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our glance beyond the limits of any particular community, to the different national components which go to the making up of our race as a whole. And just as we rise through these different scales and gradations of human belief and opinion, from the blank annihilationist, whose earth is his jail-yard, and whose grave is the dungeon, in which he rots and is forgotten, up to the man whose pilgrimage is on earth but whose home. is in heaven, just as we rise through these gradations, do we also rise in those of intelligence and moral purity, of individual happiness, of social welfare, and national elevation. This fact, as we have said, will usually be exhibited, by comparison of individual cases. But it is more clearly and invariably manifested over a broader surface, such as is presented by whole communities and through long periods, in which the respective tendencies of these different beliefs have full scope for development. The most skillful practitioner may find it difficult to decide upon the comparative merit of two different modes of treatment, from but a single trial of each, upon the physical peculiarities of single individuals suffering from the same disease. The result of such single trial may lead him to infer that both modes of treatment are alike, and equally good. And yet it may perhaps be demonstrated, from the wider induction of a longer practice, or from the still wider field of recorded professional experience, over broad surfaces, and through long periods of time, that one of these modes of practice is very greatly to be preferred to the other; that one of them, in the large majority of cases, would end in the destruction of the patient. Just so is it in the treatment of man's moral constitution. A single individual may survive a certain moral regimen, because there are unknown counteracting agencies, by which the effect of such regimen is thrown off, or held in abeyance. Another may die under the best treatment, because of organic or superinduced infirmities, for which that treatment makes no provision. There may occasionally, though rarely, be some little difficulty in individual cases in seeing the full manifestation of the effects of truth and falsehood. But put large numbers of these individuals of either class by themselves for any considerable interval, and all such difficulties

will disappear. Just in proportion as men receive and realize this fact of a future life, in the same proportion are they enlightened, and elevated, and purified, and rendered happier. It has ever been so, this assertion being as easily substantiated from profane as from sacred history.

Now upon the hypothesis of a future life, all this is what may be anticipated. Truth, in a world governed by a God of truth, is or ought to be-with reverence, yet with confiding trust in Him be it spoken-naturally productive of what we see in the experience of those who act upon this hypothesis. The inference is, that these effects of truth proceed from, and only from, the truth. If, moreover, we see the opposite and disastrous effects of falsehood flowing from the opposite doctrine, this, our former conclusion, is immeasurably strengthened. Seeing these things, we are justified in saying that if there be no life beyond the grave, we are involved in the most monstrous of contradictions-that of supposing the whole frame of human nature and human society to be constructed on a falsehood; that infinite truth has originated and is sustaining a system of things, in which truth darkens, and pollutes, and destroys, and error ennobles, blesses, and enlightens. We see no way of escape, except upon the hypothesis of a future life, from this overwhelming absurdity.

Nor is this contradiction and absurdity at all diminished by the reply sometimes given to the argument just offered, that belief in the immortality of man, is the effect of a high state of moral and social purity and welfare, rather than its cause. It is sometimes said, in regard to this doctrine, as to Christianity in general: "We admit the fact of the invariable connection between this doctrine, as believed, and a certain desirable state of things in society. But it is not the doctrine which produces this elevation and purity of society, but this state of things which gives rise to the reception of the doctrine." Very well. It can easily be shown that this assertion is not true. But there is no need of going to that trouble. Logically there is no objection to it, as bearing upon the conclusion just stated. Supposing, but not granting, that such is the fact, what is gained by it, to the infidel in the way of relief? The same difficulty comes back in an exaggerated form, namely,

that human nature is so constructed that in its best phases, it chooses and has an affinity for falsehood; that in its worst, it spontaneously seeks, and holds, and acts upon the truth in the one of these instances being kept pure and happy by the falsehood, in the other being kept depraved and vicious by the truth. This evasion of the difficulty only brings it back in a more intolerable form. Whether belief in immortality renders man fit for it, or whether it commends itself to those who are already thus fitted, we are alike led to the same conclusion. Truth and goodness, whether as cause or effect, are inseparably connected. They are connected here. And the presence of the one is proof of the other.

