to follow our hearts.

We long to commune with those who have gone, to help them and to be helped by them. This longing is natural and rational. That it is not without reason is proved by the example of our Master, who, after His death, is represented as ministering to those whom He loved, and who, we are told, ever liveth to make intercession for us.

What our hearts desire, what harmonizes with reason, what is confirmed by the revelations and example of our divine Teacher, will persuade none far from the path which leads to light and felicity.

Those whom men call dead, it is best to believe, have but entered upon another phase of the eternal life of the spirit.

The Roman Church has an act or service called "The Culture of the Dead."

It means the "practice of the presence" of those who, though gone from us, in spirit are with us. The Creed has an article which reads, "I believe in the communion of saints." The Christian year has one day called "All Saints' Day." We shall not be far from the traditions of the church when we pray for our beloved, whether they be in the body or out of the body.

Those who would realize the beat.i.tude of this privilege should remember the truth in this stanza from "In Memoriam:"

"How pure at heart and sound in head, With what Divine affections bold, Should be the man whose thought would hold An hour's communion with the dead."

THE GOAL

But Thee, but Thee, O Sovereign Seer of time, But Thee, O poet's Poet, Wisdom's Tongue, But Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love, O perfect life in perfect labor writ, O all men's Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest,-- What _if_ or _yet_, what mole, what flaw, what lapse, What least defect or shadow of defect, What rumor, tattled by an enemy, Of inference loose, what lack of grace Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's,-- Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee, Jesus, good Paragon, thou Crystal Christ?

--_The Crystal._ Sidney Lanier.

XII

_THE GOAL_

If the cosmic process in the physical sphere culminated with the appearance of man, and if, since that culmination, its movement has been toward the perfection of the soul, it is fit and proper that this book should end with a study of the goal toward which the human spirit is pressing. Is it possible for us, with our limitations, to have an adequate conception of the man that is to be "when the times are ripe"

and the "crowning race" walks this earth of ours?--or, if not this earth, at least, dwells in the spiritual city? The fascination of this subject has been widely recognized. The answer must be secured from many sources. Only in imagination can we follow the lines along which the spirit will move in the far-off ages, and yet our conclusions will not be wholly imaginative, for the direction in which those lines are tending is clearly perceived. Under the circ.u.mstances, therefore, imagination may not be an untrustworthy guide. We are now to deal with prophecies, some of them easy and some of them difficult to read. But reading prophecies is not prophesying. I shall not prophesy, but rather endeavor to understand and to interpret a few of the many voices which have spoken, and are speaking, on this subject.

The soul is itself a prediction of what it is to be. It utters a various language.

The growth of intelligence is prophetic. Savage tribes suggest the original condition of primitive man. The pigmies in Africa afford hints of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. From such as they, and from lower types still, the race has slowly and painfully risen. In them a certain rude intelligence appears. They have cunning rather than reason. They are half akin to brute and half akin to man. A kind of selfish intelligence characterizes their thinking. They lack a sense of proportion and relation. Before the ant a man looms as large as a mountain before us.

An insect does not see things as they are but as they seem to it. Growth in intelligence necessitates a truer appreciation of proportions and relations. The pigmy also sees little but himself, but years and experience leave behind them wisdom. The civilized races have all risen from barbarism and savagery--that is, from a state of imperfect thinking as well as of imperfect loving and choosing. Experience and culture bring larger knowledge and a more equable balance of the faculties. No man should be measured by his achievement in any one field of endeavor.

He may paint like t.i.tian and be as voluptuous; he may write tragedies like Shakespeare and have no logic; he may be a gatherer of facts like Darwin and have no power of philosophic a.n.a.lysis. The intellect grows steadily toward perfection of vision and logical strength, and also and quite as significantly, toward harmony in the development of all the powers of thought.

The contrast between the selfish cunning of an African pigmy and the large and n.o.ble minds which are steadily multiplying, is a prophecy of the man who will dwell on this earth when the vision is clear and the power of rational judgment is perfected.

The prophecy of the soul is not less evident in the emotional nature. At first the soul is either so imperfect, or so limited by the body, that it seems to be nothing but a creature of emotions. It loves, but its affections are selfish and egotistic. What may be called the epochs in its growth are finely treated by Coleridge in "The Ancient Mariner" and by Tennyson in "In Memoriam." The Ancient Mariner felt only selfish affection. He had no love for "being as being." He killed the albatross with as little heed as he disregarded his fellow-men; but the ministries of his misery were multiplied until, at length, he was able to see something beautiful even in the writhing green sea-serpents that followed the ship of death on which he sailed. That was the first sign of the larger interest which had long been growing within him, and which was to continue to grow until he could say,

"He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small."

"In Memoriam" is the record of the expansion of a soul through its increase in love. At the beginning of his grief the poet sings, dolefully and hopelessly, through his tears,

"He is not here; but far away The noise of life begins again, And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain On the bald street breaks the blank day."

But the soul is growing secretly and surely as wheat grows in winter.

The Christmas bells ring out their music and at first are almost hated, but they break through the sh.e.l.l of sorrow and let in a faint echo of the world's great suffering and the world's great joy. Thus human sympathy is enlarged just a bit. In successive years the music of the Christmas bells is heard more distinctly, the sorrow of the world becomes more audible, sympathy reaches farther. At last the poem which began with a _miserere_ ends with a marriage, and he who could at first write that dreary line,

"On the bald street breaks the blank day"