* * * *

VI. Last of all, there is that in this doctrine, which is not merely intimated in the movements of these different departments of human nature, but which meets and satisfies the aspirations of this nature, as a whole: of the whole physical, intellectual, social, and moral being. "Man never is, but always," and in all these aspects of his nature, "to be blessed." Now whether this maxim be applied to the unsatisfied and restless worldling, or to the anticipating child of heaven, it alike reveals this common necessity of our nature. The mournful confession, that "all is emptiness, and a grasping at the wind," in our present sphere of being, coupled with the consciousness and longing for something higher, better, and more permanent, constitute a rational ground of expectation, that these desires will be satisfied, In some few cases, the dread of a coming retribution may overpower all such desires. But if this dread be removed those desires will return; and they frequently exert their influence in spite of it.

"Were man to live coëval with the sun,

The patriarch pupil would be learning still,
And dying, leave his lessons half unlearned."

There is nothing in this statement which seems at all extravagant or unnatural. It is but in accordance with what we see in the healthy development of the individual man, with the development of man, collectively, from the beginning of time. And we know of no reasons but those that are physical and removable by death, which interfere with its verification.

How differently, on the other hand, are we affected by the opposite supposition! "If even a soul like Milton's can know death." How startling and revolting, to a properly constituted mind, is the idea thus suggested, and held up to reprobation! There is not only, as we have seen, an instinctive looking forward to a future life, but this instinct satisfies all the demands of our rational and moral nature. Without insisting upon the outrage alluded to in the last of these quotations, when we consign the dying Milton or Newton, in the moment of departure from this world, to annihilation, we see scarcely less difficulty in asserting the same thing of the most ordinary capacity. The individual begins conscious existence with a stock of ideas and of experience obtained in the nursery. He passes from this first course of education, and with the knowledge of this sphere to another, that of boyhood. Here another process of acquisition is undergone; a process, which, as in the previous case, affords experience and a large class of ideas, for the season of opening maturity. So is it with this latter period relatively to full manhood, and so again with manhood relatively to old age. And then not unfrequently in old age, as a shock of full corn in its season, fully ripened, yet by decay untouched, "his eye undimmed and his natural strength unabated," the life graduate is "gathered to his fathers." How revolting to every principle of nature and of reason is the thought that here existence ends; that the shock is not gathered up into its garner, as a rich seed of future growth, but in every instance rots into annihilation. It is not here, as with the mighty oak, whose branching limbs withstand the blasts of a thousand storms, and then fall at last under the power of physical decay and corruption. Even in this, physical life is evolved out of the physical death which has taken place; there is a change in the arrangement of particles, of material organization, not annihilation. Neither again, is it like the death of the animal organism, in the lower forms of existence. With these the animal instinct unprogressive, runs through the whole earthly existence. They are connected neither with the past nor the future. Their intellectual education, as a race, is perfected, in the first generation as individuals, so soon as they are able to provide for their

physical necessities. So far as we can see, they have no anticipation of another and higher stage of being, evince no capability for it, in the way of intellectual and moral progression and preparation. Neither, again, would the difficulty be so great, with the human being, if, in every case, the intellectual and physical processes went together "pari passu," in the course, alike, of development and dissolution. Some sort of argument might then be drawn from the imagination, if not from the reason, to predicate simultaneous dissolution of both systems. But even this argument can not be made. We meet with a Gallatin, a Webster, a Chalmers, their physical forms bending and sinking under the weight of threescore and fourscore, while intellectually they tower as loftily above their fellows as at any earlier period. We see again a life-long invalid, like Vinet or Moses Stuart, not only untouched as to mind, but exhibiting a spectacle of intellectual vigor, robustness, and acquisition of the most comprehensive character. Besides, as has been already hinted, there is an education and progress of the race, which, upon the hypothesis of annihilation, is no less aimless and unaccountable. "We are much wiser than our fathers," to use the idea of one of Homer's boasting heroes: because we have their stock on hand with which to begin business. We can see, perhaps, much farther than they, because we are standing upon their shoulders. The same advantages over ourselves will be possessed by our children. There is a course of accumulation going on through successive ages; of this all may partake, and to this all may contribute for those who come after. "Many come by birth and go by death, and knowledge is increased." But upon the hypothesis of annihilation, this accumulation is altogether unaccountable. If the mind refuses to believe that the noblest individual structure passes into nothingness and vanity—that "a Milton can know death," how can that mind be reconciled to the thought that not merely one such, but all, and all the accumulated wisdom, and goodness, and purity, and love of the noblest, and loveliest, and wisest should be covered up in one common grave, to rottenness and corruption? This would be to make the Deity apparently aimless and purposeless in VOL. VL.-3

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